Re: Sounding board for Debian forums?
Eldon Koyle writes: > Is there some kind of software that could help people break down their > claims into fundamental parts, then get feedback on the parts > individually, maybe even refining their viewpoint as the discussion > evolves? Prior to considering technical solutions: Have you got any examples of real dispersed communities that are able to avoid the problems you you described? Regardless of technology, I'm not aware of any forums that achieve the kind of formal structure you're talking about, because humans who need to have representative participation tend to be discouraged by greater formal or technical barriers. So what real-world examples would you point to as a counter to that tendency, and how do you think technology helps achieve that improvement in those real-world cases? -- \ “Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without | `\ having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it | _o__) too?” —Douglas Adams | Ben Finney
Re: Debian, Totalitarianism, Thought Reform, what next?
"Robin Wheeler" writes: > The humble & humiliating apology made by Comrade Preining last week > smells like the confessions that political prisoners make after > undergoing thought reform and coercive persuasion programs. Your comparison is disgusting, both an insult to those who suffer as political prisoners and an insult to all who work to heal the damage in incidents like this. Yes, including the person you refer to. > Anybody else alert to these things? We are alert to your trolling. Go away. -- \ “You can never entirely stop being what you once were. That's | `\ why it's important to be the right person today, and not put it | _o__) off until tomorrow.” —Larry Wall | Ben Finney
Re: Debian Average Donation
Brian O'Rourke <briano...@gmail.com> writes: > Hello! Thanks for contacting the Debian Project with this request. > I was just curious what the recommended donation for a license of > Debian Linux is, or what the average is among people that do donate? To be clear for future readers (and I guess from your wording that you already know this), the license that a recipient has in Debian is not contingent on payment. Every recipient of Debian, whether they pay or not, has free license in the whole of the Debian system. Recommendation of what and how much to give are difficult to generalise; ideally people would give what they can, so it depends very much what you are able to give! For those who want to donate some resource to the Debian Project, see <URL:https://www.debian.org/donations> for how to give money and other valuable resources the project can use. For a recommended money amount, you might compare the Debian system's benefit in your endeavours and your life. * Is it replacing an enterprise suite of specialist platforms (tens- or hundreds-of-thousands of Euro)? * Is it a key part of some critical business task (thousands- or tens-of- thousands of Euro)? * Is it allowing you to educate yourself, get your personal work done, and keep your family safe on the net (hundreds or thousands of Euro)? * Is it a hobby that you enjoy (tens or hundreds of Euro)? * Are you strapped for cash and can't afford much (tens of Euro)? None of those examples is correct in general, it depends what Debian's value is to you and your endeavours. Or maybe money isn't the best way? One of the most valuable resources needed by the Debian Project, always in short supply, is time and effort of volunteers: You can spend time on any of the many ways to help <URL:https://www.debian.org/intro/help> that can directly benefit the Debian Project and make it useful for more recipients like you. Thank you for whatever you are able to give to make Debian better! -- \ “As soon as we abandon our own reason, and are content to rely | `\ upon authority, there is no end to our troubles.” —Bertrand | _o__)Russell, _Unpopular Essays_, 1950 | Ben Finney <bign...@debian.org>
Re: Bitcoin donations
Adam Borowski <kilob...@angband.pl> writes: > I consider Bitcoin to still be far less repulsive than both the > mainstream banking system and para-banks like Paypal. Likewise, I think Bitcoin is – while not perfect by any stretch – at least as worthwhile as PayPal for donations to a worldwide community organisation. Sam Hartman <hartm...@debian.org> writes: > The link [to a 2014 Mozilla weblog article] does not support the claim > that [Mozilla accepting Bitcoin donation] was a net negative. The link > you site claims that sticking bitcoin donations *on the main donation > form* was a net negative. That was a little surprising. My best explanation today is that 2014 saw a lot of critical scrutiny (well deserved, in many cases) of some organisations that used Bitcoin; that may have tarred a donation form merely by association with the name. That has, AFAICT, changed dramatically in 2017: Bitcoin is known to be associated with some crime, but is also known now to be used for a great many legitimate uses. That was not something I think the general public would believe in 2014, which might explain some of the effect observed then. The Mozilla donation page shows (for me? am I part of an A/B test now?) a link to <URL:https://donate.mozilla.org/en-US/give-bitcoin/> the option to donate with Bitcoin. I wonder what the data shows today for their donations. > At least from the discussion on that post it sounds like accepting > bitcoin donations was a net positive provided that they were isolated > from other donations. What resources do we have availabe that would allow a similar A/B testing experiment on showing “Other ways to donate: Bitcoin” on our donation landing page? -- \ “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear — not absence | `\ of fear.” —Mark Twain, _Pudd'n'head Wilson_ | _o__) | Ben Finney
Re: bendel (lists.debian.org) upgrade today
Alexander Wirt <formo...@debian.org> writes: > On Sat, 21 Oct 2017, Alexander Wirt wrote: > > we will upgrade bendel to stretch this evening, expect problems and > > outages of lists.debian.org until we are done. > if you can read that mail we are probably done. If you find a (new) > problem, please tell us (via mail or in #debian-lists). Thank you for working to maintain this important infrastructure for the project. -- \“The industrial system is profoundly dependent on commercial | `\ television and could not exist in its present form without it.” | _o__)—John Kenneth Galbraith, _The New Industrial State_, 1967 | Ben Finney
DISS project hosting (was: contacting Debian is too easy to get wrong)
On 21-Oct-2017, Katy Tolsen wrote: > I think the project I've started may be the answer to this as well > as many other support issues that plague our system. Thank you for starting this project. > However we need a lot of help to make this happen. Agreed. In its early days, can I convince you to move the project away from the proprietary GitHub silo? That will limit the participation from people who care about keeping their contributions on free platforms <URL:https://mako.cc/writing/hill-free_tools.html>. There is currently a transition within the official Debian infrastructure for VCS hosting, so it's not *quite* feasible for me to point you to an “official” Debian VCS host. In the meantime, I would recommend using the free-software platforms Launchpad <URL:https://launchpad.net/> or a GitLab instance <URL:https://gitlab.debian.net/>, while it is easy to migrate the project away from a proprietary silo. > We really need help on this project especially from at least one > DM/DD to make it a reality. Right now we're just planning it all > out, and all input is welcome. I would love to contribute – I have the Python skills you discuss, and recognise the problem you're solving – once the project is on a free-software platform where I can in good conscience maintain an account. -- \ “What we usually pray to God is not that His will be done, but | `\ that He approve ours.” —Helga Bergold Gross | _o__) | Ben Finney <bign...@debian.org> signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: Request for official help
On 27-Aug-2017, MENGUAL Jean-Philippe wrote: > Hi, I think this discussion doesn't need my involvement; please drop me from future Cc of this thread. -- \ “You can stand tall without standing on someone. You can be a | `\ victor without having victims.” —Harriet Woods, 1927–2007 | _o__) | Ben Finney <bign...@debian.org> signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: Debian packages advertising non-free services
Vincent Bernat <ber...@debian.org> writes: > It was more to highlight that there is absolutely no consensus that > interacting with proprietary services through the network is the same > as combining work with a proprietary program. Okay, and I think everyone here would agree those are not the same. So I'm not sure why you'd highlight that. Meanwhile, it's also true that the complaint is not merely “interacting with proprietary services through the network”. Instead, AIUI the complaint is packages which declare interaction with non-free services *as their primary purpose*, to the point of advertising that purpose in the package description. -- \ “Following fashion and the status quo is easy. Thinking about | `\your users' lives and creating something practical is much | _o__)harder.” —Ryan Singer, 2008-07-09 | Ben Finney
Debian packages advertising non-free services (was: [pkg-go] Bug#856139: Bug#856139: certspotter: long description advertises commercial service)
Vincent Bernat <ber...@debian.org> writes: > ❦ 7 août 2017 18:12 GMT, "Dr. Bas Wijnen" <wij...@debian.org> : > > >> Example: [s3cmd] > > > > How is this not in contrib? This software is useless without the > > non-free service (which is also software, and it is not in main) > > from Amazon. Policy even mentions as an example for things in > > contrib: wrapper packages or other sorts of free accessories for > > non-free programs. That's exactly what this is. > > In this case, free S3 implementations exist (like Swift, available > in Debian). Do you think the free-software services are sufficiently brought to the attention of the APT user, when considering the ‘s3cmd’ package? Or does ‘s3cmd’ rather give the impression that Amazon's non-free service is needed? > However, it is easy to find other packages interacting with > proprietary services without a free implementation. For example, any > package interacting with Google Cloud (golang-google-cloud package). I am in agreement with Bas when he says: If other packages also violate our principles or policy, that means they should be fixed, not that this should be allowed. So, “it is not hard to find other packages in Debian [with this problem]” is not addressing the problem. -- \ “Yesterday I saw a subliminal advertising executive for just a | `\ second.” —Steven Wright | _o__) | Ben Finney
Re: Request for official help
MENGUAL Jean-Philippe <mengualjean...@free.fr> writes: > Seems the Ian's mail was not posted on the list (I dont find it in my > inbox and in archives of the mailing list). Could someone forward me > it? It is in the mailing list archives <URL:https://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/22911.8.678652.677...@chiark.greenend.org.uk>. You may want to check whether some messages are being misdirected or lost on delivery to you. -- \ “I do not believe in forgiveness as it is preached by the | `\church. We do not need the forgiveness of God, but of each | _o__)other and of ourselves.” —Robert G. Ingersoll | Ben Finney
Re: Request for official help
Ian Jackson <ijack...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes: > Therefore I propose that we should write a letter (1). Draft below. Thank you, this looks great. > https://www.debian.org/trademark). That policy doese not make any > requirement about EANs. Therefore (provided the the policy is adhered > to) we have no objection to Debian branded products being sold without > EANs. Typo: s/provided the the policy/provided that the policy/ -- \ “Speech is conveniently located midway between thought and | `\action, where it often substitutes for both.” —John Andrew | _o__) Holmes, _Wisdom in Small Doses_ | Ben Finney
Re: contacting Debian is too easy to get wrong
Paul Wise <p...@debian.org> writes: > This causes various problems, including: I agree with your assessment of the problems. > Create a new contact.debian.org service to help people find the right > contact for their queries before they make contact. It seems to me that this would add another place for people to direct their questions, without addressing the problem of finding the right contact point to begin with. In other words: What's to stop ‘contacts.debian.org’ from becoming yet another item that comes up in search results, maybe discovered and maybe not? How will that become the one obvious place for people to ask? -- \“I went to court for a parking ticket; I pleaded insanity. I | `\ said ‘Your Honour, who in their right mind parks in the passing | _o__) lane?’” —Steven Wright | Ben Finney
Re: Renaming the Debian Project
benjamin barber <starwor...@gmail.com> writes: > It's unfortunate that Debian is named after Debra and Ian Nevertheless, that's the reason for the name: a historical fact that will not change. > because having the project named after a white supremacist, who used > his ex-wifes name as an trophy. You need to take your unsubstantiated hate elsewhere, and stop poisoning this community. -- \ 己所不欲、勿施于人。 (What is undesirable to you, | `\ do not do to others.) | _o__)—孔夫子 Confucius (551 BCE – 479 BCE) | Ben Finney
Re: debian patent policy?
Paul Elliott pelli...@blackpatchpanel.com writes: 1)Debian will not knowingly distribute software encumbered by patents; Debian contributors should not package or distribute software they know to infringe a patent. This implies that software *covered* by patents, but not *encumbered* by any patents, is fine under this policy. 2)Debian will not accept a patent license that is inconsistent with the Debian Social Contract or Debian Free Software Guidelines. This implies that the Debian project may accept a patent license that is consistent with the Social contract (including the DFSG). Important clause to satisfy include DFSG §7 “Distribution of License”, and DFSG §8 “License Must Not Be Specific to Debian”. This effectively results in a patent license for all recipients of the work and of all works derived from that work. This is very confusing. I have some ideas in my head that I am thinking about patenting, but I only want to torture the proprietary software people with it. Please reconsider; software idea patents hurt everyone in different measure URL:http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Why_abolish_software_patents, and are not a good thing to proliferate. They are not a tool fine enough to hurt only proprietary software. But according to 1) that would not do any good, because 1) read literally means that if software is patented at all and software infringes on a claim, debian will have nothing to do with it. I don't see that. If the patent license permits every recipient of the work to exercise all DFSG freedoms in the work, without any recipient needing to do anything special, that patent would cease to encumber the work as far as this policy's §1 is concerned. So what would a patent license consistant with DSC and DFSG look like? For example: “FooCorp hereby grants everyone a unilateral, royalty-free license to implement the ideas claimed by this patent”. There may be others, but I'm not much interested in finding a set of terms that retains a monopoly on software ideas. I'm more interested in reducing the harm from such monopolies. And what good would it do? That's a good question. A monopoly on the implementation of ideas in software is not good, so I'd advise against seeking software idea patents in the first place. -- \ “I used to be an airline pilot. I got fired because I kept | `\ locking the keys in the plane. They caught me on an 80 foot | _o__)stepladder with a coathanger.” —Steven Wright | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/7wtxh5u553@benfinney.id.au
Re: Claiming the debian account on GitHub ?
Thijs Kinkhorst th...@debian.org writes: On Thu, June 14, 2012 16:56, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote: On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 09:31:39AM +0900, Charles Plessy wrote: I have not added links to their competitors, as I think that it would be bad taste, but yes, I invite every developer to consider Free alternatives such as Gitorious or Branchable. To be blunt, I think that our advocacy for software freedoms is more important than good taste. I'm surprised by this dichotomy. It seems perfectly well possible to both operate in good taste and advocate software freedoms. It's not a dichotomy: the two aren't mutually exclusive. But the two sometimes conflict. I agree with Stefano that, in such cases, software freedom advocacy should have priority in actions of the Debian Project. Given how you worded the README (i.e. along the lines of some of the software we work with is already on GitHub...), it would be entirely appropriate to recommend favoring Gitorious, Branchable or similar services over GitHub. I find this indeed not in good taste. So this is a case where good taste and forthright advocacy are in conflict. I think Stefano is correct that good taste is the lesser concern here, and that having the README refer directly to free services for the job is the right thing to do. -- \“You don't change the world by placidly finding your bliss — | `\you do it by focusing your discontent in productive ways.” | _o__) —Paul Z. Myers, 2011-08-31 | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87ipetwi0l@benfinney.id.au
Eroteme and dembanger?!?
-- \ “I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate | `\ those who do. And for the people who like country music, | _o__)denigrate means ‘put down’.” —Bob Newhart | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87pqa99fbz@benfinney.id.au
Re: Diversity statement for the Debian Project
Stefano Zacchiroli lea...@debian.org writes: The Debian Project welcomes and encourages participation by everyone. It doesn't matter how you identify yourself or how others perceive you: we welcome you. We welcome contributions from everyone as long as they interact constructively with our community. While much of the work for our project is technical in nature, we value and encourage contributions from those with expertise in other areas, and welcome them into our community. It seems to me that there is consensus in going ahead with such a statement, modulo some minor disagreements on the form that can still be fixed once published following the usual (bug reporting) procedure. I hereby declare that, as DPL, I'm happy with it and I'm ready to ask the WWW and Press teams to publish and advertise it as a project-wide statement. Hooray! Nicely done, Francesca and everyone else involved in molding this statement. -- \ “… whoever claims any right that he is unwilling to accord to | `\ his fellow-men is dishonest and infamous.” —Robert G. | _o__) Ingersoll, _The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child_, 1877 | Ben Finney pgpxSsBVNoHxX.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Diversity statement for the Debian Project
Francesca Ciceri madame...@debian.org writes: On Fri, Apr 06, 2012 at 09:11:11AM +1000, Ben Finney wrote: Why the change from “contributions to the Project”? Debian is an operating system, but I think our diversity statement should welcome contributions to the Debian Project. Sure. It was to avoid the repetition of project: but maybe we can simply s/contributions to Debian/contributions/ (as suggested by Enrico)? Yes, that works. -- \ “The best mind-altering drug is truth.” —Jane Wagner, via Lily | `\Tomlin | _o__) | Ben Finney pgpyLv5sDT2Ov.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Report from DSA Team Sprint in Oslo
Neil McGovern ne...@debian.org writes: For reference, I'm in contact with the Raspberry Pi folk, who are keen to do things with Debian. If anyone wants hardware, drop me a mail! Are you in a position to press for hardware specification that will allow wholly free-software Debian on Raspberry Pi? My understanding is that currently the hardware requires some number of non-free firmware blobs. -- \ “The fact that I have no remedy for all the sorrows of the | `\ world is no reason for my accepting yours. It simply supports | _o__) the strong probability that yours is a fake.” —Henry L. Mencken | Ben Finney pgpyednshmbaU.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Diversity statement for the Debian Project
Francesca Ciceri madame...@debian.org writes: -88- The Debian Project welcomes and encourages participation by everyone. It doesn't matter how you define yourself or how others define you: we welcome you. We welcome contributions from everyone as long as they interact constructively with our community. While much of the work for our project is technical in nature, we value and encourage contributions to Debian from those with expertise in other areas and welcome such contributors in our community. 8---8 Why the change from “contributions to the Project”? Debian is an operating system, but I think our diversity statement should welcome contributions to the Debian Project. It's looking very good now. -- \ “I got a postcard from my best friend, it was a satellite | `\ picture of the entire Earth. On the back he wrote, ‘Wish you | _o__) were here’.” —Steven Wright | Ben Finney pgpBgoh6n5q9k.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Diversity statement for the Debian Project
Thank you for persisting with this job, Francesca. Francesca Ciceri madame...@debian.org writes: The Debian Project welcomes and encourages participation by everyone. It doesn't matter how you define yourself or how others define you: we welcome you. We welcome contributions from everyone within their areas of expertise, as long as they can be constructive members of our community. While much of the work of the Project is technical in nature, we will value and encourage contributions to the Project from those with expertise in non-technical areas and welcome such contributors as part of our community. Very good. Minor suggestions: s/as long as they can be constructive members/as long as they are constructive members/ s/we will value/we also value/ s/with expertise in non-technical areas/with expertise in any area/ Maybe break it into two paragraphs, before “While much …”. It's much tighter and clearer now. I'm looking forward to the resulting statement. -- \ “To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you | `\must also be well-mannered.” —Voltaire | _o__) | Ben Finney pgpTuWqbJSC25.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Diversity statement for the Debian Project
Stefano Zacchiroli lea...@debian.org writes: The long list of features we do not discriminate upon, in particular, seems to be contentious. TBH, I don't find it particularly inspiring either, while the rest of the text is. Part of the cause of that problem, it seems to me, is that today's common understanding of “discriminate” conflates it with “discriminate on a prejudicial basis”. By making that conflation, we lose the concept of discrimination *without* prejudice URL:https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/discrimination, which is the act of perceiving and noting differences which may matter to a decision. This is an essential aspect of making fair decisions: about people, about their past actions, about their present convictions informing their future actions. A diversity statement that rules out this kind of fair discrimination would be harmful to a project, by needlessly hobbling the ability to make necessary decisions fairly. So, while I don't know to what extent that issue is a conscious part of the decisions leading to such diversity statements, it can partly explain why they commonly include an extensive list of descriptors the drafters think are prejudicial as a basis for discrimination. I also notice that other existing diversity statements in FOSS have avoided the long list, still managing to be inspiring and straight to the point. Maybe we could try without such a list? There are some free-software projects with a diversity statement including such a list, but being clear and to the point about what that list means. The diversity statement of the Python Software Foundation URL:http://www.python.org/community/diversity/ has this relevant text: Although we have phrased the formal diversity statement generically to make it all-inclusive, we recognize that there are specific attributes that are used to discriminate against people. In alphabetical order, some of these attributes include (but are not limited to): age, culture, ethnicity, gender identity or expression, national origin, physical or mental difference, politics, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, and subculture. We welcome people regardless of the values of these or other attributes. That avoids the problem I objected to earlier: it makes clear that these are intended to describe attributes of people, specifically as attributes commonly used to (prejudicially) discriminate. That leaves open – correctly, in my view – the entirely fair discrimination on the basis of people's actions, and on the basis of the content of people's expressed opinions (religious convictions, political positions, etc.) when relevant to some decision. It also makes clear that the list is not intended to be exhaustive. -- \“He who laughs last, thinks slowest.” —anonymous | `\ | _o__) | Ben Finney pgpSWaT6584XX.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Diversity statement for the Debian Project
Francesca Ciceri madame...@debian.org writes: On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 08:42:28AM +1100, Ben Finney wrote: We should not commit to respecting opinions, but instead commit to respecting all people. How do you suggest to express it in the statement? That depends on the context of the statement; I'm in favour of making it rather minimal as some others in this thread have described. For distinguishing the respect for opinion versus respect for the people who hold them, perhaps this: We value healthy discussion and debate of all opinions, no matter who holds them. Ideas are always a valid target of criticism, and we welcome anyone who wants to respectfully join the discussion. -- \ “To have the choice between proprietary software packages, is | `\ being able to choose your master. Freedom means not having a | _o__)master.” —Richard M. Stallman, 2007-05-16 | Ben Finney pgp93pBZrtBRE.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Diversity statement for the Debian Project
Russ Allbery r...@debian.org writes: I have to admit that doesn't particularly fill me with joy [for various specific reasons]. […] I know what you mean, and I agree with it, but I think it also has some failure modes that we've suffered from in the past. Yes, I accept those criticisms of my statements :-) and I agree better wording is needed. My main point in this thread has been to distinguish automatic respect for people from automatic respect for the opinions they hold (yes to the former, no to the latter). I'm glad to see that point is relatively uncontroversial; I'll consider this addressed so long as that is clear in whatever diversity statement emerges. -- \“I got food poisoning today. I don't know when I'll use it.” | `\—Steven Wright | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/878vikf594@benfinney.id.au
Re: Diversity statement for the Debian Project
gregor herrmann gre...@debian.org writes: On Fri, 23 Mar 2012 20:38:39 +0100, Enrico Zini wrote: I can think of another thing that we care about, which I don't see mentioned here: We expect people to be constructive members of the community. Agreed. And I think we are also not open to people who don't share these values, e.g. people with a racist, sexist, ... behaviour. That gets to another troubling part of the draft: Are there not some political opinions, even some religions, that we should discriminate against as being detrimental to the goal of a universal operating system? -- \ “Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity | `\of the graveyard.” —Justice Roberts in 319 U.S. 624 (1943) | _o__) | Ben Finney pgp2D2ZPofCLC.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Diversity statement for the Debian Project
Francesca Ciceri madame...@debian.org writes: On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 02:56:21PM +, Ian Jackson wrote: I think we should make it clear that our aim is that participation in the development of Debian should be equally open to all, discriminating only on the basis of people's ability and the quality of their contributions. Makes sense, but it strongly depends on the meaning of participation in the developement of Debian. Note that Debian is the name of the operating system we're building. The name of the project is “the Debian Project”. Sometimes we're sloppy with wording, but it seems we need to be clear in this document since that sloppiness has already led to a misunderstanding of what is meant. IMO Debian became in the last years something more than an operating system, and - as consequence - the development of Debian does no longer mean only packaging (or other code-related activity). Basically anyone can make a valuable contribution to Debian. So here, I think you'd be best referring specifically to the project, since you no longer mean specifically Debian (which is an operating system). -- \ “You can never entirely stop being what you once were. That's | `\ why it's important to be the right person today, and not put it | _o__) off until tomorrow.” —Larry Wall | Ben Finney pgpJkr44R6hId.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Diversity statement for the Debian Project
Russ Allbery r...@debian.org writes: You can't have an open and welcoming environment if you're open to people who work to make the environment non-welcoming to others. It is, like most things in life, a balance. Yes. This is why I'm troubled by the blanket welcome to opinions, like political opinions and religions, without regard to what those opinions direct people to do. There are some hateful religions and political opinions out there, which are significantly at odds with an open and welcoming environment, and I don't think the Debian Project should be welcoming to those. We should welcome every person, but not every opinion. -- \ “[I]t is impossible for anyone to begin to learn that which he | `\thinks he already knows.” —Epictetus, _Discourses_ | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87limqkjmn@benfinney.id.au
Re: trademark licenses and DFSG: a summary
Charles Plessy ple...@debian.org writes: Le Sat, Mar 03, 2012 at 07:40:04PM +0100, Stefano Zacchiroli a écrit : 1) as many have pointed out in the thread, DFSG should apply to the freedoms of a specific piece of software, rather than to a specific kind of licenses/policies. Does 1) means that you propose that the DFSG apply to copyright licenses, trademark licenses and anything else that shapes the freedom of a piece of software ? As Stefano said (and I hope he'll correct me if necessary): the DFSG apply not to licenses but to software works. The freedoms in the work as distributed to Debian recipients are what matters for the DFSG, no matter what license or law grants those freedoms. -- \“I knew it was a shocking thing to say, but … no-one has the | `\right to spend their life without being offended.” —Philip | _o__) Pullman, 2010-03-28 | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87obscn67h@benfinney.id.au
Re: DEP-5: Patches pushed to the Debian Policy repository
Stefano Zacchiroli z...@debian.org writes: On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 01:47:25PM +0100, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote: I've a question related to that: what do you think would be best for the DEP-5 version published at http://dep.debian.net/deps/dep5/ ? Would it be OK to have a big fat warning there saying this DEP has been accepted and is now maintainer at URL, please refer to that for the most up to date version of this specification? Answering to self, I hereby propose the following patch for the DEP-5 repository. I think that's good, with one quibble: s/separate standard/standard/. I think it's a little confusing to call it “separate” (from what?). It's a standard that is counted as part of Policy, so it seems simpler just to call it “a standard”. -- \“Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral.” | `\ —Melvin Kranzberg's First Law of Technology | _o__) | Ben Finney pgpmlyXeXrnTl.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: trademark licenses and DFSG: a summary
Craig Small csm...@debian.org writes: Now, the only difference is the fix. For a license it is removing the package for a trademark it is renaming, maybe. Sentences like that are exactly why our proposed trademark policy should be what it is. I'm confused. What distinction are you drawing of license versus trademark? Trademark holders can and do grant licenses on those marks. It seems you may be discussing a distinction of copyright versus trademark, but I'm guessing at this point. -- \ “Come on Milhouse, there’s no such thing as a soul! It’s just | `\ something they made up to scare kids, like the Boogie Man or | _o__) Michael Jackson.” —Bart, _The Simpsons_ | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87obsrv78r@benfinney.id.au
Re: trademark licenses and DFSG: a summary
Uoti Urpala uoti.urp...@pp1.inet.fi writes: Stefano Zacchiroli leader at debian.org writes: - Debian should neither seek nor accept trademark licenses that are specific to the Debian Project. (Suggested by Steve Langasek. In addition to Steve's reasoning, I think that doing otherwise would go against the underlying principle of DFSG §8 License Must Not Be Specific to Debian.) I think this one is questionable. Ideally, a trademark is about trust - it tells the user that the product meets the quality requirements of the trademark owner. Ideally, trust would not require restrictions and monopolies – yet that's what trademark law uses. A trademark owner may trust the processes used by the Debian project to produce results that meet their quality criteria, and may be able to monitor the versions actually released by Debian and withdraw the right to use the trademark should Debian change in a direction that harms users. That statement implies a contradiction: that the trademark holder trusts the Debian project's processes, and does not trust the Debian project's processes. This highlights that a trademark is not about trust, I think. There's no way a trademark owner would trust random people or organizations they don't even know about, nor is it possible to maintain quality control over those. Thus, I think it would make sense to have arrangements allowing Debian specifically to modify the software in ways deemed necessary by the project without asking permission for each individual change. Downstreams would have to either distribute the code unchanged, seek a similar arrangement with the trademark owner, or rebrand. If so, then the Debian project would accept a critical freedom in the work that is not transferred to Debian recipients. That's unacceptable, by my understanding of the social contract. IMO attempts to apply the DFSG requirements to trademarks are fundamentally flawed. It's an important feature of the DFSG that it discusses freedoms, as distinct from whatever law may restrict them. The important software freedoms of Debian recipients can be restricted in many ways, and the DFSG are violated by any of them. A restriction is still a restriction whether implemented by copyright, trademark, contract, threats of violence, or back-room deals. Attempts to accept restrictions solely because of how they are implemented are fundamentally flawed, IMO. The DFSG require the freedom to modify the software in any manner, including changes that are harmful (in someone's opinion) to its users. Yes. Software freedom includes the freedom to differ in opinion from the vendor about what is or is not a harmful modification. Trademarks have the opposite purpose - indicating that a given version meets a certain party's idea of what is good for users, and does NOT have such harmful modifications. I don't think so. Trademarks indicate the provenance of an item, and distinguish that item from others with a distinct provenance. That's regardless of what's good for recipients. It's up to the recipient to make an informed choice about what's good for them; the trademark merely provides information about whether the item is from the expected source. -- \ “I knew things were changing when my Fraternity Brothers threw | `\ a guy out of the house for mocking me because I'm gay.” | _o__) —postsecret.com, 2010-01-19 | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/878vjxw37y@benfinney.id.au
Re: copyright-format: with keywords exception underspecified
Steve Langasek vor...@debian.org writes: I've committed the below patch to the dep repo on svn.debian.org. === modified file 'web/deps/dep5.mdwn' --- old/web/deps/dep5.mdwn2011-11-11 15:27:02 + +++ new/web/deps/dep5.mdwn2011-11-25 20:15:33 + @@ -1036,12 +1036,27 @@ target=_topmany versions of the MIT license/a. Please use Expat instead, when it matches./p -pExceptions and clarifications are signaled in plain -text, by appending tt class=literalwith code class= -varnamett class= -replaceableikeywords/i/tt/code exception/tt to +pAn exception or clarification to a license is signaled +in plain text, by appending tt class=literalwith code +class=varnamett class= +replaceableikeyword/i/tt/code exception/tt to the short name. This document provides a list of keywords -that refer to the most frequent exceptions./p +that must be used when referring to the most frequent +exceptions. When exceptions other than these are in effect +that modify a common license by granting additional +permissions, you may use an arbitrary keyword not taken +from the below list of keywords. When a license differs +from a common license because of added restrictions rather +than because of added permissions, a distinct short name +should be used instead of tt class=literalwith code +class=varnamett class= +replaceableikeyword/i/tt/code exception/tt. +/p + +pOnly one exception may be specified for each license +within a given license specification. If more than one +exception applies to a single license, an arbitrary short +name must be used instead./p pThe GPL tt class=literalFont/tt exception refers to the text added to the license notice of each file as That looks like a good compromise, solving the usual case while allowing for arbitrary corner cases. Thank you! Seconded (dunno if my second is needed, but you have it). -- \ “Shepherds … look after their sheep so they can, first, fleece | `\ them and second, turn them into meat. That's much more like the | _o__) priesthood as I know it.” —Christopher Hitchens, 2008-10-29 | Ben Finney pgpFLF1REWED6.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: DEP-11: AppStream and Component Metadata for Debian
Charles Plessy ple...@debian.org writes: I marked DEP 11 as DRAFT on http://dep.debian.net/ and added a DEP 0 header on http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal. Perhaps you can add a short explanation about what AppStream is for ? I did not find a short and simple introduction on the upstream web page. I searched in vain for an explanation of AppStream also. Matthias, the URL you give does not help; it assumes knowledge of AppStream and instead talks about co-ordinating the people and tasks involved in the project. Please find (or, if it doesn't exist, write) a different page with an explanation of AppStream and what it means for Debian, and link to that instead. -- \ “Are you pondering what I'm pondering?” “I think so, ... Brain, | `\but how can we get seven dwarves to shave their legs?” —_Pinky | _o__) and The Brain_ | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87d3e1wzls@benfinney.id.au
Re: trademark licenses and DFSG
Steve Langasek vor...@debian.org writes: The controlling principle is that we are not trading on the names of the upstream works and as a result we have no need of a license - so it doesn't matter what kind of hare-brained restrictions upstreams include in their trademark licenses because we don't need a license. Who is “we”, though? If you mean only the Debian project, that doesn't help people who are trading products or services that include Debian. When determining whether a work is free, are we interested only in what the Debian project can do with the work, or with what all recipients of Debian can do with the work? Or are you arguing that no recipient of Debian needs a license for the various trademarks in order to fully exercise their software freedom? Or something else? -- \ “It is the integrity of each individual human that is in final | `\examination. On personal integrity hangs humanity's fate.” | _o__) —Richard Buckminster Fuller, _Critical Path_, 1981 | Ben Finney pgprvOZT6MTDO.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: trademark licenses and DFSG
Stefano Zacchiroli lea...@debian.org writes: Problem statement = The question we need to answer is whether DFSG should be applied to trademark licenses or not. That doesn't seem quite right. The DFSG doesn't apply to licenses; it applies to works of software. Social Contract §1 refers to the DFSG as “the guidelines we use to determine if software is free”. So the DFSG determines the freedom of the software work. Much of the discussion on the ‘debian-legal’ forum raises the point that Debian's consideration for the freedom of a work doesn't consider licenses primarily, but considers the freedom of a specific work when determining whether it is free software. This is borne out by several sections of the DFSG referring to “the rights attached to the program”. It's my understanding from later discussions about the DFSG that this is the intention of the whole of the DFSG: to determine the freedom of a work when all applicable licenses or restrictions are considered. From a philosophical point of view, there are essentially two stances we can take: either DFSG should be applied to trademark licenses or they should not (i.e. they should be applied only to copyright licenses). So I'd phrase this as: Either the DFSG should consider all the freedoms and restrictions attached to a work, or should allow some restrictions on a work that would otherwise fail the DFSG. -- \ “It's dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.” | `\ —Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire | _o__) | Ben Finney pgptL42ez6B61.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: DEP: 5 Machine-readable debian/copyright - License specifications - Link broken
Scott Kitterman deb...@kitterman.com writes: [the DEP 5 document states] This is not a proposal to change the policy in the short term. Is the short term over or is the presence of this statement in Debian Policy (git anyway) merely ironic? Neither. DEP 5 still does not change Debian Policy in any way. -- \ “In the long run, the utility of all non-Free software | `\ approaches zero. All non-Free software is a dead end.” —Mark | _o__)Pilgrim, 2006 | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/871uvmn0ho@benfinney.id.au
Re: How to pronounce?
Donald Lee Butler dlbut...@zoominternet.net writes: A small point I've been wondering about for a while. The two pages don't agree. The first reference seems logically correct; DEB - Ian. http://www.debian.org/doc/FAQ/ch-basic_defs.en.html#s-pronunciation “1.7 How does one pronounce Debian and what does this word mean? The project name is pronounced Deb'-ee-en, with a short e in Deb, and emphasis on the first syllable. This word is a contraction of the names of Debra and Ian Murdock, who founded the project. (Dictionaries seem to offer some ambiguity in the pronunciation of Ian (!), but Ian prefers ee'-en.) That doesn't seem right at all, though; English “Ian” is not pronounced “ee'-en”, but “ee'-ən”. Perhaps the person who wrote that didn't know how to produce a U+0259 LATIN SMALL LETTER SCHWA character URL:https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Schwa. So I'd prefer that the above document would correctly show “Deb'-ee-ən” and “ee'-ən”. http://www.debian.org/intro/about#history Since many people have asked, Debian is pronounced /ˈde.bi.ən/. It comes from the names of the creator of Debian, Ian Murdock, and his wife, Debra. That looks and sounds right to me. There is a slight difference from “'deb.i.ən” to “'de.bi.ən”, but not enough to make a fuss about. It would be good for both documents to agree exactly on the transcription, but it's not essential. So to my eye the only correction needed is to use the schwa for the usual English-language unstressed syllable vowel. -- \ “Hey Homer! You're late for English!” “Pff! English, who needs | `\ that? I'm never going to England!” —Barney Homer, _The | _o__)Simpsons_ | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87hb6gs8ng@benfinney.id.au
Re: great job
gs stran...@att.net writes: i just wanted to say thanks for debian 6 my computers […] Thank you for the kind words, it's great to know Debian is making life better! -- \ “Holy priceless collection of Etruscan snoods, Batman!” —Robin | `\ | _o__) | Ben Finney b...@benfinney.id.au -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87aaf1g4lv@benfinney.id.au
Re: making debian for living
Maroš Žilka maros.zi...@gmail.com writes: does The Debian Project have any employees with salary or there are only volunteers. In other words can i participate to debian for living ? The Debian Project does not employ anyone. There are, however, many people employed by other organisations to work on improving Debian specifically. -- \“Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it | `\ correct, not tried it.” —Donald Knuth, 1977-03-29 | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87wrirdsr8@benfinney.id.au
Re: Better visibility of what can you do with Debian on the Debian main page
Charles Plessy ple...@debian.org writes: I agree with Andreas. After saying “repository” three times I have muscle pain in my mouth. Yes. It's a fine term for precision among fellow geeks, but it's a poor name for getting recognition by newcomers. So our packages are not an application store because we do not sell them. That's not relevant to the meaning of “store”, in the same way that “free software” is not about price but we proudly use that term anyway. Why not use the “huh? how come you call it a store if you're not selling things?” concept clash as the same launching point for discussion about freedom? We have already come a long way with the idea that free software can be sold or not without changing the valence of its freedom. We also do not “store” them in the sense of making a stock to be consumed later. How so? That's exactly what we do, I would say. It's also the general meaning of a store. Therefore we do not have an application shelf either: when somebody takes a package there, there are still as many packages available for others. That is also true for anything that calls itself an “app store” today. We can use that term ourselves. If the portal that presents our applications featured someting similar as the Debtags tag cloud, how about “application cloud” ? It is easy to translate in every language, and can refer both to our collection and the place to visit, which would be a useful ambiguity. −1. That term is as nebulous as the meaning of “cloud”. -- \ “Religious faith is the one species of human ignorance that | `\ will not admit of even the *possibility* of correction.” —Sam | _o__) Harris, _The End of Faith_, 2004 | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87r5942v3c@benfinney.id.au
Re: Better visibility of what can you do with Debian on the Debian main page
Yaroslav Halchenko deb...@onerussian.com writes: On Wed, 13 Apr 2011, Andreas Tille wrote: I recently wondered if we should use the (buzz word) application store. I do not really like buzz words but we are de facto what people understand behind this word. I have no idea if we might be able to do better with the wording because usually you *buy* something in a store, but Debian is some place where you get things for free. We might justify this on the basis that “store” doesn't necessarily mean a place where you buy things, only a place where things are stored for later use; e.g. a farm's grain store or a hospital's medicine store. People new to free software are going to have untold assumptions about terminology; the “no, it's a store where we store things for you, you don't have to pay to use them” hurdle seems trivial in comparison to the overall “free software” concept. +1 for the right line of thinking -- I kept using appstore analogy to regular mortals for a while to describe what Debian brings to their desktops. Yes, the concept is one that people apparently understand easily, so we should exercise it to make Debian's nature better understood. -- \“Intellectual property is to the 21st century what the slave | `\ trade was to the 16th.” —David Mertz | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87zknt4zj7@benfinney.id.au
Re: [DEP5] License field in the first paragraph ?
Charles Plessy ple...@debian.org writes: Le Tue, Jan 18, 2011 at 11:42:17PM +0200, Lars Wirzenius a écrit : There seems to be consensus to add an optional License field to the first paragraph. […] Here is a first attempt. Comments welcome: the discussion was a bit complex and I am not sure if I summarised it well. One aspect I don't see covered in your patch: ‘Copyright’ and ‘License’ only make sense as a pair (details in the preceding discussion). I think the standard should specify that if either is used, both must be used. -- \ “All my life I've had one dream: to achieve my many goals.” | `\—Homer, _The Simpsons_ | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/874o914bwt@benfinney.id.au
Re: DEP5: Public domain works
Lars Wirzenius l...@liw.fi writes: On ti, 2011-01-18 at 17:03 -0800, Russ Allbery wrote: I'm happy to see public domain added as a license keyword. This is the consensus, it seems. Would anyone like to suggest a patch to implement it? Here's my proposal: === modified file 'dep5.mdwn' --- dep5.mdwn 2011-01-19 05:22:03 + +++ dep5.mdwn 2011-01-19 09:45:59 + @@ -389,6 +389,7 @@ [[!table data= **keyword** | **meaning** +`public-domain` | No license required for any purpose; the work is not subject to copyright in any jurisdiction. `Apache` | Apache license [1.0](http://spdx.org/licenses/ASL-1.0), [2.0](http://spdx.org/licenses/ASL-2.0). `Artistic` | Artistic license [1.0](http://spdx.org/licenses/Artistic-1.0), [2.0](http://spdx.org/licenses/Artistic-2.0). `BSD-2-clause` | Berkeley software distribution license, [2-clause version](http://spdx.org/licenses/BSD-2-Clause). @@ -467,6 +468,27 @@ also delete it here. +### Public domain + +The `License` short name `public-domain` does not refer to a set of +license terms. There are some works which are not subject to copyright +in any jurisdiction and therefore no license is required for any +purpose covered by copyright law. This short name is an explicit +declaration that the associated files are “in the public domain”. + +Widespread misunderstanding about copyright in general, and the public +domain in particular, results in the common assertion that a work is +in the public domain when this is partly or wholly untrue for that +work. The +[Wikipedia article on public domain](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain) +is a useful reference for this subject. + +When the `License` field in a paragraph has the short name +`public-domain`, the remaining lines of the field **must** explain +exactly what exemption the corresponding files for that paragraph have +from default copyright restrictions. + + ## Syntax License names are case-insensitive, and may not contain spaces. -- \ “If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; | `\ but if you really make them think, they'll hate you.” —Donald | _o__) Robert Perry Marquis | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87lj2h442m@benfinney.id.au
Re: [DEP5] License field in the first paragraph ?
Russ Allbery r...@debian.org writes: But there are two other main reasons why I want an overall package license: […] Okay, I'm convinced there's a case for having an option of copyright and license that applies to the package as a whole, as distinct from applying to each individual source file. I agree with Russ that where we acknowledge copyright applies, we need to have explicit license; so if we allow “Copyright” field in the header, the “License” field needs to be present also (and, I suppose, vice versa). -- \ “… whoever claims any right that he is unwilling to accord to | `\ his fellow-men is dishonest and infamous.” —Robert G. | _o__) Ingersoll, _The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child_, 1877 | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87fwsq5uhu@benfinney.id.au
Re: [DEP5] License field in the first paragraph ?
Lars Wirzenius l...@liw.fi writes: There seems to be consensus to add an optional License field to the first paragraph. I don't have a patch, but just to be clear: the consensus seems to be more narrow. The arguments in this thread have supported an optional *pair* of fields, ‘Copyright’ and ‘License’; either both must be present in the header, or neither. -- \“… Nature … is seen to do all things Herself and through | `\ herself of own accord, rid of all gods.” —Titus Lucretius | _o__) Carus, c. 40 BCE | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87bp3d6f4v@benfinney.id.au
Re: DEP5: CANDIDATE and ready for use in squeeze+1
Steve Langasek vor...@debian.org writes: I am vehemently opposed to Ben's patch, which is effectively an end run around Debian Policy. That's a fair criticism. I should make a bug report against Policy. -- \ “He who wonders discovers that this in itself is wonder.” | `\ —Maurits Cornelis Escher | _o__) | Ben Finney pgpfHfH4sdZL9.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [DEP5] License field in the first paragraph ?
Steve Langasek vor...@debian.org writes: On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 09:06:24AM +1100, Ben Finney wrote: I don't have a patch, but just to be clear: the consensus seems to be more narrow. The arguments in this thread have supported an optional *pair* of fields, ‘Copyright’ and ‘License’; either both must be present in the header, or neither. I don't think there's much evidence that this is the consensus. So far we have two different positions advanced in this thread: Joey Hess, there's a compilation copyright but no need for a top-level license declaration because the files each have their own license: http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2011/01/msg00084.html Hmm, I hadn't interpreted it that way, but I can see that. Neither of these match with what you're claiming to be the consensus, but are compatible with Lars's description of the consensus. Right. Still, I haven't seen how it makes sense to assert that some object in Debian has copyright holders, but have no explicit license for it in Debian. So I still hold the position that the ‘Copyright’ and ‘License’ fields only make sense to record as a pair. -- \“[It's] best to confuse only one issue at a time.” —Brian W. | `\ Kernighan, Dennis M. Ritchie, _The C programming language_, 1988 | _o__) | Ben Finney pgp9NRUQedZeA.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [DEP5] License field in the first paragraph ?
Steve Langasek vor...@debian.org writes: I just don't see that this has emerged yet as a consensus in the discussion. Yes, that was premature of me to say, and was based on a mis-reading of the thread so far. Thanks for the correction. -- \“When I was a baby I kept a diary. Recently I was re-reading | `\ it, it said ‘Day 1: Still tired from the move. Day 2: Everybody | _o__) talks to me like I'm an idiot.’” —Steven Wright | Ben Finney pgpY5WmyJycwY.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: DEP5: CANDIDATE and ready for use in squeeze+1
Ben Finney ben+deb...@benfinney.id.au writes: I maintain the position I argued earlier in this same thread: The provenance of the source of any Debian package should be recorded explicitly, and the copyright file is the canonical location for that information. For packages where “it was only ever a Debian native package” is true, that fact is not obvious and should still be recorded in the same place. To express that as a patch: --- old/dep5.mdwn +++ new/dep5.mdwn @@ -149,17 +149,18 @@ will usually be written as a list of RFC5322 addresses or URIs. * **`Source`** - * Required, unless there is no upstream + * Required * Syntax: formatted text, no synopsis * An explanation from where the upstream source came from. Typically this would be a URL, but it might be a free-form - explanation. If the upstream source has been modified to remove - non-free parts, that should be explained in this field. - This field is mandatory, unless there are no upstream sources, - which is mainly the case for native Debian packages. - See [Debian Policy, - 12.5](http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-docs.html#s-copyrightfile) - for details. + explanation. + The [Debian Policy, §12.5](http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-docs.html#s-copyrightfile) + requires the upstream source location recorded in this file unless + there are no upstream sources; if the package source did not come + from any upstream (if, for example, the package is native to + Debian), that should be explained in this field. + If the upstream source has been modified to remove non-free parts, + that should be explained in this field. * **`Disclaimer`** * Optional Keeping this field optional makes the provenance of the source more likely to be clear. It is minimal effort to support that aim (if the package is native to Debian, just say so explicitly in this field). It also has the benefit that the parser doesn't need to depend on state outside this file, making the goal of machine-parseability easier (though that is not the main motivation for this patch). -- \“It is the responsibility of intellectuals to tell the truth | `\and to expose lies.” —Noam Chomsky, 1967-02-23 | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87aaiz6p9r@benfinney.id.au
Re: DEP5: CANDIDATE and ready for use in squeeze+1
Ben Finney ben+deb...@benfinney.id.au writes: Keeping this field optional makes the provenance of the source more s/optional/required/ likely to be clear. It is minimal effort to support that aim (if the package is native to Debian, just say so explicitly in this field). -- \ “Nothing is so common as to imitate one's enemies, and to use | `\ their weapons.” —Voltaire, _Dictionnaire Philosophique_ | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/874o976oo4@benfinney.id.au
Re: DEP5: CANDIDATE and ready for use in squeeze+1
Jonas Smedegaard d...@jones.dk writes: I notice that you also add explicit requirement of documenting removal of source in the Source: field. No. Like Charles Plessy, I merely preserved the existing sentence, since changing it was out of scope for the patch. -- \ “I knew things were changing when my Fraternity Brothers threw | `\ a guy out of the house for mocking me because I'm gay.” | _o__) —postsecret.com, 2010-01-19 | Ben Finney pgpiqpqxNIbpi.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [DEP5] License field in the first paragraph ?
Charles Plessy ple...@debian.org writes: About having a License field in the header: on one hand I have not seen opposition to this, but on the other hand, it is not allowed by the current candidate draft, which lists License only in the fields of the Files paragraph. That's a good point. It does seem that anything that we would want to specify a value for “Copyright” we would also need to be able to specify “License”. I am worried that there was a misundertanding about the purpose of the first paragraph's Copyright field: from my reading of the current version of the DEP (and independantly of how my opinion on how it should be) The explanation in the DEP doesn't really make it clear why this is needed, as opposed to an initial “Files: *” paragraph with the “package as a whole” copyright and license values. Where is the rationale for having Copyright apply in the header? it does not replace a Copyright field associated to a catch-all Files field, that is: in the example given by Jonas, a paragraph containing a ‘Files: *’ field is necessary. That does seem to follow from the current specification, yes. -- \“Of course, everybody says they're for peace. Hitler was for | `\ peace. Everybody is for peace. The question is: what kind of | _o__)peace?” —Noam Chomsky, 1984-05-14 | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87r5ca6cga@benfinney.id.au
Re: [DEP5] License field in the first paragraph ?
Joey Hess jo...@debian.org writes: In the above example, doc/* are not copyright by Mr. Foo. But if if Mr. Foo has done work that allows him to assert a compilation copyright, that could apply to the whole package, including doc/*. So, Mr. Foo could be listed in the Copyright in the header. Okay. I am not clear on how acts of compilation invoke copyright law, but that does seem to be a “package as a whole” case that would not be covered by copyright on the source files. Thanks. In this case, there is not a license directly associated with the compilation copyright. That doesn't make much sense. If someone can assert copyright on the compilation, surely we need explicit copyright license from that holder on the compilation? All the individual files are licensed under A or B, by their individual authors. So having License in the header doesn't make sense. If it's relevant to record the copyright on a compilation, I don't see how we escape the need to also show what license we have to that compilation. -- \ “The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. | `\ The pessimist fears it is true.” —J. Robert Oppenheimer | _o__) | Ben Finney pgpkpFDPc7H14.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: DEP5: CANDIDATE and ready for use in squeeze+1
Joey Hess jo...@debian.org writes: Native packages tend to have no upstream sources, so for most of the 200 or so native packages that I am involved in, I have no such thing in copyright, and I think that policy allows that. Anything I can think of to put in the source field seems redundant or pointless boilerplate -- which I'd rather avoid having in the 200-odd native packages I am involved with in Debian. Why is it redundant? The copyright file is the canonical place for that information, from what I can tell. That's my understanding of why it's required (by Policy and by the DEP-5 format) to record it there. (Of course, the Source field is also redundant for a great many packages where it would be the same URL that goes in debian/control's Homepage field. IIRC, the hope is that policy is eventually changed to not require the copyright have that redundant information.) I disagree on that point. The home page of the project is a different fact from the description of where the source was obtained. If they happen to be the same, that doesn't obviate recording both facts. -- \“That's the essence of science: Ask an impertinent question, | `\and you're on the way to the pertinent answer.” —Jacob | _o__) Bronowski, _The Ascent of Man_, 1973 | Ben Finney pgpETc9mhPzYg.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: DEP5: CANDIDATE and ready for use in squeeze+1
Peter Pentchev r...@ringlet.net writes: On Fri, Jan 14, 2011 at 10:14:01AM +1100, Ben Finney wrote: Why is it redundant? The copyright file is the canonical place for that information, from what I can tell. That's my understanding of why it's required (by Policy and by the DEP-5 format) to record it there. Erm... and what would Joey Hess put there for a native package, where the *source* is obtained from, well, the Debian archive? :) Simply record that fact. Something like “Native Debian package” would do, I suppose. As I understand it, the copyright file is the canonical location to refer to for the provenance of the source for the package. So it doesn't seem redundant to be explicit about that in the copyright file. Some might argue that this can be inferred from the version string. But that doesn't address the “canonical location for describing the provenance” point. Relying on inference from the version string also doesn't address the cases where the package is *now* native to Debian, but was not always so (i.e. a version string for a Debian native package might still have its provenance from outside Debian). So regardless of the version string, it's still not clear what the provenance of a package's source is unless it's recorded explicitly. -- \“The difference between religions and cults is determined by | `\ how much real estate is owned.” —Frank Zappa | _o__) | Ben Finney pgpS8RJwdcFxS.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: DEP5: CANDIDATE and ready for use in squeeze+1
Lars Wirzenius l...@liw.fi writes: On to, 2011-01-13 at 17:15 -0800, Russ Allbery wrote: Yeah, I think Source should be optional for native packages. Would anyone oppose making such a change? I maintain the position I argued earlier in this same thread: The provenance of the source of any Debian package should be recorded explicitly, and the copyright file is the canonical location for that information. For packages where “it was only ever a Debian native package” is true, that fact is not obvious and should still be recorded in the same place. -- \ “Crime is contagious… if the government becomes a lawbreaker, | `\ it breeds contempt for the law.” —Justice Louis Brandeis | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/8739ow9pth@benfinney.id.au
DEP5: common abbreviation for GNU FDL (was: DEP5: License section)
Stefano Zacchiroli z...@debian.org writes: On Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 09:36:21PM +0900, Charles Plessy wrote: - The GNU Free Documentation License is called GFDL in DEP5 and FDL in SPDX. SPDX does not provide a name for the ‘no invariants’ exception. Sounds like a good case where supporting two different names as synonyms might be good, i.e. FDL and GFDL will mean the same thing. They seem to be both quite widespread. How about that? Since both seem to be widespread as names for the same license, I don't think asking SPDX to use the redundant “GFDL” name is a good choice. The name “FDL” is consistent with “LGPL” and “GPL” (that is, they all work as “GNU FDL”, “GNU LGPL”, “GNU GPL”). So “FDL” is at least as correct as a name for the Free Documentation License: they all omit the “GNU” from the abbreviation. If anything, then, the name “GFDL” is inferior since it is inconsistent with the common abbreviations for other GNU licenses. Why, then, did Lars Wirzenius mark the following in the Wiki page URL:http://wiki.debian.org/Proposals/CopyrightFormat?action=diffrev1=508rev2=509 on 2010-12-30: = Things that need to be done before DEP-5 is ready: + * Ask SPDX to rename FDL to GFDL. = I can't find a message in this thread explaining that. If anyone is to be asked to switch to a common name, I would think Debian should be asked to switch to the common and consistent “FDL” name already used by SPDX. Lars, can you point us to a rationale for that to-do item? -- \“I fly Air Bizarre. You buy a combination one-way round-trip | `\ticket. Leave any Monday, and they bring you back the previous | _o__) Friday. That way you still have the weekend.” —Steven Wright | Ben Finney pgpXTwNm065q1.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: DEP5: License section
Lars Wirzenius l...@liw.fi writes: On ti, 2010-12-21 at 00:37 +0100, Jonas Smedegaard wrote: Draft rev. 135 lists only Expat, but mentions MIT license as being ambiguous. Is the ambifuity solved in newer revisions? Is Expat preserved or replaced by MIT license? I don't actually see the ambiguity. As I understand it, the ambiguity is not in the license terms, but in the name “MIT license”. MIT have released software under numerous licenses, each different, some of them non-free; none of them have distinct canonical names AFAIK. So there's no clear referent of that simple name. So on that basis, a newer version of the license terms could not solve the problem. The license terms for the Expat library are considered functionally equivalent to the terms people often intend by the name “MIT license”, so the name “Expat license” is often promoted as more precise when referring to those terms. URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License#Various_versions Do you have a specific change to suggest? How would you word it? I would suggest simply using the name “Expat license” (short name “Expat”) in all cases to refer to those license terms, and a cross-reference to help those seeking “MIT”. -- \ “If [a technology company] has confidence in their future | `\ ability to innovate, the importance they place on protecting | _o__) their past innovations really should decline.” —Gary Barnett | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87fwtqvo1h@benfinney.id.au
Re: commercial spam on planet
Ana Guerrero a...@debian.org writes: I am annoyed by the flattr advertisement and I stayed away from the thread becuase my opinion was already represented, not point in repeating them. If you are going do a 'poll' based on the people participating, add 1 to the list of annoyed people. +1 -- \ “I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have | `\ to.” —Elvis Aaron Presley (1935–1977) | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87vd44bzm1@benfinney.id.au
Re: No general political content on Planet
Joey Hess jo...@debian.org writes: Anyway, it seems to me that, based on this thread, certian posts on Planet Debian have had a trollish nature. After all, they've gotten us calling each other names like condescending and parochial. Russ didn't call me condescending; he described part of my message that way. I didn't call Russ parochial; I described part of his message that way. To my knowledge, neither of us took it as a description of our person or calling each other names. I yearn for the day when describing someone's words is not taken as describing the person. But I suppose we're not there yet. -- \ “Some forms of reality are so horrible we refuse to face them, | `\ unless we are trapped into it by comedy. To label any subject | _o__)unsuitable for comedy is to admit defeat.” —Peter Sellers | Ben Finney pgptiZXf0agTK.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: No general political content on Planet
Russ Allbery r...@debian.org writes: The little minus next to someone's name seems to deal with that reasonably well if one doesn't feel up to ignoring it. I get no “little minus” next to anyone's name on the Planet Debian syndication feed. Are you perhaps conflating the interface-independent information content of Planet Debian with a single interface to that information? Hopefully the suggestion to split non-Debian topics out to a separate feed (or, equivalently, to provide a Debian-topics-only feed which is the only one provided on Planet Debian) will be followed more often. Meeting one's fellow developer in person also (at least for me) helped a lot in turning random political content I strongly disagree with from something that pissed me off into something that just makes me roll my eyes and remember the good conversation we had. :) Agreed. Others have expressed the position that reading occasional non-Debian posts in the Planet Debian flow helps to relate to other members as people with lives outside Debian; that seems something of value that we should be careful not to sacrifice cheaply. -- \ “Books and opinions, no matter from whom they came, if they are | `\ in opposition to human rights, are nothing but dead letters.” | _o__) —Ernestine Rose | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87d3qkfxbx@benfinney.id.au
Re: No general political content on Planet
Russ Allbery r...@debian.org writes: Ben Finney ben+deb...@benfinney.id.au writes: Russ Allbery r...@debian.org writes: The little minus next to someone's name seems to deal with that reasonably well if one doesn't feel up to ignoring it. I get no “little minus” next to anyone's name on the Planet Debian syndication feed. Are you perhaps conflating the interface-independent information content of Planet Debian with a single interface to that information? Yes, that's what I was referring to. FWIW, this bit came across as very condescending and immediately made me angry and defensive, although I got over it. The correction also seems somewhat unnecessary, since you seem to have understood what I meant. I was pointing out an interface feature that in the past some readers haven't known about, for those people who (like I do) go directly to the web site, and this sort of aggressive-sounding correction mostly just makes me less likely to post information I think could be helpful in the future. Not my intention. I found your assumption that all Planet Debian readers would see a little minus to be quite parochial, so I wanted to find out whether that was the case. I didn't take offense, and didn't intend to cause it. If you had instead phrased your response more along the lines of that works if you're reading directly from the web site I didn't know that to be the case, and wasn't motivated to experiment. Anyway, presumably decent feed reader software either has or could have added to it a similar feature to suppress particular posts from the collective feed by various criteria. The authorship information is in the feed for a feed reader to do something with. That seems an unreasonable place for the burden. It seems similar to claims that people who don't like off-topic posts can just delete them. True, but irrelevant to the point that off-topic posts are being made. Again, though, I'll note that I don't consider all off-topic traffic necessarily bad; merely that “configure your client better” is a poor response. -- \ “If you always want the latest and greatest, then you have to | `\ buy a new iPod at least once a year.” —Steve Jobs, MSNBC | _o__) interview 2006-05-25 | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/874obwftox@benfinney.id.au
Re: DEP-5: general file syntax
Lars Wirzenius l...@liw.fi writes: On la, 2010-08-21 at 02:15 -0700, Russ Allbery wrote: What happens when the copyright statement is longer than a line? […] Good point. I see at least thw following possible solutions: […] * Have one copyright statement per Copyright field, and have multiple instances of the field. This is my preference, and what I've been doing in my packages. For actively maintained software, this is going to get really hard to read in a millennium or two. Let's solve that before the millennium is out, by reforming international copyright law to drastically reduce copyright duration :-) -- \ “If society were bound to invent technologies which could only | `\ be used entirely within the law, then we would still be sitting | _o__) in caves sucking our feet.” —Gene Kan, creator of Gnutella | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87wrrkqg0q@benfinney.id.au
DEP-5: Structure for multiple copyright statements (was: DEP-5: general file syntax)
Russ Allbery r...@debian.org writes: Ben Finney ben+deb...@benfinney.id.au writes: Lars Wirzenius l...@liw.fi writes: * Have one copyright statement per Copyright field, and have multiple instances of the field. This is my preference, and what I've been doing in my packages. Unfortunately, this creates real challenges for parsers. […] Okay, I can see that. Thanks for explaining. Lars Wirzenius l...@liw.fi writes: On la, 2010-08-21 at 02:15 -0700, Russ Allbery wrote: What happens when the copyright statement is longer than a line? I have a bunch of those, such as: Good point. I see at least thw following possible solutions: * Keep one line per copyright statement, but make the lines be long. (This is what we have now.) Could we take advantage of the natural “©” marker to indicate each copyright statement? Specification off the top of my head, that hopefully shows what I mean: The ‘Copyright’ field must contain one or more copyright statements. Each virtual line of the field value is a single copyright statement. Each copyright statement must begin with the “©” character (U+00A9 COPYRIGHT SIGN) at the start of a virtual line. Each physical line which does not begin with “©” is a continuation of the previous virtual line in the same field. Contrived examples: Files: * Copyright: © 2009 Frank Foo fr...@example.com Files: doc/* Copyright: © 1995, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2009 Beatrice Bar beatr...@example.org © 2008, 2010 Barry Baz ba...@example.com -- \ “The long-term solution to mountains of waste is not more | `\ landfill sites but fewer shopping centres.” —Clive Hamilton, | _o__)_Affluenza_, 2005 | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87sk27r5gs.fsf...@benfinney.id.au
Re: DEP-5: Structure for multiple copyright statements
Lars Wirzenius l...@liw.fi writes: On su, 2010-08-22 at 08:00 +1000, Ben Finney wrote: Could we take advantage of the natural “©” marker to indicate each copyright statement? That's an interesting idea, but would people in general find it easy or difficult to write that character? (I'd have to copy-paste it, for instance, since my keymap does not seem to have a binding for it.) In Vim or Emacs or SCIM or IBus, use the RFC 1345 digraph “C” “o”. (For Vim, use ‘^K C o’. For Emacs, SCIM, and IBus, enable the RFC 1345 input method, then use ‘ C o’.) There are likely other ways; e.g. a LaTeX input mode or locale-specific compose sequences. The word Copyright or the ASCII-art (C) might be substituted. I'd be fine with having “Copyright” and “©” as equal and interchangeable in the specification of that field's value. By my understanding, when copyright statements were necessary, the UCC specification also had them as equivalent. The “(C)” sequence never meant “Copyright” legally, and is unnecessarily ambiguous. There's no need to recognise it, IMO. Russ Allbery r...@debian.org writes: Ideally, I'd like to just copy and paste upstream's copyright statements into debian/copyright and maybe do some compaction, which leads me to prefer a free-form field. Do we think that people are going to want to parse and extract individual copyright holders for some reason? Tracking provenance of the code is tedious work, and if it's done anyway I would much prefer that the information be captured in a common, structured format to reduce the work of future people wanting to do the same. I envisage a tool, perhaps an Emacs script, perhaps even Aptitude, presenting the copyright information summarised automatically, made possible because the Copyright field is structured to allow that. If so, we would need to standardize the format quite a bit, and I'm not sure it's worth it. I hope a simple enough specification for this field can be found that satisfies those goals. We seem to be quite close to that result. -- \“With Lisp or Forth, a master programmer has unlimited power | `\ and expressiveness. With Python, even a regular guy can reach | _o__) for the stars.” —Raymond Hettinger | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87lj7zqxia@benfinney.id.au
Re: DEP-5: additional requirements to use with upstream
Russ Allbery r...@debian.org writes: Would a generic multi-line Comment: field be sufficient? Yes. Would an end-line comment syntax, like the one that already works in the ‘debian/control’ file, be sufficient? If so, then we can avoid diverging from the existing formats in this regard, and reduce proliferation of fields. -- \ “Smoking cures weight problems. Eventually.” —Steven Wright | `\ | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/8762zfuhtn@benfinney.id.au
Re: Moving discussions about DEP-5 details to another list.
Charles Plessy ple...@debian.org writes: Stefano, as admin of the DEP Alioth project (I think that the others retired), would you agree to create a dedicated mailing list for DEP-5? I volunteer for the mailman administration, and for taking the responsibility that no major changes are discussed there instead of on debian-project. If a new forum is created, can I ask that it be accessible by Gmane? If someone tells me about its existence, I'm happy to make the request to the Gmane administrators. -- \“There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily | `\escaped the chronicler's mind.” —Douglas Adams | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87pqxouw75@benfinney.id.au
Re: DEP-5 and public domain
Giacomo A. Catenazzi c...@debian.org writes: I agree, the files (but the documentation) don't seems copyrightable, which is different as PD, so new keyword NO? To my eye, ‘License: NO’ has exactly the wrong connotation (“the recipient has no copyright license to this work”). The obvious reaction to that would be “okay, then we can't have it in Debian”. Perhaps a better one would be ‘License: not-required’. This would say exactly what we mean, and prompt the right question: On what basis does the maintainer claim no license is required for this work? The continuation lines of the field could then be used to answer that question. -- \ “Programs must be written for people to read, and only | `\incidentally for machines to execute.” —Abelson Sussman, | _o__) _Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs_ | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87tyn1w2w9@benfinney.id.au
Re: DEP-5 and public domain
Charles Plessy ple...@debian.org writes: Le Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 02:05:42AM +1000, Ben Finney a écrit : To my eye, ‘License: NO’ has exactly the wrong connotation (“the recipient has no copyright license to this work”). The obvious reaction to that would be “okay, then we can't have it in Debian”. there would still be no ambiguity I'm not arguing that there's ambiguity; I'm arguing that the keyword “no” is poorly chosen because it doesn't clearly connote what we want it to. Would the following paragraphs summarise well the discussion ? As a special case, the fist line of the `License` field can be used to document that a work has no license, and further explanations can be provided in the continuation lines. The following short names are used: [[!table data= `No` | The work is not licenseable. `PD` | The work has been placed in the public domain. ]] I think that if we want a meaning of “The work is not licenseable”, or “A license is not needed”, then ‘License: No’ is a poor choice for that since it doesn't clearly suggest what the gloss wants it to. Rather, something like ‘License: Not-Applicable’ or ‘License: Not-Required’ says it more clearly. I propose each of those as a potential keyword for the meaning we're discussing. -- \ “Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.” —Pablo | `\ Picasso | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87aaoswu1f@benfinney.id.au
Re: DEP-5 and public domain
Ben Hutchings b...@decadent.org.uk writes: On Thu, 2010-08-12 at 10:31 +1000, Ben Finney wrote: I'm arguing that the keyword “no” is poorly chosen because it doesn't clearly connote what we want it to. [...] I think the bikeshed should be pink. A fair cop. I offer the suggestion only because it's much easier to implement the keyword before standardising, rather than after. -- \ “The lift is being fixed for the day. During that time we | `\regret that you will be unbearable.” —hotel, Bucharest | _o__) | Ben Finney pgpJaQxokfxRT.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: On terminology
Russ Allbery r...@debian.org writes: Ben Finney ben+deb...@benfinney.id.au writes: It seems to me that the Debian Maintainer role is clearly focussed on granting the minimum needed to be a maintainer within the Debian project, as opposed to a maintainer not within the Debian project. So I don't see your case for wanting to change that term. To me a Debian Maintainer is not really within the Debian project, or at least no more within the Debian project than our many other non-DD contributors are, such as people with guest accounts on Alioth. They have no voting rights, no access to debian-private, etc. A necessary condition to me for being part of a membership organization is to have some sort of membership role. I see the Debian Maintainer as having passed a significant threshold for membership in the Debian project. They have: * signed a statement that they acknowledge Debian's founding documents and important policies * demonstrated bona fides for their identity via the GnuPG web of trust * worked with a Debian Developer (a voting member of the project) to the extent that person advocates their membership That makes them significantly more than a package maintainer, to my view. It makes them a non-voting member of the project. What's the point of becoming a Debian Maintainer if not to maintain one or more packages in Debian? So that they can upload a Debian package. They may have no intention to become the maintainer. That seems strange (why not just get a sponsor to do the upload?), but I'll take your word for it that such people exist. -- \ “There's no excuse to be bored. Sad, yes. Angry, yes. | `\Depressed, yes. Crazy, yes. But there's no excuse for boredom, | _o__) ever.” —Viggo Mortensen | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87zky5cd3d@benfinney.id.au
Re: Debian Uploader, Debian Contributor : was On terminology
Aioanei Rares debian.dev.l...@gmail.com writes: Quoting from the link above : If a renaming take place, will there be also a reform of the membership. And which will come first. As a native English speaker, I read the above as questions. They should have question-mark (?) instead of full-stop (.) at the end of the sentences, but they make more sense as questions. This is not valid English. How about If renaming occurs, there will also be a membership change. Whichever occurs first. That very much changes the sense of the text. I hope the person who wrote it can clarify. -- \ “If you're a horse, and someone gets on you, and falls off, and | `\ then gets right back on you, I think you should buck him off | _o__)right away.” —Jack Handey | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87k4p8d9wr@benfinney.id.au
Re: On terminology
Stefano Zacchiroli z...@debian.org writes: On Sat, Jul 03, 2010 at 12:14:03AM +0300, Faidon Liambotis wrote: Can we _at least_ rename the NM process to be indicative of what it is? Seconded. Speaking with various people about the ways they can join Debian, I've had several time the feeling that our current (incoherent) naming is quite confusing. It is nobody's fault, it has just grown this way due to how our membership mechanisms evolved, but it's definitely time to make the terminology more uniform. So what would be affected by changing the name? Which documents, which other parts of the process, etc.? -- \“The fact of your own existence is the most astonishing fact | `\you'll ever have to confront. Don't dare ever see your life as | _o__) boring, monotonous or joyless.” —Richard Dawkins, 2010-03-10 | Ben Finney pgpdlOtYdBYqM.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: On terminology
Holger Levsen hol...@layer-acht.org writes: rename Debian maintainers to Debian uploaders? As a Debian Maintainer, a significant power I *don't* have is that of uploading (arbitrary) packages. So no, that would not be a good change of terminology. -- \ “We jealously reserve the right to be mistaken in our view of | `\ what exists, given that theories often change under pressure | _o__) from further investigation.” —Thomas W. Clark, 2009 | Ben Finney pgpwKhybUvLTP.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: On terminology
Russ Allbery r...@debian.org writes: Ben Finney ben+deb...@benfinney.id.au writes: Russ Allbery r...@debian.org writes: And in the process, PLEASE rename Debian Maintainer to something that isn't completely confusing given the existence of a Maintainer field in all of our packages Isn't the very point of the Debian Maintainer role that it more precisely does meet the definition of the role identified by that field? No, you can be a package maintainer without being a Debian Maintainer or a Debian Developer. Many people are. Yes. I was referring to the purpose of introducing that role, contrasting “Debian Developer” with “Debian Maintainer”; that is, the latter is more tightly focussed on being a package maintainer than the former. So: * Package Maintainer can be anyone * Debian Maintainer can do anything the above can do, but is also a member of the Debian project (i.e. “a Package Maintainer within the Debian project”) * Debian Developer can do anything the above can do, but also has a raft of extra powers (i.e. “a Debian Maintainer who can develop Debian as a whole”) It seems to me that the Debian Maintainer role is clearly focussed on granting the minimum needed to be a maintainer within the Debian project, as opposed to a maintainer not within the Debian project. So I don't see your case for wanting to change that term. So Russ, what do you think “maintainer” should mean in Debian, The wording I proposed for #459868 sums that up: The maintainer is responsible for maintaining the Debian packaging files, evaluating and responding appropriately to reported bugs, uploading new versions of the package, ensuring that the package is placed in the appropriate archive area and included in Debian releases as appropriate for the stability and utility of the package, and requesting removal of the package from the Debian distribution if it is no longer useful or maintainable. Okay. It seems, then, that this is the common subset of both Debian Maintainers and non-Debian Maintainers. So I would think using the term “Maintainer” in the name for both roles would make the most sense; that way the distinguishing factor is the part that changes. One need not be a Debian Maintainer to be a maintainer Right; so I'd suggest calling that role “Package Maintainer” or the like, to distinguish it from someone in the Debian project keyring. and not all Debian Maintainers are maintainers That last one is new to me. What's the point of becoming a Debian Maintainer if not to maintain one or more packages in Debian? A Debian Maintainer is someone who can be given upload rights for specific packages. They may not yet have been given any of those rights, or they may use them only as co-maintainers rather than as the designated package maintainer (possibly meaning that they intend to assume some of those responsibilities but not all of them). We should use some other term for that. If you mean only that such a person may not *yet* be maintainer of a particular package, that doesn't seem sufficient to say the title “Debian Maintainer” doesn't apply. I'd interpret the title as describing the intended role, and if the person hasn't yet executed that role, the title itself still applies. I think the role titles are actually pretty good as they are, and it's the documentation that needs to be updated to match the new definitions we're now using for those titles. But that should only be done if and when there's consensus on what the titles now mean. -- \ “I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them | `\to do to their fellows, because it always coincides with their | _o__) own desires.” —Susan Brownell Anthony, 1896 | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87bpalebum@benfinney.id.au
Re: Differentiating BSD-style licenses
Charles Plessy ple...@debian.org writes: Le Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 09:57:05AM +1100, Ben Finney a écrit : I've advocated making mnemonic descriptors for the particular clauses, e.g. “attribution”, “no endorsement”, etc. Those have the disadvantage of not being well-known, but the advantage (compared to simply counting the clauses) that at least a guess as to which clauses are being referenced will likely be right. […] This leaves the issue raised by Ben, that the permission given by a license can not be inferred by its short name. Not quite. If one wants to know what the exact permissions are, one can read the license text. I'm raising the issue that referring only to the *number* of clauses doesn't make clear *which* license text one should read. Using mnemonic names (as inspired by the Creative Commons mnemonics for their clauses), instead of total count, for clauses would make it clearer which license terms one is referring to. Actually knowing what the terms are is then a matter of reading the terms; but the reference needs to be sufficiently unambiguous that one can be confident one is reading the same license terms as were referred to. -- \“… it's best to confuse only one issue at a time.” —Brian W. | `\Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie, _The C programming language_, | _o__) 1988 | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: DEP-5: prior art for license short names
Steve Langasek vor...@debian.org writes: One concern I have with the current DEP5 draft is that the set of keywords for common licenses is very NIH. Well, that speaks to motives (NIH) that I don't think were present. I think it's just that the obvious clearing houses for license information (OSI, FSF) didn't provide a good list of short names so there appeared to be no option but to create our own. Fedora, for example, has an existing list of license keywords that are widely deployed, as can be found here: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing#Software_License_List That page doesn't make clear how the “short name” is intended to be used, and what ambiguities are or are not acceptable. What assurance is there that these short names are sufficiently unambiguous, discrete, and distinct enough on which to found DEP 5 license declarations? I think we should consider adopting this existing set of license keywords as part of the DEP, and diverging from it only when necessary in order to resolve ambiguities or reduce complexity (e.g., using a single rule about version numbers instead of spelling these all out). I see a few advantages to this approach: I agree with all your reasons, and it clearly makes sense to collaborate on a standard set of license identifiers. (And I don't think existing deployments of the draft spec in debian/copyright files is a reason to avoid exploring this option, since there are any number of other proposed changes on the table that would also invalidate existing usage.) Agreed. This is the main reason for requiring the ‘Format-Specifier’, it means tools can quickly determine whether an existing copyright information file is not expected to be conformant with the current standard. Since this will shake up the list of license keywords substantially from where it is in the draft today, I recommend having this discussion immediately and setting aside for the moment other threads proposing fixes to individual license keywords; depending on the outcome here those proposals may cease to be relevant or need to be adapted significantly. No problem here, so long as the concerns above are addressed. -- \ “Crime is contagious… if the government becomes a lawbreaker, | `\ it breeds contempt for the law.” —Justice Louis Brandeis | _o__) | Ben Finney pgpyFOPW8tf4H.pgp Description: PGP signature
Differentiating BSD-style licenses (was: DEP5: Machine-readable debian/copyright (the paperwork))
Carsten Hey cars...@debian.org writes: It's might not be obvious for all which BSD licenses are meant by BSD and FreeBSD, thus I propose appending (3-clause BSD) and respectively (2-clause BSD) to their descriptions. That's even more ambiguous, though. It doesn't say *which* clauses; any three-clause license similar to a BSD license could be “3-clause BSD”. I've advocated making mnemonic descriptors for the particular clauses, e.g. “attribution”, “no endorsement”, etc. Those have the disadvantage of not being well-known, but the advantage (compared to simply counting the clauses) that at least a guess as to which clauses are being referenced will likely be right. -- \ “Unix is an operating system, OS/2 is half an operating system, | `\Windows is a shell, and DOS is a boot partition virus.” —Peter | _o__)H. Coffin | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Info request about Debian
Kasuladevi kasuladevi...@gmail.com writes: I am new to Debian. Could you please tell me how long are the packages and updates support available for each release of Debian OS. Are older releases of Debian hamm, slink, potato, woody, sarge, etch still supported, if yes, how long will they be supported. Your questions would be best directed to the ‘debian-user’ forum for assistance as a (prospective) Debian user. For further reading on how releases proceed and are supported, see the Debian FAQ URL:http://www.debian.org/doc/FAQ/ch-choosing.en.html#s3.1 and the page for each release URL:http://www.debian.org/releases/. -- \ “I thought I'd begin by reading a poem by Shakespeare, but then | `\ I thought ‘Why should I? He never reads any of mine.’” —Spike | _o__) Milligan | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Summary of the debian-devel BoF at Debconf9
MJ Ray m...@phonecoop.coop writes: Bernhard R. Link brl...@debian.org * Ben Finney ben+deb...@benfinney.id.au [090819 00:42]: Your distinction is lost on me; pointing out that someone has presented a logical fallacy *is* saying what is wrong. That we have succinct labels with well-established meanings serves to more quickly communicate what is wrong, which I would think is pleasing to you. I fail to see what differentiates usage of well-established, succinct terms as you imagine from a He is an asshole, ignore him. It's the difference between (in your example) dismissing a person as bad and (in my description) dismissing an argument as bad. Dismissing a person as bad must be done with great care and the margin for error is high. Dismissing an argument as bad is, by comparison, much simpler and can be done dispassionately and mercilessly. I see pointing out a personal attack as more like someone posting he is primarily personally attacking the previous poster - ignore him. Or, better: “That statement is a personal attack on the poster, and is irrelevant to the argument”. The implication being, of course, that it's the bad argument that is irrelevant, and making no judgement about the person who made it. Just because a person makes an ad hominem fallacy doesn't mean they can't subsequently introduce a sound fact-based point. Of course we *also* need to use our social record-keeping brains to judge a person's likelihood of future poor argument based on their demonstrated history, and hence decide what our threshold for dealing with that person is; but that's a subjective judgement for each of us and is far less amenable to consensus. As Manoj has pointed out (better than I did earlier), to *name* a fallacious argument is merely to point out clearly that the discussion has *already* gone off-topic, and is best interpreted as a request that the off-topic digression be terminated quickly. And it is you deciding that the other side has gone too far or off-topic and it is you deciding the discussion no longer has any chance to lead anywhere. Yes, of course. Others can come to different conclusions and act accordingly; which is why it's incumbent on the person pointing out a fallacious argument to make it clear *why* that particular argument meets that fallacy, so others can judge accordingly. As I've written before, I think that some of the bigger debian lists would be better if *someone* decided when the discussion has gone too far or off-topic and acted on it (putting a thread on mod-hold and just slowing the discussion, for example). […] Any such decision mechanism should be open, transparent and accountable to DDs. Sounds good to me. -- \ “I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or a goal, or | `\anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic.” —Albert | _o__)Einstein, unsent letter, 1955 | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Summary of the debian-devel BoF at Debconf9
Bernhard R. Link brl...@debian.org writes: Perhaps there is a way to […] discourage all meta-discussion or mentioning of fallacy, ad-hominem or strawman on the other lists. Perhaps you have a better way of succinct terms to use when challenging those logical fallacies? Surely you're not saying you want such fallacies to go unchallenged in the forums where they appear? -- \ “You are welcome to visit the cemetery where famous Russian and | `\Soviet composers, artists, and writers are buried daily except | _o__) Thursday.” —Russian orthodox monastery, Moscow | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Summary of the debian-devel BoF at Debconf9
Bernhard R. Link brl...@debian.org writes: * Ben Finney ben+deb...@benfinney.id.au [090818 11:28]: Perhaps you have a better way of succinct terms to use when challenging those logical fallacies? I think succinct terms help not at all here. Once there is a succinct term 90% of their use is name-calling. You apparently perceive these terms in a very strange way. These terms refer to *arguments*, or points made within them; an argument is not the person who made it. They're not “name-calling” in any sense except the tautological (they name a thing). If people think something is wrong they should say what is wrong and not invoce some name. Your distinction is lost on me; pointing out that someone has presented a logical fallacy *is* saying what is wrong. That we have succinct labels with well-established meanings serves to more quickly communicate what is wrong, which I would think is pleasing to you. To point out what is wrong *without* using the well-known terms for common fallacies surely leads to more volume of discussion devoted to that, which is what I thought you were trying to avoid. But I think it would much help if the replies on the lists itself are about the topic, and not diverting into what are valid or invalid forms to produce arguments. As Manoj has pointed out (better than I did earlier), to *name* a fallacious argument is merely to point out clearly that the discussion has *already* gone off-topic, and is best interpreted as a request that the off-topic digression be terminated quickly. And really, if some logical conclusion is so broken that this brokeness has its own name, then everybody should be able to see it. Not at all. The fact that these fallacies are so common is intricately linked to the fact that it's usually difficult to recognise them without conscious effort. I guess that is a reason why those succinct terms are so often used to throw them againt people like names-calling. I think your guess is wrong. -- \ “Know what I hate most? Rhetorical questions.” —Henry N. Camp | `\ | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Summary of the debian-devel BoF at Debconf9
Michael Banck mba...@debian.org writes: On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 03:17:55PM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote: Indeed, leaving logical fallacies unchallenged does [more] to harm the discussion than pointing them out and trying to bring the thread back to a logical discussion; and leaving ad hominem attacks unchallenged poisons the discussion environment to the point that it detracts from the discussion itself. I think people would prefer if those were pointed out in private mail. This preference amounts to preferring that fallacies go unchallenged in the forum where they were uttered. -- \ “You've got to think about big things while you're doing small | `\ things, so that all the small things go in the right | _o__) direction.” —Alvin Toffler | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Summary of the debian-devel BoF at Debconf9
Steve Langasek vor...@debian.org writes: On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 03:25:30PM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote: These attacks on people, as opposed to discussion of what they said, is one of the major reasons discussion threads devolve into unproductive chaos. We should be managing to police discussion better, and the first step is identifying that such a post has been made. Given the sorts of things you've objected to as ad hominem attacks in the past, I definitely don't agree. A number of these have been legitimate complaints about behaviors that distract from or derail technical discussions. Sometimes heated complaints - but no less legitimate for all that. This points out a fallacy common to those who like to point out common fallacies: that it's easy to assume everyone else in the discussion wants to stay on exactly the same topic we ourselves are trying to discuss, and that any response should be interpreted as an attempted response to the argument. As you say, that assumption is often unfounded :-) and so many responses that the arguer might think are logical fallacies, are not so, because they're pursuing an entirely different (sometimes legitimate) argument. -- \ “If you can't annoy somebody there is little point in writing.” | `\—Kingsley Amis | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Summary of the debian-devel BoF at Debconf9
Manoj Srivastava sriva...@debian.org writes: In all of these cases, the relevant question is not who makes the argument, but whether the argument is valid. Often, there are more-relevant questions: whether the argument belongs at all in the specific forum where it was presented, or whether the form of expression used to make the argument is an overall negative to the forum. I think those questions need to be considered, before pressing “send”, more often than whether the argument is logically valid. Perhaps that's the main point being made by some of the requests here. However, once such an inappropriate message *has* been sent to a forum, it's important that its flaws be countered (or its form be challenged) *in the same forum*, otherwise an observer would be justified in concluding from the silent assent that such messages are considered appropriate. -- \ “The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more | `\ to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a | _o__) sober one.” —George Bernard Shaw | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: libgeoip1: Debian turning into an advertising crap?
Frank Bauer frank.c.ba...@gmail.com writes: This advertisement is contained in the GeoIP.conf.default file (package libgeoip1): # If you purchase a subscription to the GeoIP database, # then you will obtain a license key which you can # use to automatically obtain updates. # for more details, please go to # http://www.maxmind.com/app/products [...] A complaint about “advertising” in comments appearing in a configuration file would be better done by filing a ‘wishlist’-priority bug report against that package. If you were reasonable and presented a persuasive argument, you might even convince the package maintainer to remove the advertisement from the file. Do you think it is appropriate for package in main? I think a package is appropriate for main if it is licensed to the recipient under free-software terms, actively and sanely maintained, and useful in a free operating system. The ‘geoip’ package (from which the binary ‘libgeoip1’ package is built) seems to me to meet all those criteria. -- \ “If we have to give up either religion or education, we should | `\ give up education.” —William Jennings Bryan, 1923-01 | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Referring to product's web site in description?
Tollef Fog Heen tfh...@err.no writes: I'm packaging yubikey-personalization, a tool used to set the crypto keys for Yubikeys, which are OTP hardware tokens. The tool is useless without a token, so I'm wondering if I should put a reference into the description for where people can read more about the tokens and possibly purchase one. http://www.yubico.com/products/yubikey/ is the link I'd put in. Does people think that would be too much? I'm divided on the issue -- on one hand, I don't want Debian to end up plastered with ads, on the other hand, the tool is not useful without a token, so pointing people to where they can get one sounds reasonable. I think that's a job, not for the Debian package information, but for the project's home page. The package description should give enough information for the reader to understand whether they want the package on their system. The job of the ‘Homepage’ field is to point to the WWW home page *of the software work*, specifically. Is there such a page for this work? -- \ “If you can do no good, at least do no harm.” —_Slapstick_, | `\ Kurt Vonnegut | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: On cadence and collaboration
Julien BLACHE jbla...@debian.org writes: Indeed. And I truly don't see how being tied to and restricted by other projects with differing interests can help us there. Quite to the contrary. I take it then that another part of Mark's message you discarded was the part where he explained the goal is to discover and better advertise existing opportunities to collaborate, and *not* to have one project “restricted” by another. Well, we believe differently, and that's OK. I think it's easy enough to go and speak to a few upstreams, and ask them this: what would you do differently if you knew that multiple distributions would all sit down and think about which version of your code to ship with their big 2010 release? I think you'd find most of them say that would be amazing. I don't really care about what they say, I care about how they act upon it afterwards. Right. If they gave that answer, I'd be responding “you didn't answer the question: what would you do differently?”. -- \ “For of those to whom much is given, much is required.” —John | `\F. Kennedy | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: So what?
Francesco P. Lovergine fran...@debian.org writes: - Next time, any team that would take a decision which impacts the whole project have to be fair and consult the project as a whole, before unilateral actions. That's appropriate even if the team is acting within its own limits of decision making, as in this case. This appears as responsible and appropriate to the most. This is a general recommendation and does not require comments, probably. Thank you for saying it, since it does seem to get overlooked too often (not only on this issue). -- \ “Sometimes I — no, I don't.” —Steven Wright | `\ | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Debian decides to adopt time-based release freezes
Marc Haber mh+debian-proj...@zugschlus.de writes: I find it deeply disturbing that DDs not attending Debconf learn about this decision via debian-announce. I would have expected at the very least to announce, if not discuss, on a developer list before. Ditto. Conferences are a great way to get a bunch of people together and kick ideas around, but they are *not* the Annual General Meeting of the project. Issues this sweeping should only be decided via clear, open discussion using the established communication channels wfor the project. A conference that only a fraction of Debian members can attend is not such a channel. -- \ “Nature abhors a moron.” —Henry L. Mencken | `\ | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: [OT] aggressiveness on our mailing lists.
MJ Ray m...@phonecoop.coop writes: Manoj Srivastava sriva...@debian.org wrote: Calling a daft idea silly is being rude now? Not necessarily (it depends how one phrases it), but being rude is one way of being not overly genteel (as the earlier message advocated). I feel one shouldn't discourage politeness here. Agreed, politeness toward people is IMO too infrequent on our lists and is to be actively encouraged. However, I don't think it's necessarily impolite to attack an idea; even to attack it harshly or ridicule it. Care must be taken, by all parties in these conversations, including those who receive the messages, not to inject personal attacks where unwarranted. Strive to craft messages without personal attacks, and to interpret them that way. If what remains is an attack upon an *idea*, so be it; ideas don't have feelings and are not automatically deserving of respect or politeness. “This is a silly idea” attacks no-one and is impolite to no-one. Let those who support the idea come to its defense as they choose; if an idea has no able defenders, let it fall under the attack to clear the way for better ideas. -- \ “All my life I've had one dream: to achieve my many goals.” | `\—Homer, _The Simpsons_ | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: [OT] aggressiveness on our mailing lists.
Matthew Johnson mj...@debian.org writes: On Fri Jul 24 09:57, Charles Plessy wrote: Le Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 03:44:01PM -0500, Manoj Srivastava a écrit : his is silly Are you sure that this is not a typo for This is silly? It didn't occur to me to interpret it any other way (i.e. “This [idea] is silly”), so perhaps you're right that this is the core of the misunderstanding. Manoj seems to be emitting a great deal more typos to Debian forums in recent years. Perhaps we should pool together donations for a better keyboard for him? -- \ “[Freedom of speech] isn't something somebody else gives you. | `\ That's something you give to yourself.” —_Hocus Pocus_, Kurt | _o__) Vonnegut | Ben Finney pgpTZCQhzwclt.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [OT] aggressiveness on our mailing lists.
Charles Plessy ple...@debian.org writes: I hesitated between answering in public or private, but since there are planned discussions at Debconf about aggressivity on the mailing lists, I will do it in public. What is meant here by “aggressivity”? I think there's an important distinction to be made here, between aggression toward people, versus criticism of ideas. In case you had any doubt about it, let me confirm: it hurts to read that kind of answer. The specific message to which you're replying was critical of an idea. I didn't see anything in it that was aggressive toward a person. That ideas are criticised openly is a good, healthy thing for a community. If someone thinks an idea is silly or otherwise deserves ridicule, they should feel free to say so. People may feel hurt when an idea they identify with comes under attack, but the correct response is for people to stop identifying with ideas to that extent. Let ideas stand or fall on their merits, and let no person feel they cannot separate themselves from an idea. Ideas are not sacred: There is no such thing as an idea that should be defended from criticism or even ridicule. I am in wholehearted support of reducing aggression toward people in our forums. But I'm just as wholeheartedly against hurt feelings being any kind of justification for suppression of criticism. In brief: So long as doing so doesn't attack a person, an idea is always a valid target of attack. It does not help, nor bring any useful element to the discussion by starting your anwers with that kind of statements. Please consider refraining from writing them. I think either your idea of “aggression” is not one that I agree with, or that you chose a poor example to which to respond. -- \ “One of the most important things you learn from the internet | `\ is that there is no ‘them’ out there. It's just an awful lot of | _o__)‘us’.” —Douglas Adams | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: [OT] aggressiveness on our mailing lists.
Ben Finney ben+deb...@benfinney.id.au writes: Let ideas stand or fall on their merits, and let no person feel they cannot separate themselves from an idea. Ideas are not sacred: There is no such thing as an idea that should be defended from criticism or even ridicule. s/defended from/sheltered from/ -- \ “I planted some bird seed. A bird came up. Now I don't know | `\ what to feed it.” —Steven Wright | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: A Suggestion
Thanks for your interest in improving Debian. azzka azzka.m...@gmail.com writes: PS: If I sent this email to an address that isn't directly correlated to apt For future reference, the ‘debian-project’ mailing list is not about any particular works distributed in Debian, but is for discussions about the Debian project. please send me the right email. This kind of “it would be good to have foo” query is probably best submitted as a bug report, of severity “wishlist”, to the Debian bug tracking system URL:http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Reporting. Submit the report against the ‘apt’ package to get a response from the maintainer of that specific package. -- \ “It's my belief we developed language because of our deep inner | `\ need to complain.” —Jane Wagner, via Lily Tomlin | _o__) | Ben Finney pgpuKFSNNT26Y.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: DAM and NEW queues processing
Russ Allbery r...@debian.org writes: That I can definitely agree is a concern, and it would be very nice to figure out a way to find project consensus on what should and shouldn't go into the debian/copyright file. Or, more importantly, an actual consistent policy (with rationale) from the ftpmasters to say what they require. -- \“If you go parachuting, and your parachute doesn't open, and | `\you friends are all watching you fall, I think a funny gag | _o__) would be to pretend you were swimming.” —Jack Handey | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: DEP: commit rights to dep repositories on alioth
Lars Wirzenius l...@liw.fi writes: Rationale: DEP texts are not the places were to frantically _develop_ franticly the actual DEP, but just places where to record the state of the art of the proposal, as it has been agreed upon by other means (e.g., consensus on mailing list, as we usually do). In the same vein, the drivers should usually act just as secretaries for a given proposal and it doesn't look like that wide commit access rights are needed to that end. What do other people in the project think? (In case it matters, I'm not a DD but am a member of the project.) I think it's quite reasonable to have a DD as the party responsible for committing DEP revisions, and anyone who wants to affect the process can either work to gain DD status or gain a working relationship (through sponsorship of patches) with one. This is analogous to only allowing package uploads from a DD, and anyone who wants to contribute packages can either work to gain DD status or gain a working relationship (through sponsorship of package uploads) with one. I think that's a reasonable risk management policy for the power to upload changes to the canonical repository, whether of packages or DEP documents. -- \ “The illiterate of the future will not be the person who cannot | `\ read. It will be the person who does not know how to learn.” | _o__) —Alvin Toffler | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Debian Membership
Russ Allbery r...@debian.org writes: Matthew Johnson mj...@debian.org writes: - To decouple of technical and political positions in the membership For what it's worth, I disagree with this goal, assuming that I understand what you mean by it. I think that such a decoupling would be a significant change in how we think of the project, and not one for the better. There are various ways you can structure a project, but the one that Debian has chosen, for good and for ill, is that the people who do the work get a vote. Yes, I object to the above goal for these same reasons. Thanks to Russell for saying this earlier, and better, than I could. -- \“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used | `\ when we created them.” —Albert Einstein | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Assisting with NEW queue backlog (was: What is going wrong with NEW?)
Charles Plessy ple...@debian.org writes: speaking as somebody who contributed ~10 packages to the load, I would like to help to clear the queue. I have no pretention about being able to accept packages, but will try to browse some new ones this week-end and send a few patches for their debian/copyright file to their ITP bug if necessary, in order to save the time of the people taking the final decision. I encourage other contributors to the queue to do the same. [… I'm in the same situation, and I think this is an excellent idea. The packages are on merkel.debian.org in the /org/ftp.debian.org/queue/new/ directory. Since they are not accessible on http://ftp-master.debian.org, I guess that we are not allowed to communicate them to unofficial developpers. Would that also exclude Debian Maintainers from participating? What other actions can non-DDs undertake to assist with NEW queue processing? -- \“Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas | `\ are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats.” | _o__)—Howard Aiken | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Assisting with NEW queue backlog
Paul Wise p...@debian.org writes: Unless you are in the ftpteam group, you won't be able to access the packages in NEW: For the record, this does of course make sense. A big part of the point to the NEW queue is to check whether it's legal for the Debian project to redistribute these works; making them publicly available ifrom official Debian project servers before those checks would undermine that. Looks like your idea will not work unless you can convince the ftpteam to change the permissions on NEW packages. I think there's more prospect in getting hold of the ones that maintainers have placed on the (unofficial) mentors.debian.net, as a way of checking at least *some* of the packages waiting in the queue. -- \ “Whenever you read a good book, it's like the author is right | `\ there, in the room talking to you, which is why I don't like to | _o__) read good books.” —Jack Handey | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
