Re: GFDL freedoms
On Thursday 14 April 2005 07.37, Hamish Moffatt wrote: > *We* don't add IPv6 support to standards documents just by changing > those documents. Instead you go to the standards body, propose a change, > it gets discussed etc and then ratified if everyone likes it. Then a new > document is published. It's not about changing the standard, it's about creating works that incorporate (parts of) the standard document. Those derivative works of the standard document is, obviously, not a new standard document. It's still derived from the copyrighted standard document. -- vbi -- Every bug you find is the last one. pgpTRuUnSCz32.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: GFDL freedoms
On Thu, Apr 14, 2005 at 03:37:02PM +1000, Hamish Moffatt wrote: > Standards documents (eg RFCs) are useful references, even if you can't > change them. Like when writing software that needs to implement the > standards. Computer programs are useful tools, even if you can't change them. -- Glenn Maynard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GFDL freedoms
On Thu, Apr 14, 2005 at 01:44:22AM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: > On Thu, Apr 14, 2005 at 09:21:42AM +1000, Hamish Moffatt wrote: > > On Wed, Apr 13, 2005 at 05:34:51PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: > > > duplicated, or a blanket grant to include anything in main. As best we > > > know so far, there is no useful point between these (unmodifiable or > > > unredistributable documents are not considered useful). > > > > I disagree. Standards documents, even if unmodifiable, are useful. > > A specification that cannot be updated is not 'useful', it's 'disaster > waiting to happen'. Suddenly when you want to add ipv6 support, you > find that you have to throw the specification away and write a new one > from scratch. You wrote 'specification', I wrote 'standards documents'. Standards documents (eg RFCs) are useful references, even if you can't change them. Like when writing software that needs to implement the standards. *We* don't add IPv6 support to standards documents just by changing those documents. Instead you go to the standards body, propose a change, it gets discussed etc and then ratified if everyone likes it. Then a new document is published. Yes, it would be useful to be able to clone existing standards documents as the basis for new standards. So you can make your Suffieldv6 protocol for the exchange of utter drivel without having to start from scratch. Of course you must rename your document because it's no longer the standard; you can't actually change a standard just by editing the document. Matthew Wilcox said the IETF RFCs don't allow you to clone and edit them unless you are working within the IETF, which is unfortunate. Hamish -- Hamish Moffatt VK3SB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GFDL freedoms
On Thu, Apr 14, 2005 at 02:41:18AM +0100, MJ Ray wrote: > Regarding your "Issues", note that only the DFSG's > explanations/examples use the word "programs". If you did > introduce a simple word change, I think it would be pretty > likely to succeed but there would be accusations about > "editorial changes" again. There will always be people sulking about resolutions that have passed which they didn't like. It's just sour grapes. Anyway, there's lots of things about the DFSG which need work. I've got this pencilled in for shortly after sarge releases, along with a big list of stuff to fix. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: I'll be a son of a bitch.
Ean Schuessler wrote: > We already dismantled that machine's power supply to resolder a new fan into > it, Mr. Fingerpointer. Are you volunteering to provide a new boot drive? How > very awesome! If it only lacks a boot drive, this can probably be arranged. I assume, that lully read SCSI, so either an older SCSI disk or a new one with a proper connector will do. Looking at SPI's/Debian's funds, even a purchase should be possible (assuming that the then or now DPL agrees). Regards, Joey -- Those who don't understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: I'll be a son of a bitch.
On Wed, Apr 13, 2005 at 06:44:33PM -0600, Ean Schuessler wrote: > On Wednesday 13 April 2005 7:24 pm, Dave Hornford wrote: > > Then shouldn't its status be updated to indicate its real status rather > > than 'root fs drive died, no response from local admin' > > The accurate story indicates a need for help & hardware, the posted > > status something else. > If someone wants Lully I will put it in a box tommorrow and ship it to > them. If someone from the Alpha port actually wants to update the status, > build me an image and ship me a drive then we will happily install it in > the system and bring it back online. > We're providing the machine bandwidth and rackspace at our expense and we're > happy to do it. We don't have time to shoulder the burden of becoming > developers in the Alpha port. Moreover, we don't really have any interest in > doing that. If someone wants Lully on-line then get us a bootable volume, or > really explicit instructions that a full-time busy shop can follow and > reliably get it back on-line. > I didn't post that status nor are we actively monitoring it. Someone from > Alpha needs to get proactive and run the ball if they care about that > machine. The problem there, however, is that there aren't actually any Alpha porters today. Alpha is port*ed*, past tense, with very little ongoing work; the people listed at www.debian.org/intro/organization are not currently involved (at least one of them is no longer active in the project), and those of us who take care of the alpha-specific code bits on an ongoing basis, like the installer, kernel, and bootloader, have no formal status as porters. We also have no authority over build daemons. So it's all well and good to say that "someone from Alpha" needs to get proactive, but AFAICT, that's an organizational null pointer; and I think this is in fact part of why our ports have been so hard to corral for sarge, because "porters" only exist for new ports, and we have no other process for people to assume responsibility for the overall health of a port. In any case, the two obvious contenders for inheriting this responsibility would be debian-admin and debian-alpha; the former being the ones that listed lully's status as "no response from local admin", and the latter having received no communication from anyone about this issue. In fact, it seems I had more information about lully's status than DSA did, and only because I had talked with Adam Heath about it on IRC. If there's work that needs doing, I'm happy to help, but it's certainly not as if this was something the "alpha folks" dropped the ball on -- until now, there was never any reason to think it was our ball... -- Steve Langasek postmodern programmer signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: I'll be a son of a bitch.
On Wednesday 13 April 2005 7:52 pm, John Hasler wrote: > Then complaints about the posted status are not criticism of you. Oh. Good point. I guess I'm mashing Andreas' criticism in with Dave's message. Maybe that isn't what he meant at all. In any case, if someone wants to requisition a new drive and figure out what it takes to put an image on it then we can get Lully booting again. We can even buy it local if I see some kind of SPI/Debian expense approval on buying some particular size/model. I have no idea what does and does not work correctly in that unit. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
getting lully back on-line [Was, Re: I'll be a son of a bitch.]
On Wed, Apr 13, 2005 at 02:35:17PM -0600, Ean Schuessler wrote: > We already dismantled that machine's power supply to resolder a new fan into > it, Mr. Fingerpointer. Are you volunteering to provide a new boot drive? How > very awesome! > Just because Lully is hosted here doesn't mean there is local Alpha > expertise. > There is just free bandwidth and a free rack and free power cycles and free > power supply repairs and a local Debian mirror. > Bitching is easy. Get Debian to buy a new drive, have someone with Alpha > expertise image it, ship it here and we'll swap it. Do two and configure it > for RAID 1 while you are at it. This is precisely the reason why I think it's so completely beside the point, from Debian's POV, to worry about whether SPI is capable of processing donations when we're organizationally incapable of making sure they're put to good use once we have them -- like taking care of the critical needs of our ports. Has anyone asked the DPL to authorize purchasing new drives for lully? Martin, is this feasible? If someone can get me specs for what's needed, I'm happy to order them. What could I expect the turnaround to be for reimbursement? Ryan Murray has noted that goedel is the same class of machine as lully, and that it might be a suitable box for doing the imaging -- but that also means trans-Atlantic shipping and taking off-line the box that lully would be acting as the back-up for, so I'm offering to do it here on my alpha instead. I just need some details about lully's hardware so I can be sure to get the initrd right. -- Steve Langasek postmodern programmer signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: GFDL freedoms
> http://people.debian.org/~willy/dfdocg-0.4.txt This inherits its definition of Transparent from the FDL, but some DDs consider that awkward. Is there a better one? "Integrity of The Author's Document" looks like it might permit practically unmodifiable documents, as "certain ways" is very vague. This conflicts with "Derived Works" by denying some modifications (and do most understand that as "permit all reasonable modifications"?) and it also contradicts with "No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor" because no topic of a secondary section can used as the main purpose. "Example Licenses" lists several which are incompatible. Is the intention to edit the guidelines or request licence updates? Regarding your "Issues", note that only the DFSG's explanations/examples use the word "programs". If you did introduce a simple word change, I think it would be pretty likely to succeed but there would be accusations about "editorial changes" again. On another issue, these fdocg are still incompatible with the anti-DRM parts of FDL and not entirely clear about the post-download availability problem. Finally, the hard part - when to use fdocg and when to use DFSG - doesn't seem to be covered at all yet. Tactically, I would reject adopting this. Even if it is possible, I do not think it is good for one party in a dispute to draft a compromise alone. Work seems to be underway with CC (thanks Evan and others!) but that dispute is minor compared to FDL. Personally, I would be unhappy with allowing licensors greater restrictions on modification than at present, especially when they look like they can be used to break other guidelines. -- MJR/slef -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: I'll be a son of a bitch.
Ean Schuessler writes: > I don't know if it is possible to catch more sh*t from people for helping > them out. > ... > I didn't post that status nor are we actively monitoring it. Then complaints about the posted status are not criticism of you. -- John Hasler -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GFDL freedoms
On Thu, Apr 14, 2005 at 09:21:42AM +1000, Hamish Moffatt wrote: > On Wed, Apr 13, 2005 at 05:34:51PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: > > duplicated, or a blanket grant to include anything in main. As best we > > know so far, there is no useful point between these (unmodifiable or > > unredistributable documents are not considered useful). > > I disagree. Standards documents, even if unmodifiable, are useful. A specification that cannot be updated is not 'useful', it's 'disaster waiting to happen'. Suddenly when you want to add ipv6 support, you find that you have to throw the specification away and write a new one from scratch. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: I'll be a son of a bitch.
On Wednesday 13 April 2005 7:24 pm, Dave Hornford wrote: > Then shouldn't its status be updated to indicate its real status rather > than 'root fs drive died, no response from local admin' > The accurate story indicates a need for help & hardware, the posted > status something else. I don't know if it is possible to catch more sh*t from people for helping them out. If someone wants Lully I will put it in a box tommorrow and ship it to them. If someone from the Alpha port actually wants to update the status, build me an image and ship me a drive then we will happily install it in the system and bring it back online. We're providing the machine bandwidth and rackspace at our expense and we're happy to do it. We don't have time to shoulder the burden of becoming developers in the Alpha port. Moreover, we don't really have any interest in doing that. If someone wants Lully on-line then get us a bootable volume, or really explicit instructions that a full-time busy shop can follow and reliably get it back on-line. I didn't post that status nor are we actively monitoring it. Someone from Alpha needs to get proactive and run the ball if they care about that machine. Its my responsibility to see it has happy power, space and a connection. Its a very happy, very well connected, air conditioned and completely useless machine. If you would like to fix that I'm sure you could arrange to do something. I'm already doing more than you are with regard to Lully so why don't you pitch in? -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debconf5 IRC meeting minutes
On Tuesday 05 April 2005 3:06 am, Petter Reinholdtsen wrote: > For the video recording, do remember post-processing. In Oslo, we > tried to do video recording, but when the recordings were done, no-one > had thought about the need for post-processing, and the tapes just > ended up on my desk. They are still there. :) > > Also, the audio recording level is important. Part of the problem > with the tapes from Oslo was that the audio level was too low, so they > would require a lot of work to make sensible video films from them. > > (Hm, not sure if this is the correct list to send it to, but will take > my chance. :) I have a rig that I built here with Conexant encoder based cards and Sony analog HAD cameras for a Halloween party. After some experimentation I feel that this is a better setup because it gives you a lot more flexibility. The array of analog cameras and sound equipment available for attachment is very broad and very inexpensive. The Sony survellience cameras I bought off ebay, for instance, have sensitivity down to 1 lux (real 1 lux, not the fake IR LED assist stuff) and were only $150 each. You can then mike the stage directly or even pull stereo RCAs off of a sound board. The Conexant encoder cards are <$100 here in the US and I was able to drive three of them (exporting the streams on the network and recording locally) off of an older Athalon 800 with absolutely no problem at all. This also gives the convenience of routing the video over the network. Just my .02 -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: I'll be a son of a bitch.
Then shouldn't its status be updated to indicate its real status rather than 'root fs drive died, no response from local admin' The accurate story indicates a need for help & hardware, the posted status something else. Dave Ean Schuessler wrote: We already dismantled that machine's power supply to resolder a new fan into it, Mr. Fingerpointer. Are you volunteering to provide a new boot drive? How very awesome! Just because Lully is hosted here doesn't mean there is local Alpha expertise. There is just free bandwidth and a free rack and free power cycles and free power supply repairs and a local Debian mirror. Bitching is easy. Get Debian to buy a new drive, have someone with Alpha expertise image it, ship it here and we'll swap it. Do two and configure it for RAID 1 while you are at it. Thanks! On Wednesday 13 April 2005 2:26 pm, Andreas Barth wrote: Actually, there are things I'm much more worried about. E.g. lully being down for ages, and http://db.debian.org/machines.cgi?host=lully reads: Status: down - root fs drive died, no response from local admin -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: non-free but distributable packages and kernel firmware
On Thu, Apr 14, 2005 at 01:47:06AM +0200, Michael Banck wrote: > On Sat, Apr 09, 2005 at 01:17:02AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: > > Henning Makholm wrote: > > > There's probably also the "free-use" and "nonprofit-use" properties -- > > can I use this package without having to worry about the license, can I > > use it at home, or at work as well? Maybe: > > > > free-use > > free-dist > > free-local-mod / free-dist-mod > > > > nonprofit-use > > nonprofit-dist > > nonprofit-local-mod / nonprofit-dist-mod Charities and other "non-profit" situations, CD's "not for profit" and so on. non-commercial-use non-commercial-dist non-commercial-local-mod / non-commercial-dist-mod Personal use where work use requires commercial licence, for example. > > > > fsf-free Should this rather be GFDL-free ?? > > osi-free > > free-software / free-software-and-firmware national restrictions / age restrictions e.g.violent games in Germany/Brazil, non-Islam religion in Saudi Arabia?? > > This proposal is the best thing I've seen in this whole debate in years. > > > Michael > > -- > Michael Banck > Debian Developer > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://www.advogato.org/person/mbanck/diary.html > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GFDL freedoms
Matthew Wilcox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I approach this primarily from a pragmatic point of view (from a "our > priorities are our users and free software" PoV if you want to think in > terms of the social contract). The GNU manuals are useful and important. > They have always had the restriction on being able to remove the GNU > manifesto and it really wasn't a problem until the GFDL put the issue > in everybody's face. Of course there is the tension between that and "a > reasonable licence to pass on to our users". While I can see your argument about the lack of practical issues over the GFDL (of course, to some extent it's hard to know how many people have just dealt with this by violating the license...), it doesn't make me feel desperately comfortable. I'll try to work out a firmer argument as to why. There's one other issue, though - I'm not sure if your section 4 covers GFDL stuff like cover texts. They're not secondary to the main purpose of the manual, but they are invariant. -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GFDL freedoms
On Wed, Apr 13, 2005 at 05:34:51PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: > duplicated, or a blanket grant to include anything in main. As best we > know so far, there is no useful point between these (unmodifiable or > unredistributable documents are not considered useful). I disagree. Standards documents, even if unmodifiable, are useful. Hamish -- Hamish Moffatt VK3SB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: non-free but distributable packages and kernel firmware
On Sat, Apr 09, 2005 at 01:17:02AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: > Henning Makholm wrote: > There's probably also the "free-use" and "nonprofit-use" properties -- > can I use this package without having to worry about the license, can I > use it at home, or at work as well? Maybe: > > free-use > free-dist > free-local-mod / free-dist-mod > > nonprofit-use > nonprofit-dist > nonprofit-local-mod / nonprofit-dist-mod > > fsf-free > osi-free > free-software / free-software-and-firmware This proposal is the best thing I've seen in this whole debate in years. Michael -- Michael Banck Debian Developer [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.advogato.org/person/mbanck/diary.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GFDL freedoms
On Wed, Apr 13, 2005 at 06:44:02PM +0100, Matthew Wilcox wrote: > I approach this primarily from a pragmatic point of view (from a "our > priorities are our users and free software" PoV if you want to think in > terms of the social contract). The GNU manuals are useful and important. Lots of non-free stuff is useful and important. Many of them are programs. Please explain why Debian's standards should be lowered for documentation, when it was not lowered for other software (eg. Netscape). Please address the pragmatic reasons for users to want to be able to remove invariant sections, which you apparently consider unimportant. They make it impossible to reuse small pieces of a text--you can't reproduce a paragraph[1] of text without lugging along (and making invariant) pages of irrelevant political spiel. If you want to reuse a paragraph of text from ten sources, you may end up with a hundred pages of irrelevant political spiel. (If you're a competent author, you probably don't want irrelevant spiels in your work at all--certainly not someone else's). > Allowing Invariant Sections gets us most of the way to resolving the > problems with the GFDL. I actually do believe the other problems are (I find it odd that you present Debian compromising its principles as if it's a useful, productive thing ...) Noncritical (read: "not license text") sections which can neither be removed nor edited are not Free in any sense of the word. Such sections have no place in Debian. Invariant sections are at the far end of non-freeness, miles beyond "compromise". If Debian is going to compromise its principles to allow chunks of invariant text, I don't see why the next "compromise" won't be to allow chunks of invariant code. > minor from the FSF's point of view and are fixable. If not, we're in > a great moral position (we compromised, you weren't willing to adjust > your position at all, out go your docs). "GNU releases their documentation under a non-free license. Debian wants to include it, so Debian disregards its founding principles in order to make an exception for GNU." That's not a "great moral position"; it's a poor, embarrassing, hypocritical one--"we require freedom, but only when convenient". (tangental) > - Creative Commons [3] (bsd-like) [4] (gpl-like) CC-BY is not at all "BSD-like". The BSD license is a simple, easily- understandable permissive license. The CC-BY license is many pages long, applying many more restrictions than a BSD license and taking close scrutiny to find them all. [1] before anyone starts talking about "fair use", please review past discussions on the topic, which sum to "many jurisdictions have no notion of fair use, so Debian can not rely on it" -- Glenn Maynard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GFDL freedoms
Matthew Wilcox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > This is actually the fourth draft, but wanted to polish it a bit before > everyone got to see it: > > http://people.debian.org/~willy/dfdocg-0.4.txt Nice piece of work, thanks! ... > I expect controversy over section 4 primarily with perhaps minor complaints > about 2, 3 and 10. Let me explain my reasoning a little: > > I approach this primarily from a pragmatic point of view (from a "our > priorities are our users and free software" PoV if you want to think in > terms of the social contract). The GNU manuals are useful and important. > They have always had the restriction on being able to remove the GNU > manifesto and it really wasn't a problem until the GFDL put the issue > in everybody's face. Of course there is the tension between that and "a > reasonable licence to pass on to our users". I think that since we have always kept manual with the previous license in main, it would be indeed unfair not to act the same way with GFDL manuals. That said, I guess that there are differences between program authorship and documentation authorship, in a legal sense (for instance, manuals are likely to be printed) and this may be roots of justification of invariant sections. Would you have more details? Cheers, -- Jérôme Marant http://marant.org
Re: I'll be a son of a bitch.
We already dismantled that machine's power supply to resolder a new fan into it, Mr. Fingerpointer. Are you volunteering to provide a new boot drive? How very awesome! Just because Lully is hosted here doesn't mean there is local Alpha expertise. There is just free bandwidth and a free rack and free power cycles and free power supply repairs and a local Debian mirror. Bitching is easy. Get Debian to buy a new drive, have someone with Alpha expertise image it, ship it here and we'll swap it. Do two and configure it for RAID 1 while you are at it. Thanks! On Wednesday 13 April 2005 2:26 pm, Andreas Barth wrote: > Actually, there are things I'm much more worried about. E.g. lully being > down for ages, and http://db.debian.org/machines.cgi?host=lully reads: > Status: down - root fs drive died, no response from local admin -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: I'll be a son of a bitch.
* Ean Schuessler ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) [050412 18:40]: > I don't understand it and I'm not happy about it but I accept it. A market > almost always makes better decisions than an individual. If the majority of > the Debian project doesn't carry a grudge about the SPI accounting mishap > then I guess I can't either. Actually, there are things I'm much more worried about. E.g. lully being down for ages, and http://db.debian.org/machines.cgi?host=lully reads: Status: down - root fs drive died, no response from local admin Cheers, Andi -- http://home.arcor.de/andreas-barth/ PGP 1024/89FB5CE5 DC F1 85 6D A6 45 9C 0F 3B BE F1 D0 C5 D1 D9 0C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GFDL freedoms
Andrew Suffield writes: > There are much better ways to write the clause than this. The only reason > it's broken is because the FSF are crap at writing licenses. They did an excellent job with the GPL, but the GFDL is horrible. It's not just that it's non-Free: it's nearly incomprehensible. I would never attempt to reuse portions of a GFDL document even if I found the terms acceptible because I don't think I could be sure I was complying with the license. -- John Hasler Nothing I've written in this thread is private. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GFDL freedoms
On Wed, Apr 13, 2005 at 02:55:39PM +0200, Jérôme Marant wrote: > Quoting Matthew Wilcox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > I remain unconvinced that the freedoms required for documentation are > > the same freedoms required for software. I think the best way to fix > > the current situation is to propose the Debian Free Documentation > > Guidelines and modify the SC appropriately. More on this when I have > > a first draft. > > This is great. Thanks in advance for your efforts. This is actually the fourth draft, but wanted to polish it a bit before everyone got to see it: http://people.debian.org/~willy/dfdocg-0.4.txt (I think you can guess the URLs for versions 0.1 to 0.3 if you're curious.) I haven't included rationale for any of the sections. Most are only changed in cosmetic ways from the DFSG (and BTW, I think the DFSG could do with some real editorial changes, but that's a matter for a different GR). I expect controversy over section 4 primarily with perhaps minor complaints about 2, 3 and 10. Let me explain my reasoning a little: I approach this primarily from a pragmatic point of view (from a "our priorities are our users and free software" PoV if you want to think in terms of the social contract). The GNU manuals are useful and important. They have always had the restriction on being able to remove the GNU manifesto and it really wasn't a problem until the GFDL put the issue in everybody's face. Of course there is the tension between that and "a reasonable licence to pass on to our users". So what documentation do we want to include? The main categories of documentation licences are: - GFDL [1] [2] - Creative Commons [3] (bsd-like) [4] (gpl-like) - RFCs [5] - The LDP [6] [7] Allowing Invariant Sections gets us most of the way to resolving the problems with the GFDL. I actually do believe the other problems are minor from the FSF's point of view and are fixable. If not, we're in a great moral position (we compromised, you weren't willing to adjust your position at all, out go your docs). The Creative Commons licences have minor problems too, but I understand they are in the process of being resolved. Some of the RFCs are under a compatible licence, but the IETF ones say: Preparation of derivative works from an RFC that was an IETF contribution is allowed, but only for use within the IETF standards process. I just can't make any moral case to allow that in, unless we allow any immutable document. And the LDP licences are many. The sample in [6] just isn't practical: Any translation or derivative work of Linux Installation and Getting Started must be approved by the author in writing before distribution. If the author dies, the document dies with him. Another sample license [7] contains: Send your derivative work (in the most suitable format such as sgml) to the LDP (Linux Documentation Project) or the like for posting on the Internet. If not the LDP, then let the LDP know where it is available. So if the LDP dies, this document also dies with it. [1] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.txt [2] http://people.debian.org/~srivasta/Position_Statement.xhtml [3] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ [4] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/ [5] http://www.rfc-editor.org/copyright.html [6] http://tldp.org/LDP-COPYRIGHT.html [7] http://tldp.org/manifesto.html (section 6) -- "Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception." -- Mark Twain -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GFDL freedoms
On Wed, Apr 13, 2005 at 11:50:26AM -0500, John Hasler wrote: > I'm asking why the GFDL cannot simply waive DMCA rights instead of > awkwardly banning "technical measures". There are much better ways to write the clause than this. The only reason it's broken is because the FSF are crap at writing licenses. Fixing it is *easy* - they're just useless, and haven't fixed it. The details of how to fix it are a matter for -legal. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: GFDL freedoms
I wrote: > Why is it not sufficient for the copyright owner to disclaim DMCA DRM > protection? Andrew Suffield writes: > It is always possible to convert a non-free license into a free one by > sufficient modification; often this can be done by attaching a rider to > the license. So yes, this probably would be possible. You miss my point. Obviously it is possible for authors to ignore the GFDL and release their works under a Free license, but the fact is that most are not going to. They are going to assume that if it came from the FSF it's Free and use the GFDL without thinking about it. I'm asking why the GFDL cannot simply waive DMCA rights instead of awkwardly banning "technical measures". Is GPL 3.0 going to include a similar clause? -- John Hasler -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GFDL freedoms
On Wed, Apr 13, 2005 at 12:29:31PM +0100, Matthew Wilcox wrote: > On Wed, Apr 13, 2005 at 11:05:07AM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: > > But we *can* make people happy in this respect. It's possible for the > > GFDL to achieve its goal without preventing this use case. > > I remain unconvinced that the freedoms required for documentation are > the same freedoms required for software. I think the best way to fix > the current situation is to propose the Debian Free Documentation > Guidelines and modify the SC appropriately. More on this when I have > a first draft. We have tried for a very long time to come up with anything vaguely sensible and got nothing. If this proposed DFDG permits restrictions that aren't allowed by the DFSG, make sure you include an explanation of why this should be allowed for 'documentation', why it should *not* be allowed for 'non-documentation', and how to distinguish between packages where it should and should not be allowed. Don't expect much sympathy if you can't give all three of those. A lot of people would be very interested in seeing such a document that actually makes sense. The sticking point has always been that nobody knows how to write one, and it's not for lack of trying. Everybody so far has failed; they either get the DFSG duplicated, or a blanket grant to include anything in main. As best we know so far, there is no useful point between these (unmodifiable or unredistributable documents are not considered useful). -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: GFDL freedoms
On Wed, Apr 13, 2005 at 08:19:59AM -0500, John Hasler wrote: > Matthew Garrett writes: > > I believe that for software to be free, it must be possible to distribute > > it in DRM-encumbered formats, providing an unencumbered version is also > > available. Do you disagree? If so, why? > > Why is it not sufficient for the copyright owner to disclaim DMCA DRM > protection? It is always possible to convert a non-free license into a free one by sufficient modification; often this can be done by attaching a rider to the license. So yes, this probably would be possible. The relevant point is that it *hasn't been done* for most of the stuff released under the GFDL. If your question is "Can the copyright owner release stuff under a free license instead?" or "Can we provide them with a free license to use?" then I wonder why you even have to ask. Going around and getting all the licenses fixed is what we do when we give up on trying to get the FSF to fix the thing once, centrally. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: GFDL freedoms
On Thu, Apr 14, 2005 at 12:23:35AM +1000, Hamish Moffatt wrote: > On Wed, Apr 13, 2005 at 08:19:11AM -0400, Evan Prodromou wrote: > > On Wed, 2005-04-13 at 12:29 +0100, Matthew Wilcox wrote: > > > I remain unconvinced that the freedoms required for documentation are > > > the same freedoms required for software. I think the best way to fix > > > the current situation is to propose the Debian Free Documentation > > > Guidelines and modify the SC appropriately. More on this when I have > > > a first draft. > > > > Don't forget to do the Debian Free Images Guidelines, the Debian Free > > Sounds Guidelines, the Debian Free Music Guidelines, the Debian Free > [..] > > Do you think that mocking someone trying to solve a problem is > constructive? I think he raises a valid point. If Documentation requires different freedoms than "software" then what about all these other different media formats? Should It be DFSG and Debian Free Media Guidelines, or do images need separate freedoms from text documents which need separate freedoms from sounds, etc? And what about works that combine multiple media formats? Which freedoms do they require? Furthermore, why do they require different freedoms? > If you don't agree with their position feel free to shut up. This defeats the purpose of a discussion. - David Nusinow -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GFDL freedoms
Thibaut VARENE <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Matthew Garret wrote: >> I believe that for software to be free, it must be possible to >> distribute it in DRM-encumbered formats, providing an unencumbered >> version is also available. Do you disagree? If so, why? > > Of course I don't. This looks plainly sensible to me. And it would > (but that's only my opinion) probably be sensible to any tribunal, if > somebody wanted to sue someone for distributing GFDL'd (in its present > form) content on encumbered format, whilst said content is also > available "clean" elsewhere. Yet again, IANAL, these are just plain > guesses. We need a lawyer to tell us. "You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the copies you make or distribute." That's not just "some of the copies", it's all of them. Making a DRM-encumbered copy and distributing it to someone obstructs the reading or further copying of *that copy*, even if you provide another copy which is unencumbered. This is something that's ridiculously easy to fix in the license, and it's something that we should ask to be fixed. We could take the attitude that it's unlikely that anyone will sue us over it. However, free software only works if people follow licenses (or, alternatively, if there are lots of lawsuits). "This license isn't really free, but you probably won't get sued over it" isn't a good argument - people would be likely to start using it against us instead... > eg: In my previous example, what then could have been wrong in me > telling the guy that knocks at the door: "go get it on the web"? What > then could be wrong in distributing Wikipedia on PSP given it's > available on the web as well? Ok. Another question. Should Debian follow the licenses in software we use, even if we probably won't be sued if we don't? > Side question: do you agree that the world isn't Manichean and that > the answer to our issue can't be "black or white"? Oh, absolutely. There are all kinds of shades of grey - the problem with them is that we only have a black and white (free or non-free) way of dealing with them. At the end of the day, all the shades of grey have to be divided into those two catagories. -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GFDL freedoms
Thibaut VARENE wrote: > That's what I call favorizing the minority over the majority. I acknowledge the context of this remark, but I ask you to remember the trouble that the other view can cause when generalised and majority takes all, regardless of minority. Compromise is only possible when the basic aims of two groups are not in conflict. On the GNU FDL, we seem to have an obvious conflict between requiring all distributors to include an unmodified GNU Manifesto (or similar document) in the built edition of the work and the Debian Free Software Guidelines about Source Code, Derived Works and Integrity of The Author's Source Code. There might be another conflict between the DRM provisions and various other DFSGs, and others I'm less clear about right now (I found one killer now, so I stopped looking so closely). It is not easy or fun for debian to change the DFSG and FSF may not wish to give up their power as copyright-holder to promote their manifesto. Is total compromise possible? For what it's worth, I disagree with the assertion that documentation cannot be software and will speak out against it. If we accept that source code can be software and text can be source code, then text can be software. We also know that documentation can be text. Therefore, documentation can be software. I've yet to see such a simple disproof in the other direction. Even without it, I would suggest that we should require documentation to follow the same guidelines as programs, because a lot of the motivations are the same. I sympathise with the view that there are a lot of side issues to this discussion. When we were expecting FSF to consult, it was good to try to enumerate as many of these as possible. It may be better to focus on the most obvious and agreeable killer reason now and build consensus around a statement about only that. -- MJR/slef http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GFDL freedoms
On Wed, Apr 13, 2005 at 08:19:11AM -0400, Evan Prodromou wrote: > On Wed, 2005-04-13 at 12:29 +0100, Matthew Wilcox wrote: > > I remain unconvinced that the freedoms required for documentation are > > the same freedoms required for software. I think the best way to fix > > the current situation is to propose the Debian Free Documentation > > Guidelines and modify the SC appropriately. More on this when I have > > a first draft. > > Don't forget to do the Debian Free Images Guidelines, the Debian Free > Sounds Guidelines, the Debian Free Music Guidelines, the Debian Free [..] Do you think that mocking someone trying to solve a problem is constructive? If you don't agree with their position feel free to shut up. Hamish -- Hamish Moffatt VK3SB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GFDL freedoms
Matthew Garret wrote: > Thibaut VARENE <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > This has a name: ideology. Rarely (if not never) can it be actually > > implemented in real life. > > What is free software if not an ideology? We make the main/non-free > distinction because we (generalising madly) believe that our users > should have certain freedoms. Arguing whether that line should exist or > not is ideology. Arguing about precisely where it should be drawn > doesn't affect that. You have the regrettable habit of deleting surrounding context of my replies. What I said had nothing to do with what you mention here. I was commenting this: > We want freedom for everyone we provide software to, not just most > people we provide software to. That /is/ a fundamental part of Debian > and free software. And all i said is that the course of action that tend to "want freedom for everyone we provide software to" it at best utopist, at worst silly (and I'm not even playing dumb considering corner-case interpretations of that sentence, such as "we want to free everyone we provide software to", go tell them in ). The issue is that you say one thing in one sentence and something contradictory in the next. You emphasise on "everyone" and now you talk about "certain freedoms". Does that mean that though you wouldn't agree on reducing the audience-set of the freedoms you plan to give, you would agree on reducing the scope of these freedoms? Looks like rhetorics while it's not. I'm trying to point you at the self-conceit of your goal, if you don't accept the idea of compromise. And truth told doing that in English ain't an easy task, for as somebody pointed out, it's utterly difficult to formulate a sentence in English that wouldn't be interpreted in a 1000 different ways (there's a reason why French is an official language at UN and why there have been issues in the past on differing meanings between the .en and .fr text of a resolution, but that's another story and i'm just illustrating my point in an ironical way). For those who don't know, I'm not a native English speaker, makes it even more tricky. > > You're also forgetting that some people your providing software to > > aren't allowed to *use* the freedom you give them. But that's another > > story, which leads us to the eternal discussion of "should we align > > our policy to the least common denominator?", with a forseeable effect > > of letting us with nothing to provide to anyone :P > > Where local laws make it impossible to provide certain freedoms, that's > an issue the people subject to those laws should address. We can support > those efforts, but there's nothing else we can do about it. > > > Consensus (as you seem to be a proponent of that idea) is not about > > satisfying everyone. > > When we *can* satisfy everyone, we should do. Sure. Prove me we can in the case we're debatting. > > This problem only occurs under certain interpretations of the text of > > the license. As I see it, if I, as a user, download a copy of GFDL'd > > material and store it on an encrypted/DRM media for my personal use, > > I'd be having a good laugh if somebody told me I'm not allowed to, > > since I'm not re-distributing anything. > > No. Making a copy on an encrypted filesystem is clearly against the > license - however, in several jurisdictions it's probably fair use, and > the FSF would be unlikely to sue anyone over it. *Distributing* a copy > on an encrypted filesystem is both against the letter and the spirit of > the license. I think that's a freeness issue. I see no problem with that. What's the point of distribution on an encrypted media, though? If I write a license that says "you shall not redistribute this material on toilet paper", it'll be deemed non-free? Ain't that plain stupid, when you can redistribute it in every other (and more practical) ways? Can you point me at some reasonable case where someone might *only* be able to use encrypted media for redistribution of documentation? > > As a side note, if one wants to be anal about the legal aspects, I > > think that every modern law system has the notion of "being mandated > > (as in "having a right") to sue/complain" whatsoever (i don't know how > > this is called in english, but YKWIM). Given that, it seems to me that > > your PSP example is none of our concerns so far. If Sony wants GFDL > > doc to be distributable on PSP, *they* can arrange with FSF. Let's not > > add imaginary additional issues to those we already have. > > This isn't about giving us rights. It's about giving our users rights. Are we the world police? Should we make sure our users have every current and possibly forseeable rights they might ever pretend to? Who are we to define what rights they need/want? Shouldn't we ask them what they want then? > We refuse to distribute all sorts of things even though we could do, > because not all of our users would have the right to perform reasonable > acts with that material. The DFSG ensu
Re: GFDL freedoms
Matthew Garrett writes: > I believe that for software to be free, it must be possible to distribute > it in DRM-encumbered formats, providing an unencumbered version is also > available. Do you disagree? If so, why? Why is it not sufficient for the copyright owner to disclaim DMCA DRM protection? -- John Hasler -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Spi-trademark] Re: debian domains
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > There are other domains which are imho more problematic than those > mentioned in this thread. Anyway, before we can enforce our > trademark, we actually need an updated and coherent trademark policy. I'm disappointed by your inaction. The current permission statement does not permit any use which seems to cover this case. http://www.debian.org/News/1998/19980306a Further, the SPI Trademark Committee charter resolution suggests that trademark disputes have been resolved in the past. Why do you think that updating the policy is *required* before action? http://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/resolutions/resolution-2003-06-03.bmh.1 Please cc Greg on the material you send to the next DPL about this topic, to save the next DPL a step and everyone some time. Have you started coordinating takeover of the undisputed domains? If not, why did you ask "Do you think we should do anything about this?" if you have no intention to act on it? The trademark committee seems to follow in part from your statements to debian-project in September 2003. What is the state of current work on the policy? Were the offers of Derek Neighbors and Andrew M.A. Cater taken up? I've just scanned the "Bits from the DPL" postings and it didn't appear since October 2003. When did spi-trademark last report to SPI? -- MJR/slef http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GFDL freedoms
On Wed, Apr 13, 2005 at 08:19:11AM -0400, Evan Prodromou wrote: > On Wed, 2005-04-13 at 12:29 +0100, Matthew Wilcox wrote: > > I remain unconvinced that the freedoms required for documentation are > > the same freedoms required for software. I think the best way to fix > > the current situation is to propose the Debian Free Documentation > > Guidelines and modify the SC appropriately. More on this when I have > > a first draft. > > Don't forget to do the Debian Free Images Guidelines, the Debian Free > Sounds Guidelines, the Debian Free Music Guidelines, the Debian Free > Database Guidelines and the Debian Free Video Guidelines. Debian uses > all these types of content for games, Web applications, educational > stuff, desktop themes and backgrounds, dot dot dot. > > Not all non-program software is documentation, after all. And not all > documentation is plain text. I think you're being sarcastic, but I do think that we probably need a Debian Free Images Guidelines document since there is at least some disagreement around what constitutes a free image. Here's a recent one between Matthew Garrett and Andrew Suffield: http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/03/msg00024.html However, there is no pressing need for one, so it's sufficient to come up with a DFDocG for now. Or is your sarcasm aimed at making me realise that what we really need is a Debian Free Data Guidelines document? I really wish you'd been a bit more constructive. -- "Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception." -- Mark Twain -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GFDL freedoms
Quoting Matthew Wilcox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > On Wed, Apr 13, 2005 at 11:05:07AM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: > > But we *can* make people happy in this respect. It's possible for the > > GFDL to achieve its goal without preventing this use case. > > I remain unconvinced that the freedoms required for documentation are > the same freedoms required for software. I think the best way to fix > the current situation is to propose the Debian Free Documentation > Guidelines and modify the SC appropriately. More on this when I have > a first draft. This is great. Thanks in advance for your efforts. -- Jérôme Marant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GFDL freedoms
Thibaut VARENE <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > This has a name: ideology. Rarely (if not never) can it be actually > implemented in real life. What is free software if not an ideology? We make the main/non-free distinction because we (generalising madly) believe that our users should have certain freedoms. Arguing whether that line should exist or not is ideology. Arguing about precisely where it should be drawn doesn't affect that. > You're also forgetting that some people your providing software to > aren't allowed to *use* the freedom you give them. But that's another > story, which leads us to the eternal discussion of "should we align > our policy to the least common denominator?", with a forseeable effect > of letting us with nothing to provide to anyone :P Where local laws make it impossible to provide certain freedoms, that's an issue the people subject to those laws should address. We can support those efforts, but there's nothing else we can do about it. > Consensus (as you seem to be a proponent of that idea) is not about > satisfying everyone. When we *can* satisfy everyone, we should do. > This problem only occurs under certain interpretations of the text of > the license. As I see it, if I, as a user, download a copy of GFDL'd > material and store it on an encrypted/DRM media for my personal use, > I'd be having a good laugh if somebody told me I'm not allowed to, > since I'm not re-distributing anything. No. Making a copy on an encrypted filesystem is clearly against the license - however, in several jurisdictions it's probably fair use, and the FSF would be unlikely to sue anyone over it. *Distributing* a copy on an encrypted filesystem is both against the letter and the spirit of the license. I think that's a freeness issue. > As a side note, if one wants to be anal about the legal aspects, I > think that every modern law system has the notion of "being mandated > (as in "having a right") to sue/complain" whatsoever (i don't know how > this is called in english, but YKWIM). Given that, it seems to me that > your PSP example is none of our concerns so far. If Sony wants GFDL > doc to be distributable on PSP, *they* can arrange with FSF. Let's not > add imaginary additional issues to those we already have. This isn't about giving us rights. It's about giving our users rights. We refuse to distribute all sorts of things even though we could do, because not all of our users would have the right to perform reasonable acts with that material. The DFSG ensure that our users know which rights they have upon receiving a package from main. Those rights should not require further negotiation with the copyright holder. > It's also possible for reasonable people to show a little common sense > and not try to make everybody's life a nightmare because they found > that under some crack-smoking reading of the License text, it is > restraining their almighty freedom. Consensus and good will, this is > what it is about. Ok, let's just simplify this to the basic issue: I believe that for software to be free, it must be possible to distribute it in DRM-encumbered formats, providing an unencumbered version is also available. Do you disagree? If so, why? > PS: i'm not subscribed to d-project Cc:ed. -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Spi-trademark] Re: debian domains
* MJ Ray <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2005-04-12 20:58]: > Will the outgoing DPL do this for the domains which triggered this > enquiry, please? It seems like it's a simple update to the summary > posted to debian-project with copies of any original emails. There are other domains which are imho more problematic than those mentioned in this thread. Anyway, before we can enforce our trademark, we actually need an updated and coherent trademark policy. I don't think this will happen in my term so I have put together a listing of problematic domain names I'm aware of which I'll send to the next DPL along with some other oustanding issues. -- Martin Michlmayr [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GFDL freedoms
On Wed, 2005-04-13 at 12:29 +0100, Matthew Wilcox wrote: > I remain unconvinced that the freedoms required for documentation are > the same freedoms required for software. I think the best way to fix > the current situation is to propose the Debian Free Documentation > Guidelines and modify the SC appropriately. More on this when I have > a first draft. Don't forget to do the Debian Free Images Guidelines, the Debian Free Sounds Guidelines, the Debian Free Music Guidelines, the Debian Free Database Guidelines and the Debian Free Video Guidelines. Debian uses all these types of content for games, Web applications, educational stuff, desktop themes and backgrounds, dot dot dot. Not all non-program software is documentation, after all. And not all documentation is plain text. ~Evan * OK, I'm not sure about video... but I figure it won't be long before we have an Asia Carrera interstitial in a FLOSS game. -- Evan Prodromou <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: GFDL freedoms
--- > On Wed, 2005-04-13 at 11:49 +0300, Thibaut VARENE wrote: > > (I've shifted this to -project - it's not really relevant to -private) > > > This is yet another interesting concept of freedom, democracy, and > > "interest of our users". For the benefit of the *very small part of > > mind-twisted people that absolutely want to distribute GFDL-ed doc in > > no other ways than those that could potentially infringe the license*, > > we would deprive the immense majority of those moderately sane people > > who just ask for some good doc along their free software, to be able > > to code at pace, distribute their code and doc in regular ways and > > focus on useful things. > > We want freedom for everyone we provide software to, not just most > people we provide software to. That /is/ a fundamental part of Debian > and free software. This has a name: ideology. Rarely (if not never) can it be actually implemented in real life. You're also forgetting that some people your providing software to aren't allowed to *use* the freedom you give them. But that's another story, which leads us to the eternal discussion of "should we align our policy to the least common denominator?", with a forseeable effect of letting us with nothing to provide to anyone :P Consensus (as you seem to be a proponent of that idea) is not about satisfying everyone. > > I might not grasp the whole concept of it, but I'm having really hard > > time figuring out who would *need* to *distribute* *FREE* > > documentation on encrypted/DRM media, for instance. > > Wikipedia is under the GFDL. It would be nice if someone could produce a > portable version of Wikipedia for the Sony PSP, except the media is > DRM-encumbered and so they probably can't. I think that's an excessive > restriction. This problem only occurs under certain interpretations of the text of the license. As I see it, if I, as a user, download a copy of GFDL'd material and store it on an encrypted/DRM media for my personal use, I'd be having a good laugh if somebody told me I'm not allowed to, since I'm not re-distributing anything. Else, does it imply that the licensee shall make his local copy available to everyone, by any mean necessary? What an interesting security breach to most systems... And if you come with the "what if somebody wants your copy?" argument, i'll say "what if i *can't* make it available?". Does the License actually requires the Licensee that s/he should provide means to distribute copies if requested (that's a corollary to the previous paragraph). That'd be bad: Consider I have downloaded say the gcc manual on my computer, and then my NIC breaks, and I don't have floppy/CD/DVD, and for any given reason I can't open the box to extract the HD. Somebody knocks at the door and says "hey, I want your copy of the GCC manual". Am I infringing the license? Can he sue me? What I'm trying to say here is that there will always be a possibility to find utterly stupid corner cases where the text of the license couldn't be fully enforceable. I think this is why we have tribunals and all the clique: because most legal texts need to be read with circumspection and interpreted *in a given context*. This is not black or white, we're not living in a Manichean world (or so I hope, else life would be boring). (IANAL) As a side note, if one wants to be anal about the legal aspects, I think that every modern law system has the notion of "being mandated (as in "having a right") to sue/complain" whatsoever (i don't know how this is called in english, but YKWIM). Given that, it seems to me that your PSP example is none of our concerns so far. If Sony wants GFDL doc to be distributable on PSP, *they* can arrange with FSF. Let's not add imaginary additional issues to those we already have. > > Just to remind you of some obvious fact: when trying to comtempt all > > _minorities_, one usually ends up comtempting *no one*, for it is > > impossible to comtempt *everyone*. > > But we *can* make people happy in this respect. It's possible for the > GFDL to achieve its goal without preventing this use case. It's also possible for reasonable people to show a little common sense and not try to make everybody's life a nightmare because they found that under some crack-smoking reading of the License text, it is restraining their almighty freedom. Consensus and good will, this is what it is about. Thibaut VARENE http://www.pateam.org/ PS: i'm not subscribed to d-project
Re: GFDL freedoms
On Wed, Apr 13, 2005 at 11:05:07AM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: > But we *can* make people happy in this respect. It's possible for the > GFDL to achieve its goal without preventing this use case. I remain unconvinced that the freedoms required for documentation are the same freedoms required for software. I think the best way to fix the current situation is to propose the Debian Free Documentation Guidelines and modify the SC appropriately. More on this when I have a first draft. -- "Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception." -- Mark Twain -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
GFDL freedoms
On Wed, 2005-04-13 at 11:49 +0300, Thibaut VARENE wrote: (I've shifted this to -project - it's not really relevant to -private) > This is yet another interesting concept of freedom, democracy, and > "interest of our users". For the benefit of the *very small part of > mind-twisted people that absolutely want to distribute GFDL-ed doc in > no other ways than those that could potentially infringe the license*, > we would deprive the immense majority of those moderately sane people > who just ask for some good doc along their free software, to be able > to code at pace, distribute their code and doc in regular ways and > focus on useful things. We want freedom for everyone we provide software to, not just most people we provide software to. That /is/ a fundamental part of Debian and free software. > I might not grasp the whole concept of it, but I'm having really hard > time figuring out who would *need* to *distribute* *FREE* > documentation on encrypted/DRM media, for instance. Wikipedia is under the GFDL. It would be nice if someone could produce a portable version of Wikipedia for the Sony PSP, except the media is DRM-encumbered and so they probably can't. I think that's an excessive restriction. > Just to remind you of some obvious fact: when trying to comtempt all > _minorities_, one usually ends up comtempting *no one*, for it is > impossible to comtempt *everyone*. But we *can* make people happy in this respect. It's possible for the GFDL to achieve its goal without preventing this use case. -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
