Re: Testing Discourse for Debian - Moderation concepts
Neil McGovern wrote: > On Wed, Apr 15, 2020 at 12:47:06PM +0200, Ansgar wrote: > > I'm not concerned about marking messages read after some time and > > keeping the view time in ephermal storage for that. But that's not > > what Discourse does: as described elsewhere it stores all read times > > persistently on the server; that would not be neccessary for marking > > posts as read even on a web application. > > No, but it is required for things like knowing which posts in a topic > is popular, so should be used for auto-summary. The more I think about this, the more I think "required" is overstating it. The system could just trust users to click "like" or "thanks" or "+1" or whatever on a post, rather than spying on them. > It also is used to reduce abuse, as a normal new user would spend > time reading topics before posting for the first time. Such heuristics have a bad history of blocking (and sometimes grossly insulting) people who use access-assistance software and special apps because they find unmodified major web browsers hard to use. I haven't tested any on discourse yet because it's a lot of work to sift the javascripts. Nonetheless, in case you don't already know, I really appreciate your work in giving us an instance to test and explore these concepts and consider what next. Regards, -- MJR http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ Member of http://www.software.coop/ (but this email is my personal view only)
Re: Discourse usability
On Mon, 13 Apr 2020 22:23:30 +0200 Martin wrote: > - Badges. "Earned 'First Emoji'", "Earned 'Anniversary'". Is it only > me? But I feel devalued and belittled by gamification. No, it is not only you that dislikes them. I feel they are a distraction and I think many in our community struggle to overcome distractions enough anyway! What's worse, many seem to reward odd things: do we really need to encourage emoji use? I guess there are or could be badges for actions that we want to encourage, like providing good answers or contributing to bugfixes, but whoever created the defaults didn't want anyone to feel left out so they included some silly ones that are easy to get - and then most site operators never change the defaults. And to comment on another of the drawbacks, I'm also concerned that you can't easily store good discussions and that email users have to visit the site to see the full content. Hope that explains, -- MJR http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ Member of http://www.software.coop/ (but this email is my personal view only)
Re: Debian and Non-Free Services
Fri Sep 13 12:06:35 GMT+01:00 2019 Dmitry Eremin-Solenikov : > чт, 12 сент. 2019 г. в 20:30, Sam Hartman : > > For example, Vcs-Git fields in source packages must not refer to > > proprietary git code management systems. Non-Debian services are > > acceptable here so long as they are principally Free Software. > > I'd say strict NO to this proposal. While our goal is to enhance free software > and to encourage its usage, we should not limit our developers' freedom > to use any tool they would like. Both answers limit developers' freedom of choice. NO allows maintainers to host package sources on github or whatever, but that arguably requires future maintainers, co-maintainers and so on to use it too. I have some sympathy with the "send a patch to bugs.debian.org" view. Do any developers ignore those and tell people to join github to use its private version of pull requests? I know I have patches ignored in there but I don't remember being told to go sign a github contract. -- MJR - please excuse brevity because this was sent while mobile
Re: Debian election gerrymander, credibility
On Thu, 14 Mar 2019 09:27:31 +0100 Matthias Hager wrote: > Now I understnad the anger My anger is that you impersonated Matthias Hager to get attention for an inaccurate news article. If you understand that, why do you keep going? -- MJR http://mjr.towers.org.uk/
Re: About ocf.tw receiving donations on behalf of Debian Project
"Yao Wei (魏銘廷)" wrote: > As OCF is now a trusted organization in Debian [1], I'd like to ask if it is > okay for OCF to receive donations on behalf of Debian Project [2]. And, if > so, > how to donate and specify the donation for Debian Project. The monthly > program > (300壯士) [3] doesn't have a place for specifying the donation, and I found no > information how to donate apart from the program. > [1]: https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2017/06/msg0.html > [2]: https://www.debian.org/donations > [3]: http://ocf.tw/300/ Hi - did you get any reply from OCF? I suspect that the donation path is still to be set up fully and then the Debian Project will add it to the donations web page. Hope that helps, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct
Re: Why are in-person meetings required for the debian keyring?
Sam Hartman wrote: > However, I also thing it's desirable that we have some probability of > being able to engage a legal process if we needed to. [...] > That's something we should not stand for, and being able to respond to > that sort of thing in the legal system does have to do with a binding to > a particular legal identity. [...] The legal system in England is often willing to address people by any name that they are commonly known by, besides the name on government-issued identity papers. Meanwhile, some parts of government also accepts common names, but others will only accept registered names and that's a bit of a mess. Unless someone is recording the full information on the government-issued identity papers (at least date and place of birth, but maybe passport number, none of which is on most GPG keys), then it is not an unambiguous binding and this reason doesn't seem very strong. I've more sympathy with the example Phil Hands gave of stopping expelled people sneaking back in under assumed names, but while it's difficult to get government-issued ID in two names, it's not impossible, so maybe we need a rogues gallery or similar for that? Regards, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/54de0b9d.4010...@debian.org
Re: [PHP-QA] Debian and the PHP license
On 31 July 2014 01:03:00 CEST, Charles Plessy wrote: >Back to the question of rebranding, the PHP developers have already >explained >that because PHP is a three-letter word, they are not in a position to >protect their name with a trademark. Therefore, they do it with a >license. > >We can not take Mate and distribute it as “Gnome Plus”. We can not >take a fork >of PHP and call it “BetterPhp”. People can not take a Debian CD, add >non-free >software, and sell it as “Debian Enhanced”. We and other protect our >names, >and PHP does it too. I do not see a problem. There are two problems with trying to use a copyright licence to do the job of a trademark. It's like trying to use a gun to cut your steak. One, it doesn't affect people who write something without using your code. We could clean- room write the perfect hamster punisher and then distribute it as PHP, possibly harming their reputation, but their licence would do nothing to stop us. This is not a worry for Debian but it does show why the licence term is not much like a trademark. Secondly, unless it says otherwise, a naming restriction in a copyright licence doesn't permit honest source attribution and all the other nominative and fair uses that a trademark would. This is more of a problem for Debian. Isn't part of the reason why the name PHP cannot be trademarked that restricting use of such a simple name is obnoxious? There are many ways this could be solved, but the ostrich approach of closing the bugs without fixing them and hiding this from users must be one of the worst. Please support another approach. -- Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/417acac3-ca13-4f82-9f4b-ccce6e4b5...@email.android.com
Re: Debian companies group
On 05/09/13 10:22, Michael Meskes wrote: > On Wed, Sep 04, 2013 at 08:48:59PM +0100, MJ Ray wrote: >> Most importantly, what is the aim of picking a random size limit? > > The size limit is not exactly random, but it may be too high or too low. Great, but what is the aim of that limit? To encourage debian companies to take on DDs on evil zero-hour contracts? [...] >> At the moment, the debian-companies list feels like a solution to no >> problem yet occurring and that's partly why it has only 4 members. > > Given that debian-consultants doesn't have much traffic at all, I can see > other > reason, too. Which are? I suggest one reason may be a lack of interest by the project and that consultants have moved to discussing debian in other places than the project lists, such as social media. There could probably be uses for -consultants if project leaders showed a fraction of the interest they have in -companies. -consultants has 400 members, which seems a much better starting point for development than a list of 4 members. It feels a bit like the project is lusting after companies who aren't interested in that way, rather than treating the lovers it knows well. Regards, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/ -- 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/52285381.6010...@phonecoop.coop
Re: Debian companies group
On 04/09/13 16:14, Michael Meskes wrote: >> You do not found a peer group by inventing random rules meant to exclude > Please get the facts straight. A group of companies can only be build by > companies, not by random people. And somehow the entity "company" has to be > defined. Most importantly, what is the aim of picking a random size limit? And where else defines "company" as "one DD and at least 10 people on staff"? I think being a company is about other things, not who and how many workers you have on contract - how would you cope with companies which meet your artificial number by using zero-hours contracts? I think sometimes "company" can be defined as a legal person: that is, a corporation or group which acts similar to a corporation in key ways. That seems a better starting point than numbers of staff, unless there's some other reason behind it. >> > people. Even less so in a Debian eco-system which is built on the spirit >> > of transparency and the ability of welcoming everyone. > Maybe, but then there is no company peer group so far, so we lack the > experience to say how it works best. Should we look at a list where many of the members are representing, controlling and/or acting for companies? Like someone said: the debian-consultants list exists, doesn't it? ;-) So maybe experiment there and what works for those companies may suggest similar tactics that could work for these companies. At the moment, the debian-companies list feels like a solution to no problem yet occurring and that's partly why it has only 4 members. Regards, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/ -- 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/52278eab.2030...@phonecoop.coop
Re: Debian companies group
On 03/09/13 19:14, Michael Meskes wrote: > Right and we already have a debian-consultants mailing list, don't we? Yes, and that list is also struggling, so why fork it? Regards, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/ -- 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/52278c54.3030...@phonecoop.coop
Re: PaySwarm-based Debian donations
Venture Communism > Everything you said made sense until you said PaySwarm might not bet > the best way to expose financial data to the light of day. Actually > PaySwarm's data formats are in JSON-LD and therefore allow for web > native royalty-free ontology hosting in a way that is maximally > interoperable with the web of open data. JSON-LD seems fine. That doesn't mean I agree with embedding PaySwarm into apt, or anything that's limited to the Meritoria payment processor that is limited to US bank account holders, only uses USD, charges $50/hour if you fail to meet US law (which as an Englishman, I do not know much), makes you liable for unspecified "financial network" fees and uses terms like "intellectual property theft" and "sell digital content". Meritoria seems pretty much the opposite of an international Free and Open Source Software project. Now some of those problems are not their fault (US law, I suspect), but still mean I would prefer not to recommend them. There are reasons why Paypal is based in Singapore, besides the evil scrutiny-avoiding ones. Would it be possible to have a JSON-LD general donation tool that could trigger other (maybe direct) transfers? Why has the W3C Web Payments Group not published any specifications yet? The more I look into the specific proposal, the less comfortable I am with it. > Remember how I gave eight digit accuracy for two 1 cent transactions > earlier in the thread, whereas SPI with all its manpower only has > semi-structured table data where $100+K are taken in but only $13K > are spent this year? "SPI with all its manpower"??? SPI http://www.spi-inc.org/ could well do with more manpower. I think it's currently running on less than a dozen volunteers and some pro-bono advisors. Asking at http://lists.spi-inc.org/listinfo/spi-general/ how one can help would be useful - I think I'll suggest adding "donations of work" to its donations page, too! If accounting for $0.02 of movements takes one person, then accounting for $113+K might take 5650+... but I know it would be easier than that ;) > Oh that's right, nobody knows or cares about the Debian budget sequester. No, I think that's wrong. It's just not high enough up the todo lists for the right people yet. > Please see the following for more information on why linked data is the right > way to expose financial data to the light of day: > http://thepowerofpull.com/pull/foundations/semantic-web-acid-test That's a cool link. I've minor qualms with it (like nonprofit is not enough - qualifying as a nonprofit may be just accounting trickery like a CEO's performance-related pay perfectly consuming all profits and it doesn't mean the users control the standard) but it's essentially right. > If you ever want to get out of software cooperatives and into > hardware cooperatives, http://venturecommunism.com is trying to open > source the business models. I'm unlikely to do so (I'm a statistician not an electronics guy), but I'll make a note so that we can point any of the infrequent membership enquiries from hardware hackers towards it! Regards, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/ -- 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/e1upghn-00085i...@bletchley.towers.org.uk
Re: Proposal #3: Upstream/Debian Project donations
Russ Allbery > More seriously, you really can't understate how much the project felt > generally burned by the huge Dunc-Tank controversy. I was one of the > people who thought it was a decent idea at the time, but the outcome was > far more disruptive than I think it was worth. I think an earlier post > from you mentioned that you didn't find a lot of good information on-line > about it. There is an article at: > > http://archive09.linux.com/feature/59300 > > which isn't awful, but which more importantly has links to a variety of > other articles and might be a good starting point to understand more about > what happened. Not awful, but selective to fit its narrative and some links have succumbed to bitrot. Like it notes that I was hard-line on saying that the experiment failed, but I wrote elsewhere that there should be no shame in a experiment that fails to achieve its success criteria - some say we can learn more from failures than successes. That doesn't mean politicians should be allowed to redefine failed-with-lessons as successes, though. And yes, contrary to that article, a specific date (2006-12-04) was given. Was it a commitment? Depends if you think an external business can commit the debian project to anything. I think it's also worth reading Anthony Towns's last (AFAIK) summary of it, which I found using the search on http://planet.debian.net : http://www.erisian.com.au/wordpress/2007/06/17/dunc-tank-report-ideas That poses the key questions which the project probably needs to address before some clear, structured funding can happen, but like I noted in http://lists.debian.org/457fff10.nuzqcmr2iczfvdbr%25...@phonecoop.coop dunc-tank itself refused to collect any data to help answer them. I'm not sure we're any closer to answers yet. Hope that helps, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/ -- 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/e1upg3g-0007ku...@bletchley.towers.org.uk
Re: PaySwarm-based Debian donations
Tollef Fog Heen > Money is a very undemocratic resource, and I believe that tipping (which > is what I consider small donations based on work done by an individual > to a single package is) is denigrating and a blight upon the world. tfheen is not alone. This podcast suggests a correlation between tipping and other forms of corruption - maybe because it normalises the concept of informal payment for work if and only if you like the outcome - and a deeply-researched link between various types of discrimination and tipping: http://www.freakonomics.com/2013/06/03/should-tipping-be-banned-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/ That said, I think donations are already going on around debian and not only through the project, so doing nothing would mean continuing the current shady market. I don't think that is healthy and I would like to see it brought into the daylight, but I'm not sure that PaySwarm is the best way. I would prefer a simpler listing of which developers are available for hire and which projects they are interested in working on. If that could be presented in the PTS, package managers or reportbug, that would be great. Would anyone block such changes? Disclosure: like many developers, I'm listed on http://www.debian.org/consultants/ but don't get much work from it. Hope that helps, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/ -- 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/e1upelq-00073a...@bletchley.towers.org.uk
Re: Answers to questions raised about registering the Debian Logo as our trademark
Brian Gupta > I finally had a chance to discuss with our legal counsel, and have > some answers to the questions raised in the discussion. Thanks for this. It covers all I remember. One small question: > 3) Should we register in the US only or register internationally? > A: Being as US registration is mandatory to extend internationally > start with the US, and then later Debian can make a decision on > international registration. What's the source on that? I thought I'd seen trademarks start in other places and then extend internationally. > 4) What is the impact of registering in the US only? > A: We would still only have Common law protection in those countries > we don't register the logo. We'd gain no benefit in those > jurisdictions, but it wouldn't hurt us either. [...] Well, I've few US customers buying debian, it would probably be allowed as honest description, and I'm not in the US anyway, so I think I don't care too much about the US registration. I still feel that this seems like a waste of project money (are many infringers in the US anyway?) and potentially a blank cheque ($3347 plus maintenance and costs of enforcement necessary to prevent it becoming generic), but I'd prefer those who are based and trading significantly with the debian logo in the US to make the decision. Shall I poll http://www.debian.org/consultants/#US or has someone? Hope that explains, -- MJ Ray, Software Engineering Specialist, www.software.coop member. Emails 2x most days: please use i...@software.coop for faster answer. Turo Technology LLP, reg'd in England+Wales, number OC303457 Registered Office: 384 Lynn Road, Setchey, Norfolk GB-PE33 0PD -- 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/e1umic1-0001dv...@bletchley.towers.org.uk
Re: next DPL helpers meeting on tuesday (2013-06-11)
Lucas Nussbaum > The agenda is online[1]. If you are listed on one of the pending > actions, it would be great if you could describe its status, [...] It would probably work better if the announcement says who the people listed are, rather than expect all recipients to open a link with a suitably fat browser to see the titanpad. Hope that helps, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- 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/e1uly3w-0001ct...@bletchley.towers.org.uk
Re: Revising the Code of Conduct
Wouter Verhelst proposed: > The Debian mailinglists exist to foster the development and use of > Debian. This Code of Conduct exists to help towards that goal. > > In particular, the following rules should be adhered to by participants > to discussion on Debian mailinglists: That second paragraph looks like it should get complaints from debian-l10n-english, so let's rephrase: Participants in discussions on Debian mailing lists should follow these rules: > 1. Do not flame, use foul language, or in general be abusive or >disrespectful towards other people on the mailinglists or elsewhere >in Debian. That type of behaviour is not constructive and can quickly >lead to a degradation of the quality of a discussion. I feel it would be nicer to open with a positive point rather than a big "DO NOT". I'd rephrase even "do not flame" as a positive instruction, so I'd reorder/rewrite the first three items like so: 1. You're welcome to use our mailing lists to ask questions, but please use the most appropriate list you can see. If you are unsure, use debian-user for support-related questions, or debian-mentors for development-related questions. Be prepared to ask your question on a different list if told to do so, and mention that it is a resent question. 2. Avoid flaming, cursing and other abusive or disrespectful behaviour as much as you can. That usually distracts from the real discussion and is not constructive. 3. Use the correct language when sending mails to our lists. This is usually English, unless otherwise noted in the description of the mailing list in question. I think "mailing list" is still usually two words, so I'd change that throughout. Oh and I added mentioning that a question has been resent, as it can be annoying to find half a discussion months later. >[...] You should preferably also use a >mailer which respects the Mail-Followup-To: header, or make a >best-effort attempt at respecting it manually if you don't. Yeah, I hope there's significant opposition to this change! I think it's a great shame that Mail-Followup-To is still stumbling around, 15 years after its fatal wounding in IETF DRUMS. It still doesn't work and last I knew, mutt implemented it a different way to djb's spec and some other clients, which complicates its use. For one typical discussion, see http://www.imc.org/ietf-822/mail-archive/msg05692.html In short, I'd prefer the code of conduct to encourage people to take control rather than recommend rejected / divergently-implemented headers: You should check whether to reply to the List-Post address only, or whether the original author would like to be a Cc recipient. This may be indicated in the non-standard Mail-Followup-To header. > Repeated offenders may be temporarily of permanently banned from posting s/ of / or / Other than that, I think it's pretty unobjectionable, as far as I could tell. Hope that helps, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- 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/e1ueowf-ov...@bletchley.towers.org.uk
Re: Registering the Debian Logo as our trademark?
MJ Ray phonecoop.coop> writes: > [registration] allows law > enforcement officers to prosecute what they consider infringement, > whether or not we do. This is one way that multinationals make > taxpayers pay for policing their brands - however, debian is not > locked down like LVMH or D&G. I'd like to make it clear that I was suggesting LVMH and D&G as typical of how most trademarks are "locked down", not that their holders have necessarily directly controlled legislation. I'd also like to make it clear lawyers are reading our lists ;-) Hope that helps, -- MJR http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Maybe My Opinion Only. -- 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/loom.20130424t122625-...@post.gmane.org
Re: Registering the Debian Logo as our trademark?
Brian Gupta > Pros: > - > - Makes it easier, legally speaking, to protect our trademark, if it > ever came to it Is this a significant benefit? How many protection actions have been prevented by the lack of registration? > - When companies are doing trademark searches for logos in the > trademark database, they would be discouraged from using our logo, as > it is would be in the database. Do abusers of our trademark bother to search? Surely they'd be discouraged if they search the web? That's easier to search than the USPTO database. > - If a company tries to register a logo trademark that is the same as > ours, the USPTO should not allow it, since it is in their database. (I > say should, as mistakes can happen) Related questions: Is the US the best place for the primary registration? How is it better than filing in an EU state and using the Madrid Protocol or similar? > Cons: > - > - Filing costs of ~$700 > - Labor/work required to file (With assistance from SFLC, I am willing > to do much of the work required.) > - Required extra coordination with SPI > - If someone has already filed our logo as a trademark, we will be > forced into a situation where we need to deal with that. (I have > already done a preliminary search of the USPTO database, and found no > such occurrences, so feel this risk is minimal.) > - In order to maintain the status of a federally registered trademark, > the owner must file a statement of continued use and later, a renewal > application. (Again more work, which I am willing to do.) Is this a one-way trap-door? If we register, do we have to maintain registration forever or lose the benefits? Can we fall back to a common law trademark later? I feel you're missing a major con: whereas any type of trademark infringement is a civil law dispute, one effect of registration is to activate criminal law in many places (I think it's still the Copyright, Trademarks, etc Act 2002 in the UK). That allows law enforcement officers to prosecute what they consider infringement, whether or not we do. This is one way that multinationals make taxpayers pay for policing their brands - however, debian is not locked down like LVMH or D&G. Most of the people who would use the debian logo are our supporters and we'd be putting them at risk from harrassment by the sort of ignorant officers who famously complained to the Mozilla Foundation that releasing a browser under a Free Software copyright licence made it hard for them to prosecute illegal file sharing or whatever it was. > Other projects that have registered their logo: > --- When I was looking years ago, the Java mascot was the only really nicely licensed trademark I found. I regret that I've not got time to see if/how the others have changed recently. With word marks, hasn't our project had complaints from well-meaning supporters of other projects about keeping the same command name (maybe through /etc/alternatives) when we've patched and maybe even renamed packages? Maybe less of a problem for logos, though. [...] > What do people feel about proceeding with this registration? I would rather not do it, but if we do, I think it needs extreme caution. It's very easy to screw things up and end up making an entire class of works under DFSG-following copyright licences become non-free because of a DFSG-breaching trademark licence and obnoxious criminal trademark law defaults. Regards, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- 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/e1uuahf-wz...@bletchley.towers.org.uk
Re: Debian Linux 6.0 latest version announcement
"Lee Gilbert C [Contractor]" > Good Morning, please forgive my lack of knowledge as I am not a Debian Linux > expert. I am seeking information about the latest announced server Operating > System for Debian Linux. I realize that the latest version is Debian Linux > version 6.0, but has there been any announcement (not necessarily released) > of future releases past version 6.0. If so, I would appreciate any > information. Debian 7.0 "Wheezy" is forthcoming and has been mentioned in the following announcements, among others: http://www.debian.org/News/2011/20110726b http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120213 http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120425 http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20121110 Hope that informs, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- 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/e1u2hx4-0001hg...@bletchley.towers.org.uk
Re: Validity of DFSG #10
Stefano Zacchiroli wrote: > Hold on :-) All you're discussing here already exists. FTP masters vet > software that enters the archive, de facto deciding whether the > associated licenses are DFSG free or not. Actually, don't they decide whether the *software* follows the DFSG? They're not the DFLG, after all. It is quite possible to use a licence that works fine for some other software and botch it (I think there's a famous example where a trademark licence is applied in tandem with the copyright one), resulting in a fail. That's why I phrased http://www.debian.org/legal/licenses/ as "Licenses currently found..." rather than the inaccurate wording used on many entries on http://wiki.debian.org/DFSGLicenses It's also why lists of "good" licenses have limited value. > I didn't want to imply that we should change anything of that. We > should rather consolidate the work they do and index licenses, > decisions, and rationales for such decisions in a central place that > people can look at. I think there have been at least three attempts to index them in the past, but few seemed to care about them and so they gradually bitrot. Even the DFSGLicenses wiki page was last edited 2012-08-16 and now appears to be immutable. Who wants this index? Who's willing to put the time in? I'd be happy to help, although I won't lead another attempt. Regards, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/ -- 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/e1tscoo-0001tk...@petrol.towers.org.uk
Re: [Debconf-discuss] ...
Leandro Gómez > Yes, please stop this nonsense! OK, sure, but could everyone also please stop this sort of nonsense: > If you haven't been part of local team organizing a DebConf, you don't know > how frustrating and demoralizing this kind of discussion is. [...] and (quoting Gunnar Wolf): > we should > have a talk about this kind of topics. Maybe as a DebConf session, Both of those are rather bizarre concepts which will probably lead to a feedback loop, because mainly people who agree with how DebConf is currently organised will help organise one; and mainly people who DebConf currently serves will attend one. This is a far better idea and I commend it to everyone: > maybe as a mail thread during a quieter period. Anyone like to suggest when that quieter period might be? (back to quoting Leandro): > Please use your time and energy on something more productive and urgent. > Like helping the local team to make DebConf13 a success. I think I disagree with the current organisation processes but this isn't the time for specifics. So I wish you all the best in making the event a success and hope that all those involved find it rewarding, but I'm going to work on other things instead. (This is sometimes called a yellow light, or stand-aside.) Regards, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- 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/e1tg1w6-x9...@petrol.towers.org.uk
Re: mjg59's blog on planet.d.o
Lars Wirzenius > On Tue, Oct 30, 2012 at 12:19:12AM +0100, Jakub Wilk wrote: > > AFAIK Matthew Garrett hasn't been "active and directly involved > > participant in the Debian development community" for years. What is > > the reason for keeping his blog on planet.d.o? [...] > Now, when he blogs about what Ted Ts'o has said about rape, you react. > This sounds an awful lot like you want to remove Matthew from Planet > Debian because of his opinions on that issue. > > It is true that Matthew does not necessarily fill the criteria for being > on Planet Debian, in the strictest interpretation. However, if we remove > him right now, it sends a very clear signal that this is a forbidden issue > in Debian, and, as a result, that women's rights aren't welcome anymore. So let's put the reason for removal clearly wherever such things are noted. It may be an indirect consequence of writing about a hot topic, but it's not the stated reason. I feel we should take Jakub Wilk at his word and not assign other motives without more justification. Now I'll go read the blog post Lars mentions... back in a mo... OK, well, actually, it's in a Linux-related context, but I think it's not itself especially a women's rights issue as mjg59's blog presents it (it would apply to a wide range of sexual violence), so I think raising the spectre of "women's rights aren't welcome anymore" is a bit unhelpful in a few ways... not least because it suggests that women have different rights - but don't we support equality? But personally, I'd leave mjg59's blog on planet - he's an ex-developer writing about things of continuing interest and relevance to the project that are probably good for us to know about. The "active and directly involved participant in the Debian development community" isn't the same as "current debian developers". Regards, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/ -- 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/e1tta71-0002pf...@petrol.towers.org.uk
Re: [Debconf-team] Budget status - travel sponsorship)
Richard Darst > It is hard to improve things. The order we spend money is: venue > rental, accom, food, , travel. If travel is > prioritized low, and we always are short of money, travel will keep > being last. I'm not sure that's quite right. Debconf might allocate the money in that order, but I suspect it's often actually spent in an order closer to venue rental deposit, travel, accom, , food, rest of the venue rental. So the most stress is on travel, which is allocated last but should be spent early to get the most benefit. Richard suggests the debian project guaranteeing X travel sponsorship early in the cycle. There are at least two more ways around this, including: - the project guarantees those later known-size expenses for everything after accommodation, so debconf can use that money to fund the cashflow for travel sponsorship. This difference is that the project is just underwriting core conference costs and doesn't look as much like a sponsor, so shouldn't discourage any real sponsors. - each debconf funds the following debconf's travel. To cover the changeover, the project would need to raise one debconf's travel (maybe for about the same amount as this year's travel, say 20k?) as a sort of seed/transition fund, on the understanding that the final debconf's surplus will be paid back to the project; - do nothing and keep on with the current system. Which do you prefer? I like all but the last one ;-) but I'd probably suggest the each-debconf-funds-the-next one. There will still need to be a flexible approach to travel sponsorship, as there are different cheapest times for different routes, but at least you'd be more confident about the total size of the travel pot. Whatever is drafted later and decided in maybe five or six months' time, good luck with it and thank you for grasping this nettle. Hope that helps, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/ -- 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/e1smzb0-0002ej...@petrol.towers.org.uk
Re: More feedback
Nik K > Also, please make Debian 7 like Debian 5 in the way where there is a > network-manager applet. Well, there's at least two: network-manager and wicd. Documentation for those two is in the usual places (Help Viewer, man at the command line, and so on). Documentation for how to configure networking is currently in the manual "Chapter 5, Network setup" at http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/ch05.en.html or if you're not online (because networking needs configuring...), I think there's an equivalent page in the debian-reference package. I suspect something went a bit wrong with your upgrade (or was it a fresh installation?). Debian 6 works fine for me, most of the time. Finally, you probably should explain the problem to debian-user@, rather than debian-project@, if you'd like help. http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html might give some tips on what to put in the email to get the best replies. Hope that helps, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/ -- 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/e1sleiv-0007zy...@petrol.towers.org.uk
Re: Debian "Position" on Software Patents
Filipus Klutiero wrote: > 5. A request/demand that people concerned with specific patent issues > do not share their concerns, except with the contact point mentioned > in 3. > > [...] 5. is, however, anti-transparency, and IMO against > our ethics. Such a position statement cannot be made prior to > discussion. Since it looks like this wasn't discussed yet, I am hereby > lauching a public discussion on 5. This is not a poll, but I'd like to > see the opinions of others on it. and whether it is unanimous or not. As I wrote in http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2012/02/msg00129.html I think it was discussed, so the above claim is a bit off, but a public discussion might be enlightening anyway. Also, can the DPL really not just issue this position statement as a "decision for whom noone else has responsibility"? I'm pretty sure the DPL procedure (such as it is) was followed: that zack solicited views and made a decision he felt to be consistent with the consensus. Personally, I'm uncomfortable with point 5, but I think I'm living in a country where legislation prohibits software patents and there isn't a specific increase in punishment if you might have read emails form a third party about a possible patent infringement (but I could be wrong). I think the request to focus patent topics on one contact point is to protect less fortunate developers: there are some, aren't there? In the USA with its crazy anti-free-enterprise software patent madness? Regards, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- 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/e1sihlk-00061z...@petrol.towers.org.uk
Re: Diversity statement for the Debian Project
Gunnar Wolf > [...] if debian-women as re-formed today, it would probably be called > debian-inclusiveness or something like that. It just does not stop at > welcoming women and making Debian a gender-agnostic place. So rename it? > And, guys and girls in d-women, you are for me one of the most > inspiring, hard-working and most admirable parts of the project. Yes, they seem to be doing mostly good work and are more inclusive than the name suggests, but I just can't bring myself to support groups with such a basically exclusive name that misleads people. Anyway, it's disappointing that only this point attracted any attention and the more urgent points either side (who will enforce it? what happens if the GR fails?) seem to have been ignored. Hope that explains, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- 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/e1scuse-0001l6...@petrol.towers.org.uk
Re: Diversity statement for the Debian Project
Francesca Ciceri > a recent discussion [1] on Debian Women mailing list made me realize that > the Debian Project, the *Universal* Operating System, doesn't have a > diversity statement [2]. I have three worries: 1. what's the point? What will actually change as a result of this statement? When someone next starts smearing a fellow contributor because they objected to a majority-supported action on religion/belief grounds (for some religions do directly contradict each other), or offers only obnoxious ways for people to opt-out of such actions, how will this statement help? Who do you think would enforce it and are they willing to do so, or is the DPL willing to appoint more volunteers who are willing to do so? 2. the continuing existance of the Debian Women mailing list illustrates one way the whole-project level still does not honour diversity and creates special spaces for some groups but not others. 3. what if the developers by way of General Resolution reject it? Regards, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- 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/e1scb5t-0005v7...@petrol.towers.org.uk
Re: OSI affiliation
David Weinehall > On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 01:08:28PM +, Gervase Markham wrote: > > - It would be difficult to get wide enough agreement on exactly which > > licenses were "bad enough" to be revoked. > > This might be tricky, agreed. Lucky for them Debian has got a pretty > solid good/bad list already. We can even offer it free of charge, free > to modify, free to use anyway they please, free to redistribute, free > for whatever purpose they want. ;) Could you send me a copy of the solid list, please? I'd like to replace the junk I used to start http://www.debian.org/legal/licenses/ ;-) Regards, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/ -- 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/e1s0af1-0007xm...@petrol.towers.org.uk
Re: Debian Position on Software Patents
Filipus Klutiero > Stefano Zacchiroli wrote: > > Debian Position on Software Patents > Thanks. But where was this "position"/policy discussed? I think it was mainly discussed between DPL and lawyers, and DPL and interested developers who contacted him. There were some discussions that I remember but I don't think are public-archived. The road to this seems to have started at DebConf 10: http://penta.debconf.org/dc10_schedule/events/613.en.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2011/08/msg3.html http://www.debian.org/reports/patent-faq http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2011/12/msg0.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/01/msg1.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/02/msg1.html Hope that informs, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/ -- 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/e1s0acd-0007wz...@petrol.towers.org.uk
Re: OSI affiliation
Jose Luis Rivas > On 02/21/2012 12:32 PM, Russ Allbery wrote: > > We would need to start by identifying the licenses that we care enough > > about to demand that they be purged. I suspect that list may be of zero > > size, mostly on the "care enough about" front. > > This is what I asked for before, but what MJ Ray gave me was just one > license and Josselin didn't answered. And MJ didn't saw a reason for > making a list. I don't feel that's accurate. The request was for "a list with the OSI-approved licenses that [Josselin] call non-free?" and I gave you about 30 licences that OSI had approved unilaterally. When pushed by Phil Hands for which ones of those were in debian non-free, I mentioned the only one that I know about. Feel free to search the archive to see if the others are in there somewhere. (I did the task a few years ago... now you can have a try. Might be easier with DEP-5.) But I still feel this is missing the point: the certification scheme is broken in at least three ways and misapprovals is maybe the least serious. The others are the advocate-led process and the use of a monopoly right. I'm not Josselin but I'd call anything on the OSI list that the FSF has explicitly rejected non-free. As of OSI's 2009 list, that was: NASA Open Source Agreement Reciprocal Public License Sybase Open Watcom Public License > There's a lot of "there must be a purge of licenses" arguments, but > which ones? Absolutely: Apple Public Source Licence; Should: NASAOSA, RPL, SOWPL above; Better: anything on the OSI list which is not on FSF lists - maybe move these to a discouraged list; Ideal: anything on the OSI list which is not in debian main - maybe move these to a discouraged-and-unpopular list. But as others note, I think that OSI's no-longer-accurate name, their limited goals and broken processes are also really grave problems which should be addressed before the debian project joins and so gives its stamp of approval. For now, it would be better to see just some group of interested debian developers that would like to advise OSI. Maybe that could be as delegates from debian to OSI, if the DPL is willing? Regards, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/ -- 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/e1s0a4w-0007t9...@petrol.towers.org.uk
Re: trademark licenses and DFSG: a summary
Russ Allbery > MJ Ray writes: > > Uoti Urpala > >> [...] A meaningful trademark license cannot permit everything permitted > >> under the DFSG; at some point you do have to rebrand the software and > >> remove use of trademarks to be allowed to further exercise DFSG > >> freedoms (a limitation allowed by DFSG 4). > > > Hi! This looks like the unproven step. Why can't it? > > Because you will lose the trademark if you allow anyone to do anything > whatsoever with the mark. [...] OK, I'll accept the implied assertion that happens in practice. I think that's called "genericide", isn't it? But I'm not seeking a licence that allows "anyone to do anything whatsoever". We're talking about permitting "everything permitted under the debian free software guidelines", which I think could include describing some boundaries beyond which it would need renaming as permitted by guideline 4, which would seem like enough to stop it becoming generic. However, I've read some things claiming that generic simply means "not used to exclusively identify the products of a particular business" which I don't think can be right because that would appear to be a problem for a lot of non-trading organisations that have registered trademarks. Is there a neat definition or helpful near-borderline examples of when genericide occurs? > > I could have sworn I'd seen at least one: OpenJDK or something like that > > - was it not meaningful in your opinion, has the law changed since, or > > something else? > > There are a lot of trademarks that are still claimed but that, in > practice, are probably indefensible in court and would be rescinded if > they were ever challenged because they've not been defended by their > holders and substantial public confusion already exists. > > Note, though, that as I understand it people have to actually *use* the > permissive grant that you've given them and create confusing products to > undermine your mark. If you let people do it, but no one does, that's a > different situation. It was http://openjdk.java.net/legal/openjdk-trademark-notice.html I'm pretty sure that we've actually called openjdk by that name, but has Sun-now-Oracle ever prosecuted anyone for infringing it? Thanks for your help, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/ -- 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/e1s09h7-0007ih...@petrol.towers.org.uk
Re: trademark licenses and DFSG: a summary
Uoti Urpala > [...] A meaningful trademark license cannot permit everything > permitted under the DFSG; at some point you do have to rebrand the > software and remove use of trademarks to be allowed to further > exercise DFSG freedoms (a limitation allowed by DFSG 4). Hi! This looks like the unproven step. Why can't it? I could have sworn I'd seen at least one: OpenJDK or something like that - was it not meaningful in your opinion, has the law changed since, or something else? > [...] Try to understand what the actual issues here are, and then > read through the thread again. Careful! No good lies in suggesting people who disagree with you are stupid (cannot understand) or careless (did not read), especially when many readers of debian-project have understood their arguments more often than yours in the past, even if we disagreed. It may be possible to understand the issues, read the thread and still disagree about the conclusions. Regards, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- 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/e1rzncs-00071n...@petrol.towers.org.uk
Re: trademark licenses and DFSG: a summary
Gervase Markham > On 20/02/12 03:43, Craig Small wrote: > > That all sounds like a good reason to reject this hypothetical package. > > Retrospectively being able to change the trademark terms sounds like a > > "tentacles of evil" problem. > > Surely only if the "remove the trademark now, please" command has some > effect on the functioning of the software? > > Imagine some software with a README which says: > > "This software and its derivatives are endorsed by Gervase Markham, > until such time as he withdraws that endorsement for a particular > derivative. If he does so and informs the maintainer of that derivative, > this paragraph must be removed from that derivative." > > Does the presence of those two sentences in a README make the software > non-free? Yes! Firstly, the paragraph should allow its retention with a different name as the endorser. DFSG 3: Derived Works. Secondly, it allows retrospective amendment: I'm sure such licences have been rejected in the past (often called the "tentacles of evil" test). Non-permanent licences that could start failing DFSG 1 or 3 at an arbitrary-but-unknown future date are at least a practical problem for stuff that has releases we want to archive forever. This isn't the usual situation for "or any later version" licences because there's the option of continuing with the current version. So, as it makes it non-free, the rest of the posted argument fails. Of course, we can make a free software version by removing that paragraph on first sight. > The first is simply a statement of fact. The second is a requirement for > non-misrepresentation, such as in a BSD licence. I don't see any > freeness problems with such a statement. You could argue it's a > restriction on modification, but it's not - you could, if you chose, > remove the sentence at any time. [...] Removal is only one type of modification - a very destructive one at that - whereas we seek permission to modify in other ways, except for cases like the limited stuff in DFSG 4. Hope that explains, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- 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/e1rzn5c-0006yi...@petrol.towers.org.uk
Re: OSI affiliation
Gervase Markham > If you read the OSI discussion lists, you'll certainly find senior > figures in that movement regretting previous decisions, e.g. about > particular license approvals. Having groups like Debian involved seems > to me that it will reduce the likelihood of more of that happening in > the future. Words are cheap. When will OSI revoke some of the bloopers? I think the Debian project maybe should be involved, but affiliation would be premature. Regards, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/ -- 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/e1rzmdc-0006na...@petrol.towers.org.uk
Re: trademark licenses and DFSG: a summary
Uoti Urpala > Craig Small debian.org> writes: > > All of the sections in the DFSG are important. We could of, when > > framing the DFSG, gone the easy path and not had a section 8 but we > > didn't. To me the requirements that we will not accept a > > You can't trust entities like Debian to stay "good" forever. The only > practical way to maintain trust is to maintain some degree of control. Debian is an operating system. Once released good, it will stay good forever, so I don't see why can't we trust it? > You can't enumerate all the possible kinds of badness you'd want to > forbid, and then grant a blanket trademark license to everyone > allowing everything else. > > You seem to have ignored or failed to understand what I said about > DFSG vs trademarks. You really can't expect to apply DFSG to trademark > requirements. Why the devil not? We expect a blanket copyright licence that allows everything except a few sacred acts (stripping attribution, for example). Also, we expect to apply the DFSG to copyright requirements which are worse by default (no rights for users). Trademarks have to be actively made into problems, which shows rather more intent to attack downstream than copyright. > [...] If you accept that some changes may > require users to do rebranding anyway, then I see no fundamental > objection to some forms of Debian-specific trademark licenses. I think that's conflating two things. A Debian-specific trademark licence would not be agreeable because it would hinder downstream distributions. A trademark licence specific to a particular version of a package might be acceptable under the DFSG (unsure about DFSG 3: it would allow modifications and distribution under the same terms, but it would not meet the TM terms, so would have to be renamed and distributed under terms that required not to use the original name - is this OK? Not sure. Seems easier to rename anyway) but I suspect most maintainers would see it as too much of a pain to manage. It risks having to rename in future anyway if upstream gets annoyed, so why not rename before submitting it to NEW? Ultimately, what are restrictive trademark licensors trying to do besides restrict the freedom of downstream users to adapt the software to their needs and share it with their friends? Regards, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- 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/e1rzc3m-00067w...@petrol.towers.org.uk
Re: trademark licenses and DFSG: a summary
Stefano Zacchiroli > Going through the above, I suspect that the first provision (extending > DFSG §4) might be controversial. But the more I think of it, the more > convinced I am that it'd be in the spirit of the current wording of DFSG > §4, as hinted by the title of DFSG §4. In fact, renaming alone is > already the most common case of trademark-like restriction and agreeing > to extend it to visual marks wouldn't change anything in term of actual > restrictions on our users. Yes, I think the first provision is a shame and I'm disappointed that we're not willing to go to bat for nominative use to include basic packaging for and integration with debian, even if it means patching the software. However, given the lawyer opinions that have been reported, I'm willing to accept it. I trust that we can still mention the upstream heritage names in descriptions, so that users can at least find the renamed software in search results. Of course, I'm very happy that silly things like function-renaming are generally not accepted, and that we keep on showing solidarity with derived distributions by not accepting debian-specific licences. Regards, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/ -- 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/e1rzpue-0003wr...@petrol.towers.org.uk
Re: OSI affiliation
Jose Luis Rivas > On 02/17/2012 06:11 PM, MJ Ray wrote: > > http://people.debian.org/~mjr/legal/fsf-osi-list-diff.txt > > shows the ones where OSI and FSF disagree, but what's the > > point of knowing which are involved? Basically, OSI has > > aided proliferation. > > > The point of my question is to give _context_. Which of the list are > non-free and as a consequence wouldn't get software into main Debian's > repositories. So are the ones that in an hypothetical Debian membership > to OSI would need to be changed so that membership gets effective. The Apple one is the only example I have found in non-free, but there may be others on OSI's list which wouldn't get in: the debian project (and especially debian-legal and even more so the few lawyers to which debian sometimes refers) have limited resources and doesn't go around pre-approving licences before there's anything worth including under it. Hope that explains, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/ -- 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/e1rzpgp-00034p...@petrol.towers.org.uk
Re: OSI affiliation
Philip Hands > On Fri, 17 Feb 2012 22:41:10 +0000, MJ Ray wrote: > > Jose Luis Rivas > > > Just to give context to your email, could you provide a list with the > > > OSI-approved licenses that you call non-free? (Maybe a link) [...] > > http://people.debian.org/~mjr/legal/fsf-osi-list-diff.txt > > shows the ones where OSI and FSF disagree, but what's the > > point of knowing which are involved? Basically, OSI has > > aided proliferation. > > That list doesn't answer the question asked, in that I imagine that some > or all of those licenses are what we'd accept as free. No, I know, but I was trying to question what the point of it was: the debian project accepts software not licences. After all, we don't really care if a licence is free but the application is botched or something else causes the software to fail to meet the DFSG. Contrarily, OSI never used to care if there was worthwhile software, only if there was a scary lawyer. > I'd be rather more interested in a list of licenses that are all of: > >a) approved by OSI >b) rejected by us >c) actually applied to software that is otherwise worth packaging, > and hence where OSI is doing real harm by muddying the water. Listings welcome, but I suspect that's not reasonable: flat-out rejections are rather hard to find and reviewing all software is a very big job. When I last checked non-free, I spotted only the Apple Public Source License that you mentioned from the OSI approved list. That might mean that none of the others is used for software worth packaging, it might mean that they don't even allow distribution in debian, or - most probably - that I didn't notice it. Hope that informs, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/ -- 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/e1ryjqg-000855...@petrol.towers.org.uk
Re: OSI affiliation
Jose Luis Rivas > Just to give context to your email, could you provide a list with the > OSI-approved licenses that you call non-free? (Maybe a link) That way > every one else knows which licenses are you talking about exactly. http://people.debian.org/~mjr/legal/fsf-osi-list-diff.txt shows the ones where OSI and FSF disagree, but what's the point of knowing which are involved? Basically, OSI has aided proliferation. Regards -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/ -- 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/e1rywui-00076b...@petrol.towers.org.uk
Re: OSI affiliation
Philip Hands wrote: [...] > So whatever we might think about the merits of the "Open Source" term, > it hardly seems like a step forward to render such references into > hanging links just at the point where policy makers are starting to get > the message. I agree with Phil. That is why my preference is for OSI to merge into a continuing non-zombie group that could maintain web links and so on. > Much better to try to ensure that that licenses list is actually sane, > which is something we may be able to do something about if we affiliate, [...] There is no evidence for that yet. It's vapourware, isn't it? Or is there some secret OSI-promises-to-reform-in-consultation-with-us part of the proposed affiliation terms that I've missed? Even worse, this sounds like the sort of constructive engagement nonsense which is failing to change Big Oil, Big Power and things like that (= no change for them, except they have access to supposedly-ethical/activist investment funds). This is backwards. Could interested debian developers go help reform OSI and then, once it's reformed, suggest that the project affiliates? [...] > P.S. I encourage people to respond to the consultation mentioned above. > It actually looks pretty good. [...] I agree with Phil. Maybe some ideas/tips will be thrown around on http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/fsfe-uk/ before the consultation closes. Regards, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/ -- 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/e1rylm8-0004zd...@petrol.towers.org.uk
Re: OSI affiliation
Stefano Zacchiroli > On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 10:06:56PM +0000, MJ Ray wrote: > > I would be disappointed if this happened. The Open Source Initiative > > failed, for reasons that aren't important at this point - they should > > belatedly accept that and merge its corporation into SPI or another > > suitable continuing vehicle, rather than continue as an unseemly > > zombie organisation with its non-FOSS certification scheme that > > Wow, that's quite a bold paragraph :) Someone once said we're at our best when we're at our boldest. > I'm not sure what you mean with "failed", given that the organization > exists, [...] The OSI was an initiative to secure a trade mark for open source. http://slashdot.org/articles/980810/1817242.shtml seems to be one of the few places I could find the original announcement of OSI (rather than the term "open source" - it's not been available on the OSI website for some time AFAIK). No trade mark was possible = it failed. That's not debatable, is it? I'm sorely aware that the corporation still exists. That's why I call it a zombie or body-snatcher. Many of us who supported the original initative learned quite a lot about trade marks and how icky they are, then stopped supporting it. The organisation was repurposed around a certification mark and a rather annoying begware licensing scheme, instead of closing down or merging up in a timely fashion. > I also don't understand the analogy you're making among SPI and OSI: > they pursue rather different goals. Sorry - I meant to make a comparison, not an analogy. What are OSI's goals? "The OSI are the stewards of the Open Source Definition (OSD) and the community-recognized body for reviewing and approving licenses as OSD-conformant." http://www.opensource.org/about That's what it says on OSI's tin. I think the OSI lawyer-heavy community-light process has caused conflict with debian developers and ftpmasters a few times in the past. So why is OSD stewardship and someone else approving more licences something the debian project should support? Now, the OP said that OSI is changing. Great. Can we at least let it change, then decide, instead of buying vapourware? If we can help shape the change, so much the better. But my preferred change would be to wind up OSI, about a dozen years late, and make its tasks a subgroup of some more holistic community association. > > If we want to get involved in the important political battles more, we > > should support the older organisations, some of which we are already > > affiliated to. > > As a matter of fact, there aren't that many organizations that both do > Free Software political battles and accept affiliation at the project > granularity. Most only accept individual memberships and donations --- > entirely legitimate ways of seeking for help, but not something we could > pursue as a project. Yes, I agree. I'm acutely aware of this. I think that some of them only have associate memberships or supporterships or donorships, not even individual memberships. Nevertheless, we're already involved with some and I think OSI adds nothing good to the current mix. > > Also, we're not exactly bestowing more support on our existing partner > > organisations than they could use, are we? > > First of all, there is no mutual exclusion here. We're discussing this > opportunity here and now, because they've approached us now (and because > we're nice folks who consider and answer to proposals). We can discuss > other proposals in the future, without incompatibilities. Please don't be flattered. You don't need to dance with every hot stud that asks. > Then, I've some troubles instantiating the plural of your paragraph > above. The only organization I see that fits it is SPI. I think there's 8 delegated organisations at the moment. There are two that are minimalist groups that I suspect don't want more help, two that look like they could use it (but maybe restricted to particular human languages) and the others that I don't know. > We're contributing *a lot* to SPI: I've done that as Debian project > liaison for the past 2 years¹ and 7 out of 9 members of SPI board of > directors are Debian Developers. I also routinely call for Debian > Developers to get more active in SPI, because that would increase > the quality of the services they offer not only to Debian, but to > all affiliated projects. I know, I'm thankful for those that do and I'm sorry I've not done more. I wonder if any of those 7 are, like me, contributors to more than one associated project. But DDs could still do more. > You seem to imply that affiliating to OSI would diminish o
Re: OSI affiliation
Stefano Zacchiroli > as you might have heard post-FOSDEM, the Open Source Initiative (OSI) > is opening up to an affiliate membership structure [1,2]. As I've > already mentioned in [3], representatives of OSI have approached me to > know if Debian is interested into joining. I'd like to discuss with you > such a possibility. > [1] http://www.opensource.org/node/604 > [2] > http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Open-Source-Initiative-affiliates-announced-at-FOSDEM-1428905.html > [3] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2011/12/msg0.html I would be disappointed if this happened. The Open Source Initiative failed, for reasons that aren't important at this point - they should belatedly accept that and merge its corporation into SPI or another suitable continuing vehicle, rather than continue as an unseemly zombie organisation with its non-FOSS certification scheme that rewarded licence proliferation and people that could hire strong legal advocates until rather recently. I feel it would not make sense to merge the DFSG and the OSD because they are trying to do two different things. One aims to be a set of practical guidelines for free software, the other aims to define the parameters of a proprietary certification scheme for licences. OSI took a set of guidelines that tried to reflect the free software definition and tried to use it as a competing definition. Now there seems no prospect of it being dropped because OSI has invested too much in using it as a distinct definition. If we want to get involved in the important political battles more, we should support the older organisations, some of which we are already affiliated to. We could encourage OSI to merge into one of them. Lending our firepower to the loose cannon of an organisation that is no longer the original initative but keeps using the name does not sound like a good idea. Also, we're not exactly bestowing more support on our existing partner organisations than they could use, are we? I think at least one of them is discussing hiring workers rather than using volunteers. Hope that explains, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- 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/e1rxqww-0005ot...@petrol.towers.org.uk
Re: trademark licenses and DFSG
Stefano Zacchiroli > as recent events have shown, we need to discuss our general stance on > trademarks and the impact that trademark licenses (should) have on the > content of the Debian archive. [...] Thank you for pushing this important but depressing topic forwards. > Impact analysis [...] > I'm open to suggestions on how we can collect such information for > packages already in the archive. I'd love to know how to do this without hammering servers and probably upsetting people. Also, one data point may be how many packages have trademark licences are in the archive already? [...] > The letter of DFSG > == > > A first help in deciding on the above comes from DFSG. According to my > own reading and interpretation of it: > > - the word "license" means "copyright license" I don't think that's correct. I've been corrected in the past: "When creating the DFSG, I recognized, and respected, the right of authors to manage their own brand using trademarks, and to restrict the use of those trademarks in derived works as long as DFSG-compliant use of the software would be possible after a brand substitution. [...]" -- Bruce Perens, in http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2005/08/msg00069.html So it seems like trademarks were considered when writing the DFSG. I think there were also examples from the early days of contracts and maybe design rights making software fail the DFSG, but I don't have links to them. [...] > Proposal > > > We need to decide together what to do about the presence of software > with trademark restrictions in the Debian archive. It would be nice to > reach consensus through simple discussion, but we can of course also > decide to vote on this matter. > > My own proposal, that I submit to your consideration, is as follows: > > - DFSG applies to copyright license; trademark restrictions should not > make a package DFSG non-free (philosophical part) > > - however, trademark restrictions that get in the way of "usual Debian > procedures" should not be accepted in the Debian archive (practical > part) [...] > What do you think? I feel that interpretation is mostly wrong because the DFSG are guidelines for software, not for licences, although the practical outcomes of your proposal would be the same as mine in most cases. I think our freedom to use/study/share/adapt software can be affected by trademark licences as well as copyright licences. If the world agrees another new monopoly right called Betty, then it may be affected by Betty licences too. However, often trademark licences appear to restrict things that are beyond the scope of a trademark - things like honest description of the source of a package - and we should disregard those when deciding whether a trademark licence affects our freedoms. So I would amend your proposal as follows: - DFSG apply to software, not licenses; trademark restrictions may make a package DFSG non-free (philosophical part) - however, trademark restrictions that seek to restrict things which cannot be restricted by trademark law (like honest description or naming of internal components) should be diregarded when evaluating a trademark licence. Requirements to rebrand or seek permission before adding a security patch or making other non-identity changes are not acceptable: probably the package should be rebranded before being accepted into the archive. Other unacceptable restriction types may be spotted by the security team, release team, ftp-masters or maintainers. Does that work as well? Regards, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- 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/20111009190534.060169f...@nail.towers.org.uk
Re: Public Key
petroniushatschiim...@arcor.de wrote: > It's my fault. I meant multimedia.org. > > Round about two weeks ago I installed Lenny new with all security updates. > Since them is this status. The debian project doesn't run that, but your problem seems to be covered in their FAQ. But I don't use their non-free stuff. Regards, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. Webmaster, Debian Developer, Past Koha RM, statistician, former lecturer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire for various work through http://www.software.coop/ -- 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/20110909174544.632da9f...@nail.towers.org.uk
Re: Question about GNOME Trademark and GNOME project packages in Debian
Joerg Jaspert wrote: > We feel that it is infeasible for Debian to be in complete compliance > with the current GNOME trademark license. [...] OK, sorry if this is an old chestnut, but do we actually need a licence in general? Is most of the use in Debian more than honest description of the source of the software? > The case of the image which was created combining the GNOME foot and the > Debian swirl seem unquestionably in violation of their trademark, [...] Yes, that seems like something that will have to stop if the GNOME foot is not free software because of some restrictive TM licence. :-( > [...] We understand they are doing so to defend Free Software related > marks, but that doesn't solve the underlying problem. It may also be the > case that from Debian's point of view, the developer body as a whole > needs to take a formal stand by means of a GR on the general issue of > how to resolve the tension among DFSG principles and trademark > licenses. [...] Is there a tension? Isn't it obvious that many Free Software related marks are not themselves free software? It disappoints me when free software projects use proprietary frosting to restrict user freedom, but it seems like an old chestnut rather than a new problem requiring a new GR. Thanks for any explanations, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- 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/20110715120113.533eb9f...@nail.towers.org.uk
Re: Using corporate accounts when posting to Debian mailing lists
Florian Weimer > I've noticed that compared to, say, ten years ago, relatively few > mailing list posters use corporate accounts (or accounts readily > attributable to some larger organization). This phenomenon is not > restricted to Debian mailing lists. If the sender's mailbox looks > corporate (or the topic of the message involves stuff you usually do > not run at home), most of the time, no mail signature with extended > contact information (web, phone, fax) is used. > > I wonder if this is the result of corporate pressure, or if this is > somehow encouraged by the de-facto list policy. At least as I understand it (IANAL), English business emails should contain a signature with extended contact information (thanks to the Business Names Act, Companies Act, Distance Selling Regs and some other stuff that covers the gaps). I am using a personal mailbox at our internet services consumer co-op. I am not using my business email address because most of the time those footer details would be noise and some list policies do frown on business addresses (crazy but true). Also, I don't have a generally compelling reason to pay for a dog (my personal ISP mailbox) and bark myself (by using my worker co-op mailbox for lists). I don't use my debian.org because I don't change config for each list and probably sometimes I cross the "for private financial gain or for commercial purposes" line in http://www.debian.org/devel/dmup (I'm not a rich guy and need to earn a living, you know?) although I don't send much about my business to debian lists. So, in summary: not corporate pressure and not debian's list policies but a reflection of local laws, and policies of other lists. That went on a bit too long. Why do you ask? Hope that helps, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. Webmaster, Debian Developer, Past Koha RM, statistician, former lecturer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire for various work through http://www.software.coop/ -- 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/20110512101556.9e7d39e...@nail.towers.org.uk
Re: re-install apache2 on Debian 6
"John Larysz" > I have corrupted my apache2 server and deleted a key directory - > /etc/apache2. Nothing I do with dpkg or apt-get seems to put this directory > back. How do I re-install apache2? I suspect that purging and then installing all packages with apache2 anywhere in their name would put it back, and you might like to consider using etckeeper or a similar package, but you really want to be asking debian-user or another user list. Hope that helps, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- 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/20110331151601.5586850...@nail.towers.org.uk
Re: Export Classification Assistance
Rocco, Rick wrote: > I am an export compliance coordinator with HP. I am currently > reviewing applications for exportability. Could you please provide > the Export Control Classification Number (ECCN) and the Commerce > Classification and Tracking System number (CCATS), if applicable, or > the local equivalent, such as the "Export Control Rating" for > exports from the EU under the terms of the EU dual-use lists (EC > Regulation 428/2009 as amended), for the following products? If > these products are classified as "5D002", could you advise whether > they qualify for any license exceptions? Our best answers are easily found from http://lists.debian.org/search.html "First of all, I am not a laywer. So the following is not legal advice, but only what i know. I'm not aware of any ECCN that would cover an operating system as a whole. However, parts of Debian may be covered under ECCN 5D002. However, those parts fall under the TSU licence exception, so no licence is required for that component. I'm not sure of any other applicable ECCN. Also note that the ECCN of a GNU/Linux distribution can vary depending on what components of it are exported. (Your GSM gateway presumably does not use every component of Debian GNU/Linux). Your safest bet would be to submit a classification request for the entire system to BIS, as described in the answer to question 3 at http://www.bis.doc.gov/Licensing/Do_I_NeedAnECCN.html " Above text from Joe Smith in Message-id: I thought debian is probably Operating system software, development tools & compilers - 4D003.a but I do not know whether anyone has exported it under that code. Also, like Joe, I'm not a legal advisor, or any sort of official. Please let us know if you get an official classification on that, so we can add it to our web site. Thanks, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- 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/20101019000256.1f747f7...@nail.towers.org.uk
Re: QTS ( was Re: user support - Shapado instance for Debian)
Lars Wirzenius wrote: > I am going to be quite blunt. Please be forewarned. Likewise. > It is, however, a really bad idea to suggest experimentation should not > be attempted because it might fail. The failure mode here is not > catastrophic; there is no need to be excessively cautious. Painting > doomsday images is uncalled for. I agree with that. Enterprise is good and nice to see. However, equally, we should not lie and all say the emperor's new clothes are fabulous if they aren't. Some people seem concerned that ask.d.n doesn't connect to current support channels and I feel that's a legitimate concern, don't you? Looking more, it would also be very good to let disabled users know that they can use email lists instead, or log in to get rid of those evil eyesight and hearing tests (Google's reCaptcha). How do we do that? > This is "stop energy", pure and simple. > http://www.userland.com/whatIsStopEnergy [...] Invoking Dave Winer as a support reference is the second biggest sign that an argument has been lost. Personally, the only thing I wanted ask.d.n's supporters to stop is making misleading statements like "ask.debian.net is not there to replace mailing lists, it is there to add to them". As zack wrote, it is a triviality that it does not. Rather than suggesting people should shut up or making misleading statements about their concerns, I'd acknowledge the concerns, then maybe move on regardless, or consider how to address the concern if it's easy. Maybe a clear FAQ answer that ask.d.n is user-generated and any answers should be taken with care is as good as that could be, or maybe it can be hooked into existing support mailing lists somehow. I can't do it because I don't see an obvious way to subscribe to all answers. But ask.debian.net is an interesting experiment, after all. Regards, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- 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/20101008143836.debce50...@nail.towers.org.uk
Re: QTS ( was Re: user support - Shapado instance for Debian)
Lars Wirzenius wrote: > ask.debian.net is not taking anything away from you. You can ignore it > the way you ignore Debian web forums, for example. ask.debian.net is not > there to replace mailing lists, it is there to add to them, for those > who want to use it. It makes us look bad if there are bad answers or no answers there. ask.debian.net seems unconnected to the lists - it adds nothing to them and that's disappointing. Regards, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. Webmaster, Debian Developer, Past Koha RM, statistician, former lecturer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire for various work http://www.software.coop/products/ -- 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/20101007220342.6468c50...@nail.towers.org.uk
Re: How to Debian License
> Hello > South Korea is a high school student I am. > In 2009, is to use Debian. > Use more than one family was Radhat Useful. > But a book on Debian because it was hard to study. > So you want to study my junior and Debian Linux users to write a book. > > Debian Linux as a commercial license to use should I buy? I hope someone can reply to the Korean one because I'm not sure I understand the English version. But to try to answer the question: Debian GNU/Linux comes under a licence which permits commercial use. It can be downloaded from the internet, or a copy of the official DVD bought from many places http://www.debian.org/CD/vendors/ Hope that helps, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- 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/20100825085352.deb79f7...@nail.towers.org.uk
Re: MIT and Expat licenses; licenses 'similar to' a BSD license (Re: [DEP-5] [patch] License table: more links and licenses.)
Carsten Hey wrote: > * Charles Plessy [2010-08-15 00:20 +0900]: > > Le Sat, Aug 14, 2010 at 01:26:45PM +0200, Carsten Hey a écrit : > > > Shouldn't it be mentioned in the licenses description that the expat > > > license sometimes wrongly is referred to as MIT license? > > > > I wonder if the tradition of using the “Expat” name to refer unambiguously > > to > > one of the variants of the “MIT” license is widespread or Debian-specific. > > If I would need to make a guess I would guess: the FSF was first in > doing so. I think that guess is correct. See under X11 License at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#X11License "This license is sometimes called the MIT license, but that term is misleading, since MIT has used many licenses for software." Hope that helps, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- 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/20100816011440.bbb54f7...@nail.towers.org.uk
Re: Debian Facilitators
Stephen Frost wrote: > And so, I'd like to open this idea up to discussion, in particular to > those who were not part of the discussion at DebConf. I don't believe > forming of this group requires any particular delegation from the DPL > at this time, but as this concept grows and becomes more defined, that > may be appropriate. As the DPL plays this role some already, I do > believe that the DPL will be involved in the group (if to recommend > individuals/groups request a DF, or to hear from a DF what a > particular discussion revolves around). I wrote many years ago that I support this concept for lists in particular http://mjr.towers.org.uk/blog/2006/debian.html#listmoderators but I think it could be applied to many other situations too. Are there particular aspects which would be useful to discuss here? Regards, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- 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/20100815174118.91eaef7...@nail.towers.org.uk
Re: Linux in Canada, might severely affect all free software projects
Toni Mueller wrote: > I've just been pointed to this: > http://www.reddit.com/comments/cb3n0/are_you_a_canadian_linux_user_youre_about_to/ > > I'd like the project to assess the impact of this kind of legislation, > and to publicly speak out against it. Propose a Position Statement GR then because I don't think it will happen any other way. I suspect even that won't work, from past comments on this list about supporting political activity. You'll probably find FACIL.qc.ca is more likely to help. Hope that helps, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- 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/20100703170638.7a82cf7...@nail.towers.org.uk
Re: training linux debian
andi...@doctor.com > I wanted to make a debian linux training in Indonesia .. > because here we received information about debian linux very hard to come by > .. > I want to make training easier for debian linux community issues on linux > debian Indonesia. > whether this training free?? > please reply. There's a lot of reusable material at http://www.debian.org/doc/ but I didn't spot training courses there. The obvious way to make training easier for the debian community in Indonesia is to look for free software training materials and adapt them to your needs (edit, translate, ans so on). Two sources from England are our fellow cooperatives Bristol Wireless and Seeds for Change: http://www.bristolwireless.net/news/?cat=9 http://www.seedsforchange.org.uk/free/resources#comp On Bristol Wireless's site, I found the UN IOSN at http://www.iosn.net/ which has some materials. Hope that helps, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- 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
Ben Finney wrote: > Steve Langasek 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. A passable list of short names can be extracted from the anchor ids in the FSF licensing list with the command: curl -s http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/ \ | grep -A1 ']*>/ /g' Was that considered? [...] > > 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 share those concerns, particularly for the "with exceptions" ones. Often with licensing, the devil is in the detail like that. Hope that helps, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: possible abuse of debian and GPL
richard newton wrote: > The following site appears to be selling a computer with a modified Debian > system. I could find nothing on the site about the OS or where I might get > the source code. > In one of the screenshots I noticed it was using iceweasel so I assumed it > was using Debian. > > http://thegocomputer.com/index.html Thanks for the email. I'm not sure the debian project can fix that. Is there any evidence that they are not giving the source code to their customers? They are not required to publish it to all. See http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLRequireSourcePostedPublic If there is evidence, I suggest you contact one of the copyright holders (see the About box of a supplied program) and/or the FSF, http://www.fsfeurope.org/ftf/ or GPL-Violations.org http://gpl-violations.org/faq/violation-faq.html Hope that explains, -- MJ Ray (slef) Webmaster and LMS developer at | software www.software.coop http://mjr.towers.org.uk| co IMO only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html | op -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Debian money
Russ Allbery wrote: > Charles Plessy writes: > > [...] but Debian could support companies started by its developers > > to make a living of their Debian-related activities, by contributing to > > their capital. [...] > > We can't do that with moneys collected in the United States under the > aegis of Software in the Public Interest. It would jeopardize the > non-profit status of SPI. Non-profit charities are not permitted to make > investments in for-profit businesses. Are they permitted to make loans? There are some non-charities like Debian-UK holding debian funds which would not be restricted in that way, but I think it would be rather out of character for debian to take a position of supporting capitalism in this direct way. It would risks detaching the project from the users who appreciate it being neutral on many "off-topic" issues, as well as those who are politically opposed to the money trick. Is there really demand for investment from such a complicated project? Regards, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- 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
Tollef Fog Heen > | Personally, I'd be more likely to see the wnpp mails if they weren't > | in amongst the rest of devel. I'm not sure whether or not I'd stop > | reading devel again if that happened. > > Am I understanding you correctly in that the wnpp mails are a prime > reason for you reading -devel? Yes, the wnpp mails are a prime reason I restarted reading -devel. > (Let's leave aside that it's easy enough to filter out the mails based > on headers for now.) It's easy to filter, but inefficient for everyone to create such filters personally if it's a common wish, so let's leave it aside. Regards, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- 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" > [1] And as you gave no facts and just called names, you are sure you > are not meaning > "I do not understand what you are talking about and cannot assess if it > is something important" instead? This is exactly the sort of personalisation of discussions which should really not be done! I almost replied with a similar criticism of style. In case anyone else missed it, the fact I gave was that the succinct label "ad-hominem"'s well-established meaning is different from "He is an asshole, ignore him". So, I suggest that the claim posted on 2009-08-19 09:35:07 GMT isn't generally true and anyone who does not see a difference maybe should be corrected. For a slightly more formal evidence, web-search ad-hominem "He is an asshole" and one will quickly see that the latter is an instance of the former and not a translation or synonym. Also compare with dict's output for ad-hominem. If anyone wishes to argue that any of the succinct labels are the same as "he is an asshole" then please name which label you think means that and provide some evidence at least as strong as the above weak evidence. Or if you'd like to argue that the misinterpretation is widespread and so we should work around it, please provide some evidence. Even knowing how many people at the BoF or otherwise actually believe that the succinct terms were personal attacks or "name-calling" (rather than thinking other people do) might be interesting. Otherwise, I feel that I understand this aspect, but the problem is rare enough that the simplest solution is educating the few who think succinct terms are insults. Hope that explains, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- 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" > * Ben Finney [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." I see pointing out a personal attack as more like someone posting "he is primarily personally attacking the previous poster - ignore him". So, I don't agree that the "he is an asshole" meaning is well-established. However, if many DDs are buggy enough to think it means that, then we should either fix it (educate DDs?) or workaround it (not use the label). [...] > > 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. This means that if you were wrong, then you are escalating the > discussion to an pure flame war and you are reguesting all on-topic > discussion to stop my pulling it into a off-topic discussion. 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). As a project group, we've been poor at stopping the email incontinence of some contributors at some times. Any such decision mechanism should be open, transparent and accountable to DDs. Some other lists limit emails to two per person per day, to focus contributors' minds on what are the important points. I doubt that approach would work here: too many of us have ways to queue emails for sending on a future date. Hope that helps, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- 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
Tollef Fog Heen > you seem to think that moving wnpp traffic off -devel would be useful to > make -devel more attractive? Why do you think so? > > I think moving the traffic off would just mean fewer people would care > to review the wnpp mails and we'd be worse off overall. I don't have > any numbers to back up that claim though, it's just a gut feeling. Personally, I'd be more likely to see the wnpp mails if they weren't in amongst the rest of devel. I'm not sure whether or not I'd stop reading devel again if that happened. In general, I suspect the above is true and it would reduce the number of people reading the wnpp mails. What proportion of devel is wnpp email? How frequently are they given as a reason by people who don't read devel? Hope that helps, -- MJ Ray (slef) LMS developer and webmaster at | software www.software.coop http://mjr.towers.org.uk| co IMO only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html | op -- 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 wrote: > I do sincerely hope that there will be a GR to overrule this decision. Hoping doesn't make it happen. I'm upset by the horribly botched process, but I'm not willing to reverse this decision for that alone. I doubt I'm unusual in that, so anyone looking for a GR proposer probably should look at themselves. I don't think there's a GR power to recall a delegate (even if we're sure which individual delegates decided this) and it's a long time until the next DPL election which could include delegate changes in its platform, so what else can you do? Lobby the DPL? Amend the constitution to make such a GR power? Complain on -project? Regards, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- 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.
Manoj Srivastava wrote: > On Fri, Jul 24 2009, MJ Ray wrote: > > [...] the project should remain polite even in the > > face of really daft ideas (like the 3017th report that our website CSS > > is invalid just because the W3C validator is incomplete). > > 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. Hope that explains, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- 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.
Manoj Srivastava wrote: > [...] I think that we can go over much to the other side: We should not > be overly genteel about silly ideas. [...] I don't think there's anything wrong with being a polite society (=genteel) even when confronted with a silly idea. Maybe the above should be gentle instead of genteel? Sorry if this is just picking up a typo or malapropism, but I really do think there's a substantial point here: the project should remain polite even in the face of really daft ideas (like the 3017th report that our website CSS is invalid just because the W3C validator is incomplete). Deep-six the idea by all means, but there's no need to be crass. Regards, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Yet another list statistics for debian-project
Steve Langasek wrote: > For instance, I was gratified to see the statistics for debian-legal, > because they support my position that the discussion there is being DoSed by > non-DDs who are trying to use it as a forum to persuade Debian that their > interpretation of the DFSG is the correct one. That might be true, but I don't see how it follows from the statistics posted. There are 5 people listed in the -legal top 10 who are not DDs now and of those: Andrew Suffield stopped posting when he was still a DD IIRC; and Nathanael Nerode mostly stopped posting around the same time he was rejected from NM by http://lists.debian.org/debian-newmaint/2007/04/msg00010.html overriding http://lists.debian.org/debian-newmaint/2006/06/msg00023.html So that leaves 3 completely non-developer participants as far as I know. The surges by Branden Robinson (2003 - literally off the scale) and Raul Miller (2004) seem almost as strongly correlated with the list's slow-down as any of the non-DD surges (all in 2004?). I suggest that the most probable interpretation is that the list probably got badly off-topic in 2003-2004. FDL or editorial changes, perhaps? Comment about "activists" or non-DDs isn't really supported by the data presented here. [...] > BTW, as near as I can tell the reports only show the figures for the top-ten > all-time posters on each list. So there are probably a number of lists > where the top poster within a single year isn't represented at all - what > you're really capturing here is "when have the most active contributors to > each mailing list been the most active", which isn't a very good proxy at > all for "what is the list activity over time". Amen. In another post, Andreas called it "a quick and dirty helper for a talks of mine at DebConf and I never thought that it became that popular". It isn't that popular, but spamming N debian lists with the graphs does tend to attract attention! Regards, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Yet another list statistics for debian-project
Andreas Tille wrote: > legal > --- > The quite often observed wave-shaped pattern and only a view > activists left to discuss legal problems. I've posted to -legal about the confusing nature of the above description, the jump to "activists" and how to make the analysis more illuminating. Thanks, -- MJ Ray (slef) Webmaster for hire, statistician and online shop builder for a small worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ (Notice http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html) tel:+44-844-4437-237 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Voting on messages: a way to resolve the mailing list problems
Russ Allbery wrote: > MJ Ray writes: > > So this means ignoring any concerns and pressing on regardless? > > Disagreeing with you is not the same thing as ignoring concerns. Making > that accusation is a cheap debate tactic. Without mind-reading, you have > no idea whether someone is ignoring your concerns or just continuing to > disagree with them and not interested in discussing them with you more > than they already have. That curly thing on the end of the quoted line is a question mark. I know I have no idea whether they're ignoring any concerns or just continuing to disagree with them, so I asked. OK? Misinterpreting a question as an "accusation" is even cheaper. Regards, -- MJ Ray (slef) Webmaster for hire, statistician and online shop builder for a small worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ (Notice http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html) tel:+44-844-4437-237 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Voting on messages: a way to resolve the mailing list problems
Jurij Smakov wrote: > The 'mailvoting' alioth project [0] has been created. There are also > two mailing lists, 'mailvoting-discuss' and 'mailvoting-devel', for > general discussion and implementation discussion, respectively. Please > subscribe [1] to them, if you are interested in contributing. > > [0] http://mailvoting.alioth.debian.org/ > [1] http://alioth.debian.org/mail/?group_id=100282 So this means ignoring any concerns and pressing on regardless? What's a rant about zionism got to do with this? Is it spam? If so, why didn't the list admin block it? Regards, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Discussion: Possible GR: Enhance requirements for General Resolutions
Ron wrote: [...Wouter Verhelst's counts...] > Those results are not surprising, and if anything make it clear we > can easily get more seconds for notable issues than is currently > required. How many more is debatable, but this isn't very good > evidence for your assertion that 30 people is a "very high" bar. So provide other evidence, or at least point towards it. I'm using what I've got and I can't use what I've not got. > [...] The _formal_ discussion period > is limited in length, and IMO quite short. Far too short in fact to > actually achieve a real, well considered, consensus in that time. OK, so this proposal means people would spend more time on each GR. I feel that's probably a bad consequence. > MJ Ray wrote: > > [...] also, it's 30 DDs, not 30 people. > > I'm not sure what you aim to imply there? Are DDs more like sheep > than 'people' are or vice versa? Neither. Just there are vote discussion posters who are not DDs. > > 1. 2Q is unjustified and excessive; > > The justification (or perhaps 'last straw') is the poor quality > of recent vote options, where many people even had quite some > difficulty figuring out what the difference between any two > options were. [...] I was amongst those having difficulty, as I noted in http://www.news.software.coop/debian-lenny-gr-and-the-secretary/417/ I don't understand how 2Q would necessarily have made it easier, rather than longer and noisier. > The exaggeration about how big a change this is seems excessive, > but I don't think 30 / 1000 is by most normal scales of excess. What normal scales for seconding? > > 2. the obvious spoiler effect may exclude consensus options > > prematurely (interaction of thresholds and Condorcet voting); > > Sorry, but that sentence is just entirely self-contradictory > and unparseable to me ... Whatever effect you speak of is > not 'obvious' to me, and if options _had_ consensus clearly > there'd be more than 30 people supporting them and they > wouldn't be excluded ... Do the different views reduce to: do we believe options should reach consensus before the start of the SRP? > [...] Loaded explanations like "unjustified and excessive" > only work if you are preaching to the choir. For the rest of us, that > will need to be backed up with some justification of your own if we > are to understand what injustice and excess really concerns you here. I've been done! The "explanations" are "loaded" because they're not explanations: they're a summary of concerns, as requested previously. My limited justification can be found in messages like http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2008/12/msg00197.html but I'd welcome justification of 2Q - instead of simple contradictions like these. > > I don't think a 600% increase is a conservative step. > > Fortunately this is just an error in your math :) Let's see: It was, but not in that way. If 5 = 100% then 30 = 600%. [... *larger* warring factions? ...] > Well if you really believe that might be a problem, then surely > you'd be in favour of my actually radical suggestion to raise > this threshold to something like 80% of people in the keyring? Not this threshold, but I think I'd second replacing the SRP with something radical that required a relatively high %age. I would prefer any replacement to be time-limited unless there's good reason to be sure it works better than the current way. > > Alternatively, would it make the path of least resistance "ignore > > everyone else whenever possible because they'll never get 30 or 60 > > DDs together"? > > Are you saying that if I ever vote with some faction I will never > be able to "cross the floor" and vote with a different group of > people who I agree more with on some totally different topic? No. I'm suggesting that GRs would become too rare to be a concern for almost all activities. [vote options defined by a ballot jury] > Wait, I'm confused again ... if you are worried about secret groups > of 30 people having too much power to influence the project, where > are we going to get this jury from, and who will watch the watchers? I'd use a public group selected at random from the keyring, but I'm not strongly attached to that method. > [... what goes on in -vote ... not attractive ...] > should you really be surprised that we'll build our own > consensus to rise up and stop you from doing that? Stop *me*? In 5+ years, I think I've put one amendment on a ballot. I feel that misdirected personal attacks do more to divide the project than any number of discussions. > It's not really rocke
Re: Possible GR: pre-proposal participation by DDs [strawpoll]
Josselin Mouette wrote: [...] > WTF are you trying to prove? “Send me email otherwise that means I’m > right!” No, I'm attempting to disprove my belief because I don't see how to prove it. http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2009/01/msg00050.html Knowing for sure that I was wrong is as useful as proving it. > Can’t you tolerate that most DDs don’t have the time to read the > logorrhoea of a handful of people on the lists? I can tolerate that - in fact, I expect it, which is partly why I feel it's daft to expect wider participation in GR-making before any proposal reaches the required number of seconds. We'll be fishing the same pool deeper, rather than expanding it. Hope that explains, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Discussion: Possible GR: Enhance requirements for General Resolutions
Cyril Brulebois wrote: > MJ Ray (07/01/2009): > > It's hard to prove that a group is ignoring something, but disproof is > > simple: please could all DDs reading this email mjr-possiblegr at > > debian.org. I'll count with from -f possiblegr.mbox | wc -l in a > > week. > > Even for people who might try and follow those lengthy so-called > discussions, extra-long mails like Ron's or yours makes it likely > that From→mark-as-read actions appear. > > I wouldn't call your hiding foo at bar in one of them a simple > disproof of anything. If that email address gets lots of responses, it simply disproves my claim that no DDs are watching this sort of discussion. If it gets no responses, it still doesn't prove my claim, but how could I prove it? At least I'm trying to check if my belief is wrong, instead of just contradicting other people. In case thread-killing is significant, I'll post it as a new thread. Hope that helps, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Possible GR: pre-proposal participation by DDs [strawpoll]
I believe that most debian developers ignore discussions of possible GRs like the current one, until/unless they look like reaching the required number of seconds to trigger a vote. It's hard to prove that a group is ignoring something, but disproof is simple: please could all DDs who watch pre-proposal discussions of possible GRs please email mjr-possiblegr at debian.org. I'll count with from -f possiblegr.mbox | wc -l in a week or so, after filtering out any emails from non-DDs. Following a couple of complaints, I've set Reply-To on this request and posted it as a new thread, to make it easier to spot. Thanks, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Discussion: Possible GR: Enhance requirements for General Resolutions
Stephen Gran wrote: > This one time, at band camp, MJ Ray said: > > Many DDs ignore -project and even most stuff on -vote > > unless/until it looks likely to get enough seconds, don't they? > > You're the one making the assertion, I think the onus is on you to prove > it. Previously, I noted that fewer than 80 people participated in even the hotly disputed lenny blobs GR discussion. That suggests to me that lots of DDs aren't participating until the vote. It's hard to prove that a group is ignoring something, but disproof is simple: please could all DDs reading this email mjr-possiblegr at debian.org. I'll count with from -f possiblegr.mbox | wc -l in a week. > The discussion so far on this topic has, to my mind, suggested the > opposite reading. We've seen postings from several people who don't > normally post to -vote (and they've been fairly uniformly in support > of the ideas being proposed, at a glance), which suggests to me that we > have more lurkers than you are assuming. Cross-checking names of posters to this thread on -project with an index of posters to -vote finds *no* new participants. That comes down to how one defines "normal" in "normally post to -vote". > > > > Here's a summary list of concerns I mentioned in other emails:- > > > > 1. 2Q is unjustified and excessive; [...] > > Why 30? Why not 130? Why not 300? The particular number is unjustified. > > I personally would be happy with a higher number, but 30 is a conservative > first start. Would you be happier if the suggestion was 4Q or 10Q? Not if it's still unjustified. If we're groping in the dark, let's grope somewhere near to our current position, instead of leaping about the room and possibly slamming into a brick wall. If 10Q is ever seriously considered, it seems better to replace the SRP with a different, more consensual, voting system. > > I'm not good at interpreting complex constitutions, but [...] Yep, I got it wrong, thanks to the unusual meaning of "quorum" in the debian constitution - compare with http://www.dict.org/bin/Dict?Form=Dict2&Database=*&Query=quorum > > What about the other two concerns: the obvious spoiler effect; and > > defending proposals during the discussion period? > > The 'obvious' spoiler effect - is that the idea that proposals with no > supporters probably won't make it to a GR? That's a feature. In short, it's the idea that you can keep a compromise amendment off of the ballot by proposing a similar-but-slightly-more-extreme one, then letting the compromise amendment fail due to seconder fatigue and the reluctance of some DDs to second multiple options. We currently have two examples where options which didn't exceed 2K seconds went on to win the vote. Does a higher seconding requirement risk of introducing something similar to the threshold effect from elections (such as the German and Turkish national elections) into getting onto a GR ballot? I think the ability to second multiple options (which Don Armstrong initially argued against) may reduce it, but I also suspect seconder fatigue (similar to voter fatigue) means it'll still exist. > Why is defending an option you are proposing a problem, and how is it > worsened by increasing the number of required seconds over the current > situation? It is a problem because it encourages division rather than consensus-building. It's much harder to develop a compromise when many participants have already publicly announced their preferred solution. It is worsened by increasing the number of required seconds because that increases the probability of uncompromising defenders *before* many DDs are necessarily aware of the proposal. > If anything, it seems like increasing the number of required > seconds means an incentive to have a wider discussion before proposing > the GR, which if anything will widen the opportunity to build consensus, > and if consensus can't be reached, make it possible to create a few > compromises that people could live with before pretending we can resolve > our difference in 2 weeks with a vote looming. So no compromises can be found in two weeks? Does increasing the number of required seconds mean that some proportion of DDs will be probably spending even more time developing GRs and the rest of us will have to spend even more time watching them? How will the unannounced pre-proposal discussions be wider than the GR discussion period which is announced to all DDs? The 2 weeks is a minimum, not a requirement - but if the required discussion period is essentially useless and just for filtering out small errors, should it be shortened? Regards, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Discussion: Possible GR: Enhance requirements for General Resolutions
Joerg Jaspert wrote: > > In general, that's correct. In particular, if you need 30 people just > > to *start* the discussion period, that's going to kill many potential > > options before they have any chance of building consensus and others > > will be far too entrenched by the time public discussion starts; > > also, it's 30 DDs, not 30 people. > > You wont need Q, 2Q, Q^1024 people to start a discussion period. > This whole thread didnt need a single second to run like it is, usually > all our flames don't need them. > Yes, this is not the formal discussion period, but if you fear you wont > get enough seconds, or might not be sure its the best to do, going the > way I did with this seems to be ok, and able to draw attention from > people. There's not a discussion period and a "formal" discussion period. There's *the* discussion period and a bunch of DDs shooting the breeze like this. Many DDs ignore -project and even most stuff on -vote unless/until it looks likely to get enough seconds, don't they? > Of course I do defend what I want. Yet, I still read and keep in mind > what others think. OK, thanks. I hope no-one minds, but it didn't read like that yet. > > Here's a summary list of concerns I mentioned in other emails:- > > 1. 2Q is unjustified and excessive; > > I did justify it. "If you cant find 30 people out of 1000 that are in > the project, why bother 1000 to vote on it?". Why 30? Why not 130? Why not 300? The particular number is unjustified. I'm not good at interpreting complex constitutions, but I think a GR could pass with (3Q/2)+1 votes preferring it to Further Discussion. Requiring more seconds than votes in support seems a bit unusual, to put it mildly. Is there any other voting system that has that? > > 3. it favours organised campaign groups who gather in secret before > > springing discussion on debian lists; > > Umm. If you think so. I do, based on what I've seen of other groups. Raising the number of required seconds too high would give a strong incentive for something like political parties to form within the debian project (you support my manifesto and I'll support yours - that sort of thing) and I think that could cause *really* harmful divisions. What about the other two concerns: the obvious spoiler effect; and defending proposals during the discussion period? > > I'd welcome other examples, particularly if the minimum is equivalent > > to anything like the 30 or 60 in the original proposal. > > Which 60? Its 30 (2Q) or its 15 (Q) what seems to be wanted. I assumed that where 2K is currently (4.2.2.2), it would become 4Q (because K becomes 2Q in general, and Q only for the number of sponsors of Delaying a decision of a Delegate or the DPL). I see that's not at all clear in the proposal - sorry for my confusion. Could you please repost http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2008/12/msg00503.html as a proper patch to the constitution (wdiff or whatever), to avoid this sort of confusion? > So you think if something is clearly found to be a mistake at some > point, the DDs wouldnt be able to admit it and revert it? It *only* > takes 30 people to start that. I think that:- *if* requiring 30 seconds is a mistake in general *then* requiring 30 seconds to revert it is also a mistake. Could we have a limited-time trial first? Because:- *if* requiring 30 seconds works well *then* requiring 30 seconds to make it permanent won't be a problem. Won't it? Thanks, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Discussion: Possible GR: Enhance requirements for General Resolutions
Michael Goetze wrote: > MJ Ray wrote: > > to reduce GRs, having > > another way for developers to ask a question that nearly always gets > > answered might help. > > Such as, say, writing an email to debian-de...@ldo? On inspection, that works more than I thought, but it seems to work better for some tasks (ftpmaster team seem to answer ~70% of questions asked about that work there, for example) than others. IIRC there's no certainty that anyone in particular reads debian-devel, so how often does asking on debian-devel work? Regards, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Discussion: Possible GR: Enhance requirements for General Resolutions
Ron wrote: > > On Fri, 02 Jan 2009, MJ Ray wrote: > > In the past, I've seen considerable resistance to vote topics being > > discussed outside -vote, unless they're by one of a few popular DDs. > > Do supporters of nQ expect this situation to change, only those > > popular DDs be able to propose GRs, or can someone suggest acceptable > > ways of recruiting seconds outside -vote? > > Do you advocate the current situation to NOT change? [...] No. I accept a change may be worthwhile, but 2Q seems very high and suggested without reason. (See my other messages on the topic.) > Do you really think it would have been difficult to obtain 2Q seconds > for a resolution to recall the previous vote, and postpone it until > some of the more obvious glitches had been better ironed out? [...] Yes, based on the summary of other votes by Wouter Verhelst and others. So, are supporters hoping this situation will change, only a few well-connected DDs will be able to propose GRs, or what? > We seem to have totally lost the goal of making decisions that affect > many or all developers by consensus. The process of building consensus > revolves around satisfying the concerns of people who see problems with > your planned course of action to arrive at a Better Solution. If you > can't get the consensus of around 30 people to begin with, it doesn't > take a degree in advanced math or political science or military strategy > to arrive at the conclusion that you are a LONG WAY from having the > consensus of the whole project. In general, that's correct. In particular, if you need 30 people just to *start* the discussion period, that's going to kill many potential options before they have any chance of building consensus and others will be far too entrenched by the time public discussion starts; also, it's 30 DDs, not 30 people. > By way of example, this proposal was not some off-the-hip idea of > Joerg's. It has already been discussed to the point of little (or > rather no) objection in another forum, and has in-principle support > from quite a few people. Could someone link to that discussion, please? It may contain answers to questions being asked now. > You'll note it was not proposed as a vote, > even though it could easily get the required number of seconds to do > so, but rather as a discussion point to further build that consensus > among a wider forum, and hone some of the little (but important) > details. I applaud that it appeared pre-proposal[!], but I think the emphasis is on building a majority (not consensus). The discussion so far seems to have consisted of Joerg[*] and others defending the proposal as it currently stands, rather than engaging in any consensus-building. There was one question[+] but no follow-up on that in a week, so I've moved from seeking amendments, to emphasising the profound problems in the proposal, in the hope of getting follow-up or at least avoiding that first public draft continuing. * - http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2008/12/msg00191.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2008/12/msg00192.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2008/12/msg00193.html + - http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2008/12/msg00195.html > That you seem to now be waging a 'campaign' against it, does seem to > indicate that you have quite missed the point. How about we drop this > war-word 'campaign', Fine by me: I didn't introduce 'campaign' to this aspect of the discussion. > and you instead come up with a concise list of > your concerns, so that we make take them to build a better proposal > rather than load them into a vote option as ammunition to try and > shoot it down. I don't want this to get just enough support to > squeak by, I want everyone to agree on the problem and give their > best to finding a solution that they like. Here's a summary list of concerns I mentioned in other emails:- 1. 2Q is unjustified and excessive; 2. the obvious spoiler effect may exclude consensus options prematurely (interaction of thresholds and Condorcet voting); 3. it favours organised campaign groups who gather in secret before springing discussion on debian lists; 4. it encourages defending proposals too early, during the discussion period. > I think your comparisons to local government councils as 'similar' > organisations is a misdirection. You say any constituent may take > something to the council which they must then vote on. [...] No, I never said that. Any constituent may ask something of the council which (as I understand it) we must then answer - it rarely results in a vote because most questions are matters of fact. However, DDs have nothing similar in the debian project - to reduce GRs, having another way for developers to a
Re: Voting on messages: a way to resolve the mailing list problems
Nick Phillips wrote: > On 22/12/2008, at 9:42 PM, MJ Ray wrote: > > Show me the numbers. I believe that the current "silent majority" is > > by definition silent and most of it will continue to be silent, > > watching lists just in case something useful appears and refusing to > > participate in improving the lists, as they have so far. Meanwhile, > > the vocal minorities will continue to be vocal and so more > > enthusiastic (ab?)users of any Whuffie system which is implemented. > > Refusing to participate in improving the lists? Those of us who try to > remain > silent until we have something useful or important to say *are* > improving the lists. Indeed, but those who post when they have something useful or important to say aren't part of the "silent majority" (or the "vocal minority" either), so I wasn't suggesting they are refusing to participate. I think that emphasising such posters would be a good part of any solution - and it's missing from the current proposal, as far as I've seen so far. I mean, it could happen with that system, by chance, but there seems no reason that it would. In fact, the tendency of active list followers to divide quickly makes me think it's extrememly improbable. > Some mechanism to indicate to posters that their posting was not > appreciated would be > useful and appreciated, so I'm sitting here watching those with more > time to spend on > it come up with ideas to improve them further. There are already crude mechanisms (reply privately, reply publicly, report abuse and so on) but they are social more than technical. While a more technical tool may help, a near-totally technical one probably can't fix social problems. Hope that helps, -- MJ Ray (slef) Webmaster for hire, statistician and online shop builder for a small worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ (Notice http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html) tel:+44-844-4437-237 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Discussion: Possible GR: Enhance requirements for General Resolutions
Don Armstrong wrote: > On Fri, 02 Jan 2009, MJ Ray wrote: > > Sorry - I'm with Wouter Verhelst on this. Having options on the > > ballot that only a small minority of DDs support can help resolve > > conflicts: it lays them to rest, demonstrating they fail in the > > wider DD population, > > If an option can't get seconds enough to pass K (or Q), it doesn't > have support in the DD population or the proposers are lazy, and don't > want to find enough support. In either case, people's time shouldn't > be wasted with the effort required to run a vote and vote in it. In the past, I've seen considerable resistance to vote topics being discussed outside -vote, unless they're by one of a few popular DDs. Do supporters of nQ expect this situation to change, only those popular DDs be able to propose GRs, or can someone suggest acceptable ways of recruiting seconds outside -vote? Secondly, does the above mean that all votes that include options which don't have either an organised campaign group or a clear majority are wasted efforts? Do we have a shortage of available vote-runners and if so, why aren't we recruiting a democratic services team instead of only one new Secretary? > > rather than the DDs supporting them being able to blame the > > self-selecting subset who participate on debian-vote. > > If DDs who support them are unable to gather enough seconds via -vote, > nothing stops them from finding other people who support the proposal > using other methods. Furthermore, there are at least 103 DDs > subscribed to -vote[1], so arguments about some self-selecting subset > are a bit misplaced (not that that'll stop them from being made.) There may be 103 DDs *subscribed*, but how many *participate* in any one vote? A few days ago, I showed it was less than 80 people, so it can't be 103 DDs. Also, how is 103 subscribers *not* a self-selecting subset of ~1000? > > Even if the number of seconds for a proposal is raised to something > > massive like 2Q, would it be worth keeping the number of seconds for > > a partial amendment at K? If we're going to have the trouble of > > votes, we might as well vote as comprehensively as possible... > > Additional options on a ballot means that voters have to spend > additional time to process the option and differentiate it between all > other options. When multiplied by the number of people who vote, that > becomes a non-trivial waste of voter's time for options which couldn't > find enough seconders who actually support the option. At the moment, this is true, but I feel it's because very few amendments are proper partial amendments, but are actually completely alternative proposals which require individual consideration. Often that's unnecessary. The current SRP seems to penalise humble amendments. > If an option can't get enough seconds from people who support that > option to satisfy K (or even Q), not enough people support it for it > to have a chance of being supported by a majority of people in an > election that meets quorum. We currently have two examples where options which didn't exceed 2K seconds went on to win the vote. Does a higher seconding requirement risk of introducing something similar to the threshold effect from elections (such as the German and Turkish national elections) into getting onto a GR ballot? I think the ability to second multiple options (which Don Armstrong initially argued against) may reduce it, but I also suspect seconder fatigue (similar to voter fatigue) means it'll still exist. I thought this debate reminded me of something and I found it... Here's the ICANN membership debating seconding thresholds for election candidates in 2000 http://forum.icann.org/selfnomination/index.html and the ultimate result was that one could stand if 20 out of 76,000 members supported you. http://members.icann.org/rules.html If there's a wish to limit the number of options, should the debian project adopt their "absolute limit of 7 options per ballot" rule? Hope that helps, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Discussion: Possible GR: Enhance requirements for General Resolutions
Don Armstrong wrote: > On Tue, 30 Dec 2008, Wouter Verhelst wrote: > > In general, I believe it is okay to second a ballot option that you > > do not plan to rank first if you feel it is an important matter that > > you want to see resolved. The statement "I second this proposal" > > only means "I want to see this voted on", not "I support this > > statement", and I think that's a good thing. > > I disagree. We shouldn't be having votes or options on the ballot > purely for the sake of having votes or options on the ballot. Our > voting process exists to resolve conflicts in a manner that DDs > support; having options that DDs do not support on the ballot does not > help that process. Sorry - I'm with Wouter Verhelst on this. Having options on the ballot that only a small minority of DDs support can help resolve conflicts: it lays them to rest, demonstrating they fail in the wider DD population, rather than the DDs supporting them being able to blame the self-selecting subset who participate on debian-vote. Even if the number of seconds for a proposal is raised to something massive like 2Q, would it be worth keeping the number of seconds for a partial amendment at K? If we're going to have the trouble of votes, we might as well vote as comprehensively as possible... (To do this, I'd probably add to the end of A.1.2 "A partial amendment is one which changes only one point of the resolution." and add to 4.2.1 after "other Developers," the words "or if it is a partial amendment sponsored by at least K other Developers," and keep K defined.) I'd also support voting on groups of conflicting proper amendments *before* voting on the full resolution options, as happens in councils, many business boards and so on. The aim is to have the most consensual of each of the necessarily alternative options in the main vote. The cost is a more complicated voting procedure, as far as I can see. (To do this, I'd probably replace "single ballot that" in A.3.1 with "up to two ballots. If there are any partial amendments, a preliminary ballot includes a vote for each point of the original resolution and each non-partial amendment and with each vote having options for the original text and for each partial amendment to that point. The final ballot" and replace ", each amendment" with " (as amended by any preliminary ballot), each non-partial amendment (as amended by any preliminary ballot)". I'd love a simpler solution if anyone knows one.) Regards, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Discussion: Possible GR: Enhance requirements for General Resolutions
Frans Pop wrote: > On Tuesday 30 December 2008, MJ Ray wrote: > > I add the outcomes to the start of the line:- > > Proposal F chosen > - Proposal F on the last vote; 17 seconds > > Eh, that's incorrect. Eh, that's unhelpful. I found both the email's terms and some of the more recent vote pages a bit confusing. I'm pretty sure I've suggested an improved layout to the secretary in the past, but it was ignored. Please correct any goofs if you've spotted them. Anyway, that's two out of seven, which makes the point I took stronger, not weaker. Regards, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Discussion: Possible GR: Enhance requirements for General Resolutions
Wouter Verhelst wrote: [...] > Well, I disagree on that point. I just had a look at the vote.debian.org > pages, checking those votes where the number of seconds exceeded 10, and > found only the following ones: I add the outcomes to the start of the line:- Proposal F chosen > - Proposal F on the last vote; 17 seconds Proposal A chosen > - Proposal A on 2008_002 (membership); 21 seconds Proposal A chosen > - Proposal A on 2007_004 (length DPL election); 20 seconds Amendment A chosen > - Amendment A on 2006_001 (GFDL); 15 seconds Proposal B chosen > - Proposal E on 2004_004 (sarge release after 2004_003): 16 seconds Amendment chosen > - Amendment on 2004_002 (status of non-free): 12 seconds So, in one case, the outcome was different to the most-seconded option. [...] > Now I do realize and agree that many people will probably not second > something anymore once a sufficient number of seconds has been issued; > but I think that, all things considered, 30 may be too much. Yes and more generally: I think there are obviously some interactions between being the first proposal, the number of seconds gathered, the voting preferences (and so the outcome) and the current required number of seconds. It's this last element which makes this analysis so unreliable, but the others play a part. > [...] However, raising the bar sixfold in one go is pushing it, IMO. I agree. There seems little rationale to support it. The more I've looked, the more places I've not found evidence for such a large seconding requirement and I know a few anecdotes about raising numbers too high and accidentally killing an organisation... Was 30 proposed as a "let's propose something extreme and see if we can get something less-but-sufficient-to-kill-nearly-all-GRs through" vanguard? Regards, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Discussion: Possible GR: Enhance requirements for General Resolutions
Joerg Jaspert wrote:
>
> this will mean that future GRs would need 30 other people to support
> your idea. While that does seem a lot (6times more than now),
> considering that a GR affects more than 1000 official Developers and
> uncounted amounts of other people doing work for Debian, I think its not
> too much. Especially as point b only requires 15 people, 3 times the
> amount than now, in case there is a disagreement with the DPL, TC or
> a Delegate.
I think that's too much. A quick count of discussions around the
recent GR suggests that only 79 people participated and I'm sure
that included many non-DDs. Given that a reasonable ballot would
have 4 alternatives (one-off exception, permanent exception, no
exceptions ever and release team discretion) as well as
compromise options (which rarely appear at the minute), I think
finding 4 groups of 30 DDs from 79 posters is unlikely. If the
recent criticism of DDs who second worthy-but-not-preferred
options succeeds in discouraging them, it would be impossible.
What are the consequences of setting the bar too high? Well, I
think it would favour organised campaign groups, it encourages
clustering around flags too early rather than seeking compromises
and the first hint of voter fatigue will probably result in no
further options being added to the ballot. That would be fine if
people sought compromise *before* calling for seconds (as is
happening now) but there is no requirement for that and it
doesn't seem to have happened often in the archives.
What number of seconds do other systems require for a proposal?
If I remember rightly, my local council (3200 inhabitants - maybe
2400 eligible voters?) requires no seconds to put a question to a
council meeting (which must be addressed), one elected second to
propose a solution, something like 9 seconds to call an election
and one second to stand for election. It seems a remarkably
stable council.
My largest company (3 million voters) requires one elected second
to put a question to some meetings and I think five seconds for
others and two seconds to stand for election to the first
level (I don't know about higher levels).
I'd welcome other examples - or especially expert analysis.
In the absence of that, my current view is that floor(Q) for a GR
and floor(Q/2) for disagreements would be reasonable as the next
step. Why should it be more?
Note: I counted number of participants with the rc shell command:
; curl -s http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2008/^(10 11 12)^/ \
| sed -n -e '/DFSG/{;s/^.*//;s/<.*$//;p;}' | sort | uniq -c | wc -l
79
Hope that helps,
--
MJ Ray (slef)
Webmaster for hire, statistician and online shop builder for a small
worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/
(Notice http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html) tel:+44-844-4437-237
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Re: Debian should focus on common grounds ....
Osamu Aoki wrote: > I am sick of seeing too many votes/policy-discussion/... to force other > volunteers to obey particular action patters. Basic principle of this > project should be more inclusive one and volunteer one. It should not > be a one of exclusion and enforcement. Volunteer project should be > based on coercion. I don't think coercion is a good thing and I don't think that to ask other volunteers not to do particular acts is the same as "to force other volunteers to obey". This is what I thought "Nothing in this constitution imposes an obligation on anyone to do work for the Project" meant. So, the rest of the argument falls because of the above mistake in the first step. However, the conclusion:- > Exclusion attitudes will only narrow our user/developer base and > benefits none of us whatever opinion we have. We should thrive to find > common ground. shows that you can state a good conclusion despite a bad step. Maybe that conclusion is a common ground? Best wishes, -- MJ Ray (slef) Webmaster for hire, statistician and online shop builder for a small worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ (Notice http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html) tel:+44-844-4437-237 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Re: Recommender systems (Re: Voting on messages: a way to resolve the mailing list problems)
Filipus Klutiero wrote: > MJ Ray wrote: > > I consider filtered indices, auto-responses, shadow lists of only > > "good" messages, highlighting, integration with db.debian.org and some > > of the other uses for this data to be recommendation systems. > > > A filtered thread index as proposed is not a recommendation list. A filtered thread index as proposed could be a recommendation system according to both descriptions posted, although it depends how one interprets "suggest", "support" and so on, and how much personalisation one believes is needed to be a recommendation system. One can just as well see many drawbacks by looking at more general "collaborative filtering" research - or even out into more general population clustering work to see the reasons for the drawbacks - but it's a bit older, so less of it is online, so I didn't refer to it. I'm pretty sure that someone would react to the obvious problems in using an unpersonalised filtered thread index (which is a collaborative filter, isn't it?) by personalising it to make some sort of simple recommendation system, wouldn't they? Nevertheless, I now wish I hadn't tried to skip the above step, because it's resulted in this pedantic subthread. Regards, -- MJ Ray (slef) Webmaster for hire, statistician and online shop builder for a small worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ (Notice http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html) tel:+44-844-4437-237 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Recommender systems (Re: Voting on messages: a way to resolve the mailing list problems)
Filipus Klutiero wrote: > > Various messages in this thread have suggested using the votes as the > > basis of a recommendation system for messages or authors. > Ah, do you consider a "filtered thread index" as a recommendation list? > Else what do you consider as a recommendation list? Please take care to attribute quotes correctly. I consider filtered indices, auto-responses, shadow lists of only "good" messages, highlighting, integration with db.debian.org and some of the other uses for this data to be recommendation systems. Regards, -- MJ Ray (slef) Webmaster for hire, statistician and online shop builder for a small worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ (Notice http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html) tel:+44-844-4437-237 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Voting on messages: a way to resolve the mailing list problems
George Danchev wrote: [...] > Well, I assume that the vote is a personal human right and that is common for > all the cultures out there (including regimes, since these peers are Debian > citizens after all, if any ?). So anyone can vote on his/her own. I believe > that is quite valid assumption, isn't it ? [...] Well, some debian developers have explicitly argued against the project supporting universal human rights (claiming they regard it as off-topic - see http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2007/11/ for example), so: no, I don't think that's a safe assumption without further work. Hope that explains, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Re: Voting on messages: a way to resolve the mailing list problems
Filipus Klutiero wrote: > > I see that http://www.grouplens.org has moved on and their research > > (like http://www.grouplens.org/node/126 - "The recommendations that > > are most accurate according to the standard metrics are sometimes not > > the recommendations that are most useful to users") may be informative > > for anyone who thinks that message-voting will surely work. > > > Unless you're suggesting a recommendation system, I don't see how this > paper is relevant. Various messages in this thread have suggested using the votes as the basis of a recommendation system for messages or authors. I think such a system would also exhibit the "similarity hole" mentioned in that paper. To be specific: it will prioritise what the voting groups already know, over what would be most useful to the project. However, that's just one example of the studies and - particularly if you've never tried GroupLens or a similar system - several of the papers are worth reading, illustrating the limits of item voting systems and the challenges to overcome. I believe those limits and challenges mean that wider moderation/facilitation would be more rewarding for the same effort. Hope that explains, -- MJ Ray (slef) Webmaster for hire, statistician and online shop builder for a small worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ (Notice http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html) tel:+44-844-4437-237 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Voting on messages: a way to resolve the mailing list problems
Filipus Klutiero wrote: [...] > I'm not aware of any software with such a feature that would fit for > Debian. I also couldn't find any in a quick search. [...] It sounded a lot like the old GroupLens usenet tool to me. http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/gnus/GroupLens.html The big difference there was that it explicitly grouped your ratings with those of other people who rated it the same way - there was not the assumption of a common value system which seems to underlie this proposal. I see that http://www.grouplens.org has moved on and their research (like http://www.grouplens.org/node/126 - "The recommendations that are most accurate according to the standard metrics are sometimes not the recommendations that are most useful to users") may be informative for anyone who thinks that message-voting will surely work. Hope that helps, -- MJ Ray (slef) Webmaster for hire, statistician and online shop builder for a small worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ (Notice http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html) tel:+44-844-4437-237 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Voting on messages: a way to resolve the mailing list problems
George Danchev wrote: > On Saturday 20 December 2008 21:33:27 MJ Ray wrote: > > So, people who remain on the debian mailing lists have a poor > > understanding of what should appear a good mailing list, > > What makes you think that "vocal minority" is larger than "silent majority" > in > debian mailing lists? If the "silent majority" has decent means to evaluate > the traffic of the mailing list (i.e. by means of voting messages for > example) then I believe it will do it happily, or at least chances to do so > increase dramatically. Show me the numbers. I believe that the current "silent majority" is by definition silent and most of it will continue to be silent, watching lists just in case something useful appears and refusing to participate in improving the lists, as they have so far. Meanwhile, the vocal minorities will continue to be vocal and so more enthusiastic (ab?)users of any Whuffie system which is implemented. > > but having > > those same people express their opinion about what is good on a > > mailing list will improve matters? > > Which people you think should express their opinion about what is good on a > debian mailing lists: > > * debian mailing list participants > * external observers, who has no clue nor care about the list traffic I'm glad to see the implicit agreement that only list *participants* would take part in this scheme. But that is a false dilemma. I believe lists should be facilitated by good mailing list participants selected by the general debian developer population, as I have suggested for years. http://mjr.towers.org.uk/blog/2006/debian#listmoderators > > In short, we are going to use > > the "buggy" list memberships's views to repair the lists? > > I see no repairs here, just means to evaluate the content which hopefully > might gain a self-improving system based on the gathered data. Those who > supply the data, are these who consume its results... see the motivation ? I see the feedback loop potential. I can't see what would motivate people to support adding a feedback loop to buggy lists. Hope that explains, -- MJ Ray (slef) Webmaster for hire, statistician and online shop builder for a small worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ (Notice http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html) tel:+44-844-4437-237 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Voting on messages: a way to resolve the mailing list problems
Jurij Smakov wrote: [...] > So, what can we do about? During a little brainstorming session on IRC > last night a following idea has emerged: let's have a way to express > our opinion about the mailing list posts. [...] So, people who remain on the debian mailing lists have a poor understanding of what should appear a good mailing list, but having those same people express their opinion about what is good on a mailing list will improve matters? In short, we are going to use the "buggy" list memberships's views to repair the lists? Why would it do that, rather than form a feedback loop and further divide the lists, encouraging the "vocal minorities" to engage in anonymised risk-free backstabbing of each other? Are you proposing a simultaneous "come back and rate the mailing lists" campaign or some other action to activate the "silent majority"? > one authoritative way of calculating it, which can become "official", > and used to develop procedures for warning the offensive posters that > their behaviour is considered disruptive, for example. So this is even suggested to become a type of Whuffie? Did I miss the point of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom? http://craphound.com/?p=147 Amazed, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Debian on Causes (Facebook and MySpace)
Kevin Mark <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Facebook and Myspace are obviously not same as the recent identi.ca. > Some of the walled-gardens are opening up their APIs which is a start > but not on par with identi.ca's open service model and AGPL. [...] I'm still unsure about the AGPL use fees, as you can read elsewhere, but identi.ca is a damn sight better for openness, but can we use identi.ca to help debian or SPI fundraise? How? Should members tag themselves #spi and #debian and maybe post links to the donations pages? Should we track those words when tracking is implemented? I really don't know. Ass you'd expect, I mutter to http://identi.ca/mjray about SPI meetings... I'm also on LinkedIn but I have already been threatened with deletion from Facebook for advertising on it for charity, so I'm not doing much there any more. UK CSO people can find me on unltdworld.com but sadly elgg sites don't network yet. Regards, -- MJ Ray (slef) Webmaster for hire, statistician and online shop builder for a small worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ (Notice http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html) tel:+44-844-4437-237 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian on Causes (Facebook and MySpace)
Ean Schuessler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Some of you are probably saying "Eeee gads! Not accursed proprietary social > networks!". Some of us have friends who aren't die-hard computer nerds and, > yes, there is a world beyond Advogato. Now shut up and go make your less > nerdy friends give money to Debian. No, I'm saying "use it if you want, but please try to keep external backups of all the supporter details and don't create much facebook-only content because facebook *do* delete people's accounts in an automated, arbitrary and self-contradicting way, so supporting them (as opposed to mining them) is not in the public interest." Hope that helps, -- MJ Ray (slef) Webmaster for hire, statistician and online shop builder for a small worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ (Notice http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html) tel:+44-844-4437-237 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Forget classes, think privileges (was: Developer Status)
martin f krafft <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2005/02/msg00079.html [...] > Why don't we just take each and every of those privileges and define > criteria for how to obtain the privilege, and then simply give > people privileges according to what they need, rather than having > a defined set of rigid classes? Obviously, one could still group > privileges (e.g. to be able to vote, you have to endure > debian-private). I think that's an excellent idea. I would also like any privilege request queue handled in an approximately First In First Out manner and I would try to vote accordingly in a GR. I've been suggesting NM reform since 2003ish. One recent post is:- http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2007/11/msg00085.html Thanks for saving me time by putting the suggestion in better words than I could! -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: ssh.upload.debian.org
Peter Palfrader <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Tue, 30 Sep 2008, MJ Ray wrote: > > Posting a simple mail like "I can't predict why we might want to move > > it, but it seems like a possibility we should leave open and yes, > > ftp-master was a symbolic name, but isn't the best one now. Please use > > the new symbolic names." a few messages back might have stopped this. > > It also isn't accurate. The name was changed for the very reason that > upload place should be uncoupled from archive maint place, for the few > times where ries does go down. It was proposed when this happened last > time, a few weeks back. Yes! ftp-master isn't the best symbolic name for the upload place now! If someone can predict why we might want to move it then fine, by all means change the message to give the reason. The above advice remains good in general terms. > Just because *you* don't get it doesn't mean it's stupid. Indeed, but if several DDs didn't get it and were even willing to brave the typical debian email abuse to query it, that may mean it was confusing. Confusing is not the same as stupid and it could have been clarified without all this heat. (*I* got it, BTW.) Hope that explains, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: ssh.upload.debian.org
Peter Palfrader <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: [...] > It's just the usual nit-picking on anybody who actually does anything to > improve our infrastructure. [...] It's also combined with the usual failure by many people who improve our infrastructure to accept they wrote a confusing email (ftp-master is a symbolic name, even though it's not the best symbolic name for an upload server these days) and stop the thread, preferring instead to keep flaming other DDs and spinning the wheels. Posting a simple mail like "I can't predict why we might want to move it, but it seems like a possibility we should leave open and yes, ftp-master was a symbolic name, but isn't the best one now. Please use the new symbolic names." a few messages back might have stopped this. Hope that helps, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian and non-free [censorship]
Ben Finney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > No. Censorship is banning/prohibiting certain speech in *any and all* > public forums. Generally, only a state has that power. Not in the Collins English Dictionary. Wildly OT and doesn't matter for this subject, though. Should I update my svenl FAQ? Regards, -- MJ Ray (slef) Webmaster for hire, statistician and online shop builder for a small worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ (Notice http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html) tel:+44-844-4437-237 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: FSF not considering Debian as Free (Re: Debian and non-free)
Russ Allbery <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > MJ Ray <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > Russ Allbery <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> [...] the rule that the FSF has about not linking to > >> any non-free software from their sites, [...] > > That rule is a myth. > > It most certainly is not. I can attest to that personally, having been > involved in and followed multiple FSF projects for many years. It is an > expectation for all GNU projects. Expectation and advice, but not a rule and definitely not enforced. I can attest to that personally for similar reasons. > > I think it's counter-productive to spend so much time badmouthing the > > competition, but I'd be happy to see a link from fsf.org to debian that > > noted we have different views on some aspects of freedom. > > I'm not bad-mouthing the competition. [...] Sorry, I wasn't suggesting that you were. I meant that I think that sites like badvista.fsf.org are counter-productive. Hope that clarifies, -- MJ Ray (slef) Webmaster for hire, statistician and online shop builder for a small worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ (Notice http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html) tel:+44-844-4437-237 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: FSF not considering Debian as Free (Re: Debian and non-free)
Russ Allbery <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: [...] > My understanding of RMS's position is that he would like Debian to follow > something like the rule that the FSF has about not linking to any non-free > software from their sites, [...] That rule is a myth. Their campaign sites like http://badvista.fsf.org and http://www.defectivebydesign.org/ have links to and about non-free software - with commentary, but still links. I think it's counter-productive to spend so much time badmouthing the competition, but I'd be happy to see a link from fsf.org to debian that noted we have different views on some aspects of freedom. There are also a few links on fsf.org but I'm not mentioning them on this public mailing list else they'll just get removed. One I would like removed is http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/ -> Wiki -> Atlassian Confluence. (Yeah, GNU.org, proprietary webapp lovers and AGPL advocates...) Anyway, does this thread count as debian.org mentioning non-free.org? If so, we've lost already, actually. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian and non-free
"John H. Robinson, IV" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I like this idea, but without mentioning FSF directly. More entities than > just the FSF use the GNU FDL for licensing. I agree. The FSF also have no "free document definition" or similar and I believe their position on documents is a convenience measure in part to help them get manuals published/sponsored by legacy publishers who would otherwise cut out the manifesto. [...] > It would be nice if non-free was a simple umbrella for non-free-*. > Possibly non-free/documentation and non-free/firmware? Sounds good to me, as well as leaving the subdivision to the developer. Regards, -- MJ Ray (slef) Webmaster for hire, statistician and online shop builder for a small worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ (Notice http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html) tel:+44-844-4437-237 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
