Re: Validity of DFSG #10
On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 06:07:33PM +0530, Vasudev Kamath wrote: > > So, sure, we could drop it. (Note that this isn't entirely trivial, as > > it will require a GR with a 3:1 majority, given that the DFSG is one of > > our foundation documents.) > > So we would need to start a GR for this process but I'm not sure being > not a Debian Developer I can start a GR. Proposed addendum to P&P phase, question: can a non Debian project member start a GR? SCNR :) > Can you suggest me how I can help in this. Of course I know it is more > important to have the valid list of license which we considers DFSG > free first but again we are not sure how long it will take us to > document this. As it usually happens, getting rid of something is much easier than building something new (possibly its replacement). So, even if I agree that the two aspects are somewhat orthogonal, I personally don't see much of a point in getting rid of DFSG §10 without we have a decent, and better, replacement for it. This is just to say that *I* won't personally lead the effort of getting rid of DFSG §10 until we have a decent (and maintained) list of DFSG-free licenses. Others could do that, if they want to; and anyone could help in phases that don't require Debian membership like discussion, text drafting, etc. Cheers. -- Stefano Zacchiroli . . . . . . . z...@upsilon.cc . . . . o . . . o . o Maître de conférences . . . . . http://upsilon.cc/zack . . . o . . . o o Debian Project Leader . . . . . . @zack on identi.ca . . o o o . . . o . « the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club » signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Validity of DFSG #10
Hi Stefano, all,
First of all thanks to all who contributed to the thread and sorry I
went silent after 2 messages to thread. The main reason for going silent
was I'm not knowledgeable enough to comment further on thread :-)
But I was reading all the messages thread and in short I can summarise
two outcomes from this thread.
1. Dropping of DFSG #10
2. Having a license page which can replace [1] which can declare or say
which licenses Debian community thinks as Free (DFSG Free).
And I assume point 2 is also separately discussed on another thread also
[1] http://www.debian.org/legal/licenses/
On 15:37 Sun 06 Jan , Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 05, 2013 at 08:35:00PM +0530, Vasudev Kamath wrote:
> > Just to give a background as part of my NM process me and my AM
> > (intrigeri) started a discussion on ambiguity in DFSG #10 which
> > specifies example of DFSG free license as BSD, GPL and Artistic.
>
> Heya, thanks for pointing this out here and all the best for your NM
> process! :-)
Thank you :-)
>
> > In brief Jakub Wilk wanted to get rid of DFSG #10 as it is creating
> > ambiguous situation by pointing to licenses which have multiple
> > variants. rather than rephrasing him I'm attaching his mail with his
> > permission to this.
> >
> > In my opinion DFSG #10 is not a guideline but a statement giving example
> > compared to other DFSG's so even I feel it is better to drop DFSG
> > #10. So I would like to formally start a discussion on this topic
> > here. Please share your suggestions.
>
> Sure enough, DFSG §10 is doomed to be outdated and it's already quite
> misleading in the BSD case. It could even get worse if, say, future
> *versions* of licenses that are listed there and that we currently
> consider free, won't be considered free anymore.
Agreed
>
> So, sure, we could drop it. (Note that this isn't entirely trivial, as
> it will require a GR with a 3:1 majority, given that the DFSG is one of
> our foundation documents.)
So we would need to start a GR for this process but I'm not sure being
not a Debian Developer I can start a GR. Can you suggest me how I can
help in this. Of course I know it is more important to have the valid
list of license which we considers DFSG free first but again we are not
sure how long it will take us to document this.
Warm Regards
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Re: Validity of DFSG #10
Le Tue, Jan 08, 2013 at 07:35:19AM +0900, Charles Plessy a écrit : > > There are now 1,387 Debian copyright files declaring a 1.0 machine-readable > format in the collab-qa/packages-metadata repository on svn.debian.org (see > http://wiki.debian.org/UpstreamMetadata for details). This repository > is not perfect, but I think it can be a good start for people who do not have > access to lintian.debian.org. > > Any volunteers ? I went ahead and wrote a small script that will update daily a list at the following URL. http://upstream-metadata.debian.net/license-stats Unsurprisingly, the head of the file is enriched in common licenses. 446 GPL-2+ 313 Artistic 306 GPL-1+ 292 Artistic or GPL-1+ 204 GPL-3+ 154 GPL-2 134 LGPL-2.1+ 114 Expat 109 MIT 76 BSD-3-clause 73 LGPL-2+ 73 Apache-2.0 The source code of the script is in the umegaya package. http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=users/plessy/umegaya.git;a=commit;h=4db19afda864ac34a5cc2fa54ab91201a191165c Have a nice week-end, -- Charles Plessy Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan -- 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/20130112092235.ga31...@falafel.plessy.net
Re: Validity of DFSG #10
Stefano Zacchiroli writes ("Re: Validity of DFSG #10"):
> I interpreted it in the sense that they are looking for volunteers to
> *document* past, present, and future decisions made by ftp-masters. You
> interpreted it in the sense that they are looking for volunteers to
> participate in the decision process itself.
Ah. Sorry abouut that.
As you said on IRC:
18:17 I wasn't exactly in the mood of making, right now, a revolution
into how we decide DFSG-freeness
18:17 Oh I see.
18:18 Right.
18:18 Good.
18:18 Sorry to misunderstand.
18:18 (it could be done if needed :-), but that's another aspect)
18:18 No, it's not needed. If ftpmaster don't want things to change
then great.
18:18 I will say that in the email thread.
So yes I think tieing this decisionmaking to the hard work of
ftpmastering is fine.
Having stuck my neck out I ought to volunteer to help with the
documentation. So please count me in.
Ian.
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Re: Validity of DFSG #10
On Tue, Jan 08, 2013 at 05:26:18PM +, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Joerg Jaspert writes ("Re: Validity of DFSG #10"):
> > But we would be happy to work with / lead / whatever-one-names it with a
> > group of volunteers together. Exact details of how that works out are to
> > be found, but im sure we can. If there are volunteers for it...
>
> I would volunteer. But:
Uhm... It looks like we've interpreted in radically different ways what
ftp-masters are looking volunteers for.
I interpreted it in the sense that they are looking for volunteers to
*document* past, present, and future decisions made by ftp-masters. You
interpreted it in the sense that they are looking for volunteers to
participate in the decision process itself.
Cheers.
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Re: Validity of DFSG #10
Joerg Jaspert writes ("Re: Validity of DFSG #10"):
> But we would be happy to work with / lead / whatever-one-names it with a
> group of volunteers together. Exact details of how that works out are to
> be found, but im sure we can. If there are volunteers for it...
I would volunteer. But:
We have had problems in the past with a self-selecting group
containing an imbalance of views (compared to the rest of the project)
trying to take control of these important and politically charged[1]
decisions.
This has been worked around to an extent by ftpmaster essentially
ignoring "conclusions" from debian-legal (which FAOD I think is
entirely proper), but the perception from outside the project is
confused to say the least.
While licensing discussions are for many people a tedious interruption
from real work there are also people for whom they are an attractive
way to influence the world and advance their ideological[1] causes.
(Obviously I'm including myself in that latter category.)
So if we are to set up a formal decisionmaking group for licensing
questions, we need to be sure that its selection mechanisms are sound,
that it is properly representative of the project as a whole and that
all of its members are DDs.
Perhaps we should have a project-wide election, with hustings and a
set of representative licence questions for the candidates to answer ?
(Condorcet is a bad voting system for electing representative panels -
it tends to result in majority domination; we should use STV or
perhaps Shulze STV.) If we did this we'd have to redo the election
every few years.
Such a panel would arguably also be a more appropriate venue than the
TC for deciding what policy should say about cross-suite dependency
lines (#681419).
IMO we should also establish a new forum for its deliberations to
which only members of the panel are able to post. This avoids
domination of the discussion by those (like myself...) who have a lot
of time to argue about licensing, vis a vis those doing technical
work.
Ian.
[1] I use "political" and "ideological" without criticism. Debian's
chief goal - freedom - is a matter of ideology. And because freedom
always means escaping from someone's control, it's also a matter of
politics.
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Re: Validity of DFSG #10
On Mon, Jan 07, 2013 at 02:16:59PM +, Ian Jackson wrote: > I found a report of Richard Fontana's talk here: > http://lwn.net/Articles/516896/ Oh, thanks, I forgot about that one. > > […] we are not doing a good job at documenting and explaining our > > choices […] > > This is unfortunate. But it's not true to say that the FTP masters > have the final say. The Developers have the final say by General > Resolution and have exercised that power on multiple occasions > including most of the most controversial licensing decisions. > > That's an open, transparent democratic and community-based process > which OSI and the FSF would IMO do much better to emulate. It is true that FTP masters do not have the final say: the Constitution offers very good balances in that respect and we haven't been shy about using them when needed. But I don't think that's the point. And I don't have a problem with delegating the decision to a team. In fact, I've been arguing with Richard (Fontana) this precise point at the time of the preliminary discussions which --- I believe --- have been the basis for his talk. You can see part of those discussions here: http://identi.ca/conversation/80340750#notice-83030966 (unfortunately, Richard's own dents are no longer available on identi.ca) So I think we are in agreement on this part. The main point I think we should discuss is the part to which you replied with "This is unfortunate" (I hope my quoting is correct here). Namely: the fact that we could do a better job in documenting our choices. Because that's useful to others and because there aren't that many license review bodies out there, and finally also because we're quite peculiar in our way of doing that --- as you pointed out. > Debian is the only widely-referenced licence Free Software review body > whose ultimate decisionmakers are anything other than a > self-perpetuating oligarchy. FWIW, OSI is opening up, so this might change in the future. Cheers. -- Stefano Zacchiroli . . . . . . . z...@upsilon.cc . . . . o . . . o . o Maître de conférences . . . . . http://upsilon.cc/zack . . . o . . . o o Debian Project Leader . . . . . . @zack on identi.ca . . o o o . . . o . « the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club » signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Validity of DFSG #10
Hi MJ, thanks for your feedback! On Mon, Jan 07, 2013 at 01:32:20PM +, MJ Ray wrote: > 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. Right. That's in fact why I've written "de facto" in the sentence you quoted ;) So, let's be more precise. The list that I think would be useful is a list of copyright licenses that, if they were the only "constraints" attached to the usage/modification/redistribution of some content, would make that content suitable for the Debian main archive. That does not cover corner cases (not only the interaction between copyright and trademarks, but also license mixes), but it's useful---to us and others---in a whole lot of common scenarios. And then nothing stops us to do more to deal with the complex cases (e.g. which mixes of copyright licenses we consider acceptable, when code get linked together, in Debian main? which mixes of copyright/trademark?, etc), even though that's would require more work. > 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. FWIW: the problem with iceweasel/firefox was the *burden* caused by the intermix of trademark/copyright licenses (e.g. the obligation of renaming the package upon security patches not vetted by Mozilla), not that it didn't make the package free per se. That is something that has been addressed in the current best approximation we have of a working draft of our inbound trademark policy, see: https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2012/02/msg00073.html > 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. I guess this is simply related to the recent need of resetting your wiki.d.o password. I can edit that page. > 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. In passing, I note that having such a list is not much different in principle than DFSG §10: it's a concretization, with real examples, of the DFSG which are by their own nature in the abstract. I don't think there is "someone" who wants this index. I think it's social value that we can offer to the free software world by maintaining it. Let's accept that we are not just yet another distro. Our licensing choices have effects which extend past our project borders, they can (and do) influence where the free software movement is going. We will do a service to the free software world by documenting them better than now. Cheers. -- Stefano Zacchiroli . . . . . . . z...@upsilon.cc . . . . o . . . o . o Maître de conférences . . . . . http://upsilon.cc/zack . . . o . . . o o Debian Project Leader . . . . . . @zack on identi.ca . . o o o . . . o . « the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club » signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Validity of DFSG #10
On 13083 March 1977, Bart Martens wrote: > How would you organize setting up an authoritative and maintained list of > verified DFSG-free licenses ? Which formal steps would need to be completed > before an additional license or license version would be added to the list ? > How to deal with mistakes on the list ? Do we have sufficient volunteers with > sufficient legal knowledge to maintain such list ? Maybe this part should be > dealt with further on debian-legal. A mailing-list with undefined (and lots of non-DD) people can not seriously work on a list as intended here. -- bye, Joerg I’m a white male, age 18 to 49. Everyone listens to me, no matter how dumb my suggestions are. -- 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/87fw2cppmq@gkar.ganneff.de
Re: Validity of DFSG #10
On 13083 March 1977, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote: > Unfortunately, we are not doing a particularly good job at documenting > our choices --- in particular: which licenses do we consider free --- > and at explaining the rationales behind them. One thing first: The question if we change DFSG and documenting what we think is free (or not) are two entirely different things, and shouldn't be mixed together. I'm replying only to the documenting thing using my ftpmaster hat, the DFSG§10 one is entirely seperate and doesn't really touch ftp* opinions. > This has been discussed in various occasions. A recent one within the > project is the question time of my talk at DebConf12 [1], thanks to > input by Steve Langasek. But our flaws on this matter are being > discussed also outside the project border; see for instance the > interesting talk "The Tragedy of the Commons Gatekeepers" by Richard > Fontana at LinuxCon North America last year [2,3]. > I agree with Richard that, modulo some notable exception like FTP > masters' "ruling" about the Ubuntu Font License [4], we are not doing a > good job at documenting and explaining our choices. The best > approximations we have are either non-authoritative, or not maintained, > or both. The net result is that by searching the web license names and > Debian one will likely end up on debian-legal discussions, that are not > the official project stance on license free-ness. > Bottom line: I'd be very much in favor of dropping DFSG §10 as long as > we replace it with a (pointer to a) place where we maintain an > authoritative list of licenses we consider free, together with (pointers > to) explanation of why it is so. I'm quite sure the explanations do > exist already, but we do need people that do the work of finding them > and documenting them in a central place. For the place in itself, [5] > would be perfectly fine, but needs to be turned in something > authoritative (and maintained) as opposed to something that is only > advisory. The whole of ftp* agrees that it would be nice to have a place documenting this. So much so that we started something for it in 2009, see http://ftp-master.debian.org/licenses/ for it. You might notice that it is not entirely uptodate. Or listing a lot of it. What it is is a "hey, we could do it this way, here is how it can look. And here is an ikiwiki instance in a git, check it out, ftp*". That got it around 31 commits far, and then it "slept in". It *is* entirely dull and non-fun and just boring work, with no direct payoff (in NEW/rm you at least have that direct "payback" :) ). That said, we would be happy to get it back to live and end up with it (either where it is now or wherever fits) being a useful place. Seeing how it directly touches us (decide if $foo can go into the archive and be distributed or not), it certainly makes sense to have it within FTP* overview. That said, it is clear it can't be the FTP Team who is doing the work - the oh-so-recentness of it shows that it is a task that won't get done. There is too much else for us and we are few people only. But we would be happy to work with / lead / whatever-one-names it with a group of volunteers together. Exact details of how that works out are to be found, but im sure we can. If there are volunteers for it... -- bye, Joerg You're in good shape for being a Debian, with a SAP background ... anything has to look good from there... -- 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/87k3roppqa@gkar.ganneff.de
Re: Validity of DFSG #10
Le Mon, Jan 07, 2013 at 01:32:20PM +, MJ Ray a écrit : > Stefano Zacchiroli wrote: > > > 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. Hello everybody, I would be interested to contribute, but on the other hand, I do not thing that it is possible to do serious work if the decision makers, the FTP team, do not have enough time to explain precisely their decisions. For instance, I am not able to understand by myself what in Creative Commons 2.5 changed to make it acceptable for Debian, and I have not found this information in public documents. In the absence of (and even in parallel with) a curated list of Free and non-Free licenses, I think that general statistics of what license are seen in the main and non-free components of our archive would have value, without requiring commitment from the FTP team. There are now 1,387 Debian copyright files declaring a 1.0 machine-readable format in the collab-qa/packages-metadata repository on svn.debian.org (see http://wiki.debian.org/UpstreamMetadata for details). This repository is not perfect, but I think it can be a good start for people who do not have access to lintian.debian.org. Any volunteers ? Have a nice day, -- Charles Plessy Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan -- 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/20130107223519.gb3...@falafel.plessy.net
Re: Validity of DFSG #10
Stefano Zacchiroli writes ("Re: Validity of DFSG #10"):
> This has been discussed in various occasions. A recent one within the
> project is the question time of my talk at DebConf12 [1], thanks to
> input by Steve Langasek. But our flaws on this matter are being
> discussed also outside the project border; see for instance the
> interesting talk "The Tragedy of the Commons Gatekeepers" by Richard
> Fontana at LinuxCon North America last year [2,3].
>
> [1]: http://penta.debconf.org/dc12_schedule/events/881.en.html
> [2]: http://faif.us/cast/2012/oct/10/0x33/
> [3]: http://linuxcon2012-fontana.rhcloud.com/
I found a report of Richard Fontana's talk here:
http://lwn.net/Articles/516896/
Richard (or perhaps Michael Kerrisk[1]) does us a disservice there.
> I agree with Richard that, modulo some notable exception like FTP
> masters' "ruling" about the Ubuntu Font License [4], we are not doing a
> good job at documenting and explaining our choices. The best
> approximations we have are either non-authoritative, or not maintained,
> or both. The net result is that by searching the web license names and
> Debian one will likely end up on debian-legal discussions, that are not
> the official project stance on license free-ness.
This is unfortunate. But it's not true to say that the FTP masters
have the final say. The Developers have the final say by General
Resolution and have exercised that power on multiple occasions
including most of the most controversial licensing decisions.
That's an open, transparent democratic and community-based process
which OSI and the FSF would IMO do much better to emulate.
Debian is the only widely-referenced licence Free Software review body
whose ultimate decisionmakers are anything other than a
self-perpetuating oligarchy.
And I disagree with another of Richard Fontana's worries. He thinks
that having licence review bodies which people defer to is a bad
thing. Back in the real world, no-one has enough time and energy to
make every decision themselves. Instead in our lives - in decisions
big and small, in our economic social and political choices - we all
follow the decisions of people and institutions we respect.
This is a normal and essential part of human existence. It doesn't
take away our freedom to judge and review our effective delegation to
others.
In Debian we are lucky in having the size, the focus and the standing
to be able to make these decisions collectively for ourselves. We
should be proud that there are others who choose to respect our
decisions. And that doesn't detract from our individual ability to
disagree about the details of those collectively decision.
Ian.
[1] I'm going to take Michael's report of the talk as accurate. In
this kind of discourse, I think if people want us to not to
misrepresent their views they need to write them down and publish
them. And no, a slide deck doesn't count and nor does a recording of
a talk.
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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: Validity of DFSG #10
On Du, 06 ian 13, 19:09:28, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote: > On Sun, Jan 06, 2013 at 05:46:44PM +, Bart Martens wrote: > > > How would you organize setting up an authoritative and maintained list of > > verified DFSG-free licenses ? Which formal steps would need to be completed > > before an additional license or license version would be added to the list ? > > How to deal with mistakes on the list ? Do we have sufficient volunteers > > with > > sufficient legal knowledge to maintain such list ? Maybe this part should be > > dealt with further on debian-legal. > > 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. 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 haven't asked, but I suspect FTP masters have already enough on their > plates to be interested in doing the publishing/indexing work too. But > it's something that anyone can pick up, possibly agreeing on FTP masters > on a way of being notified of new decisions. As far as I know, when a software is rejected the Maintainer receives an e-mail notification. Assuming such message has at least minimal information and it is CCd somewhere public (e.g. the ITP bug or debian-legal) others could pick it up and propose a patch to w.d.o/legal/licenses to be acknowledged by ftpmasters. What do you think? Kind regards, Andrei -- Offtopic discussions among Debian users and developers: http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/d-community-offtopic signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Validity of DFSG #10
On Sun, Jan 06, 2013 at 05:46:44PM +, Bart Martens wrote: > I agree that it would be nice to have an authoritative and maintained list of > verified DFSG-free licenses. > > But we should keep the DFSG and the list strictly separate. If not, we would > need a 3:1 majority on every change of the list, or we would be giving the > list > maintainers the authority to in fact change the DFSG without 3:1 majority. In > my opinion the DFSG should not even mention the existence of the list (so no > "pointer"), That's fine, I've no strong opinion on that, either way. My main point is that dropping DFSG §10 is at best an aesthetic issue. The important related issue is that we're not particularly good at documenting which licenses we consider DFSG-free and which we don't. > How would you organize setting up an authoritative and maintained list of > verified DFSG-free licenses ? Which formal steps would need to be completed > before an additional license or license version would be added to the list ? > How to deal with mistakes on the list ? Do we have sufficient volunteers with > sufficient legal knowledge to maintain such list ? Maybe this part should be > dealt with further on debian-legal. 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. 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 haven't asked, but I suspect FTP masters have already enough on their plates to be interested in doing the publishing/indexing work too. But it's something that anyone can pick up, possibly agreeing on FTP masters on a way of being notified of new decisions. Cheers. -- Stefano Zacchiroli . . . . . . . z...@upsilon.cc . . . . o . . . o . o Maître de conférences . . . . . http://upsilon.cc/zack . . . o . . . o o Debian Project Leader . . . . . . @zack on identi.ca . . o o o . . . o . « the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club » signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Validity of DFSG #10
Hi Stefano, On Sun, Jan 06, 2013 at 03:37:38PM +0100, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote: > So, sure, we could drop it. (Note that this isn't entirely trivial, as it > will require a GR with a 3:1 majority, given that the DFSG is one of our > foundation documents.) I guess it's easy to get such 3:1 majority for this. > But I doubt we will gain much in clarity by *only* doing that. We need an > extra step: an authoritative and maintained lists of licenses that the Debian > Project considers free. (...) Bottom line: I'd be very much in favor of > dropping DFSG §10 as long as we replace it with a (pointer to a) place where > we maintain an authoritative list of licenses we consider free, (...) I agree that it would be nice to have an authoritative and maintained list of verified DFSG-free licenses. But we should keep the DFSG and the list strictly separate. If not, we would need a 3:1 majority on every change of the list, or we would be giving the list maintainers the authority to in fact change the DFSG without 3:1 majority. In my opinion the DFSG should not even mention the existence of the list (so no "pointer"), to prevent any possible interpretation like "this license is DFSG because it's on the list and the DFSG state that the list is authoritative". How to do the GR to drop DFSG #10 is clear. It's a matter of following existing procedures. How would you organize setting up an authoritative and maintained list of verified DFSG-free licenses ? Which formal steps would need to be completed before an additional license or license version would be added to the list ? How to deal with mistakes on the list ? Do we have sufficient volunteers with sufficient legal knowledge to maintain such list ? Maybe this part should be dealt with further on debian-legal. Regards, Bart Martens -- 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/20130106174644.ga19...@master.debian.org
Re: Validity of DFSG #10
On Sat, Jan 05, 2013 at 08:35:00PM +0530, Vasudev Kamath wrote: > Just to give a background as part of my NM process me and my AM > (intrigeri) started a discussion on ambiguity in DFSG #10 which > specifies example of DFSG free license as BSD, GPL and Artistic. Heya, thanks for pointing this out here and all the best for your NM process! :-) > In brief Jakub Wilk wanted to get rid of DFSG #10 as it is creating > ambiguous situation by pointing to licenses which have multiple > variants. rather than rephrasing him I'm attaching his mail with his > permission to this. > > In my opinion DFSG #10 is not a guideline but a statement giving example > compared to other DFSG's so even I feel it is better to drop DFSG > #10. So I would like to formally start a discussion on this topic > here. Please share your suggestions. Sure enough, DFSG §10 is doomed to be outdated and it's already quite misleading in the BSD case. It could even get worse if, say, future *versions* of licenses that are listed there and that we currently consider free, won't be considered free anymore. So, sure, we could drop it. (Note that this isn't entirely trivial, as it will require a GR with a 3:1 majority, given that the DFSG is one of our foundation documents.) But I doubt we will gain much in clarity by *only* doing that. We need an extra step: an authoritative and maintained lists of licenses that the Debian Project considers free. (We currently only have approximations of this, more details below.) The rationale is that when considering licenses many people look at Debian and at our choices. They will surely also look at other sources, like FSF and OSI, but people do look at what we do. In a sense, we are a well established moral and political authority in defining what free software *is*. (In passing, we are among the very few that considers "software" in its broadest meaning of "content". As a consequence we also encompass free culture, something that others don't do as prominently as we do.) Unfortunately, we are not doing a particularly good job at documenting our choices --- in particular: which licenses do we consider free --- and at explaining the rationales behind them. This has been discussed in various occasions. A recent one within the project is the question time of my talk at DebConf12 [1], thanks to input by Steve Langasek. But our flaws on this matter are being discussed also outside the project border; see for instance the interesting talk "The Tragedy of the Commons Gatekeepers" by Richard Fontana at LinuxCon North America last year [2,3]. [1]: http://penta.debconf.org/dc12_schedule/events/881.en.html [2]: http://faif.us/cast/2012/oct/10/0x33/ [3]: http://linuxcon2012-fontana.rhcloud.com/ I agree with Richard that, modulo some notable exception like FTP masters' "ruling" about the Ubuntu Font License [4], we are not doing a good job at documenting and explaining our choices. The best approximations we have are either non-authoritative, or not maintained, or both. The net result is that by searching the web license names and Debian one will likely end up on debian-legal discussions, that are not the official project stance on license free-ness. [4]: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2011/04/msg01239.html [5]: http://www.debian.org/legal/licenses/ [6]: http://wiki.debian.org/DFSGLicenses Bottom line: I'd be very much in favor of dropping DFSG §10 as long as we replace it with a (pointer to a) place where we maintain an authoritative list of licenses we consider free, together with (pointers to) explanation of why it is so. I'm quite sure the explanations do exist already, but we do need people that do the work of finding them and documenting them in a central place. For the place in itself, [5] would be perfectly fine, but needs to be turned in something authoritative (and maintained) as opposed to something that is only advisory. Cheers. -- Stefano Zacchiroli . . . . . . . z...@upsilon.cc . . . . o . . . o . o Maître de conférences . . . . . http://upsilon.cc/zack . . . o . . . o o Debian Project Leader . . . . . . @zack on identi.ca . . o o o . . . o . « the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club » signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Validity of DFSG #10
On Sat, Jan 05, 2013 at 08:35:00PM +0530, Vasudev Kamath wrote: > Just to give a background as part of my NM process me and my AM (intrigeri) > started a discussion on ambiguity in DFSG #10 which specifies example of DFSG > free license as BSD, GPL and Artistic. The web version of DFSG text at [1] > currently provides link to each license name which respectively points to > BSD-3-clause, GPL v3 page and Artistic license 1.0 page from perl project. > But the text file of social_contract[2] shipped as part of doc-debian package > doesn't contain any references to which version of license it is referring > to. The text of the DFSG doesn't state which versions of the GPL, BSD and Artistic licenses we consider "free". If there is ambiguity in DFSG #10 then it's not about the links on the webpage and the absence of links in the text file shipped in doc-debian, but rather about the room for debate on whether all existing and future versions of GPL, BSD and Artistic licenses would be DFSG-free. > In brief Jakub Wilk wanted to get rid of DFSG #10 as it is creating ambiguous > situation by pointing to licenses which have multiple variants. I'm not against removing DFSG #10. Mentioning or not mentioning the examples don't change the DFSG themselves if the examples conform to the DFSG. If the DFSG continue to mention examples, then the examples must be unambigiously identified, so that only verified variants and versions are included. > In my opinion DFSG #10 is not a guideline but a statement giving example > compared to other DFSG's I agree that DFSG #10 is just a list of examples, not really a "guideline" as the "G" in "DFSG". > so even I feel it is better to drop DFSG #10. That is a choice we could make. Regards, Bart Martens -- 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/20130105155358.ga27...@master.debian.org
Re: Validity of DFSG #10
On 10:48 Sat 05 Jan , Jose Luis Rivas wrote:
> On 5 January 2013 10:35, Vasudev Kamath wrote:
>
> > In brief Jakub Wilk wanted to get rid of DFSG #10 as it is creating
> > ambiguous situation by pointing to licenses which have multiple
> > variants. rather than rephrasing him I'm attaching his mail with his
> > permission to this.
> >
> > In my opinion DFSG #10 is not a guideline but a statement giving example
> > compared to other DFSG's so even I feel it is better to drop DFSG
> > #10. So I would like to formally start a discussion on this topic
> > here. Please share your suggestions.
> >
>
> I see #10 as a guideline, is a piece of advice, «follow this as
> example of what we consider free».
OK.
>
> The web points to the last GPL, not the v3. Of course, there are
> differences, but the DFSG means all the GPL are DFSG-compatible. And
> that BSD is as Debian see the BSD. Maybe this should be specified.
> Althought I've seen that what we call the BSD the rest of the people
> call it too BSD.
May be if DFSG #10 is piece of advice saying which licenses are DFSG
free I feel it is better we give link to this page [1] than simply
specifying few license name in guidelines. Thus we will also avoid
ambiguity of current DFSG #10 and we will give users a list of license
which we consider as DFSG free.
[1] http://wiki.debian.org/DFSGLicenses
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Re: Validity of DFSG #10
On 5 January 2013 10:35, Vasudev Kamath wrote: > In brief Jakub Wilk wanted to get rid of DFSG #10 as it is creating > ambiguous situation by pointing to licenses which have multiple > variants. rather than rephrasing him I'm attaching his mail with his > permission to this. > > In my opinion DFSG #10 is not a guideline but a statement giving example > compared to other DFSG's so even I feel it is better to drop DFSG > #10. So I would like to formally start a discussion on this topic > here. Please share your suggestions. > I see #10 as a guideline, is a piece of advice, «follow this as example of what we consider free». The web points to the last GPL, not the v3. Of course, there are differences, but the DFSG means all the GPL are DFSG-compatible. And that BSD is as Debian see the BSD. Maybe this should be specified. Althought I've seen that what we call the BSD the rest of the people call it too BSD. Regards. -- Jose Luis Rivas. San Cristóbal, Venezuela. GPG 0xCACAB118 0x7C4DF50D http://joseluisrivas.net/acerca - http://ghostbar.ath.cx/about -- 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/cadnsh6ar_yrqct1u7wakzv_etm+4eaqckf-vz+ta+1rgixa...@mail.gmail.com
Validity of DFSG #10
[I'm not sure if intrigeri is subscribed to project so keeping him in
CC if he says he is he can be safely dropped from CC ]
Hello Project,
Just to give a background as part of my NM process me and my AM
(intrigeri) started a discussion on ambiguity in DFSG #10 which
specifies example of DFSG free license as BSD, GPL and Artistic. The
web version of DFSG text at [1] currently provides link to each license
name which respectively points to BSD-3-clause, GPL v3 page and Artistic
license 1.0 page from perl project. But the text file of social_contract[2]
shipped as part of doc-debian package doesn't contain any references to
which version of license it is referring to.
Of course all the versions of these licenses are DFSG free but we felt
that all copies of Social Contract should be matching (i.e. both web
version and the one shipped by doc-debian). Since this was just
modification to file shipped by doc-debian I felt filing a bug on
doc-debian is appropriate.
As per intrigeri's suggestion before going to file a bug I asked few
DD's whom I know about this and asked their suggestion.(Jaldhar Vyas,Paul
Tagliamonte, Jakub Wilk, Jonas Smedegaard, Kartik Mistry). As per their
suggestion I'm starting this thread here rather than filing the bug.
In brief Jakub Wilk wanted to get rid of DFSG #10 as it is creating
ambiguous situation by pointing to licenses which have multiple
variants. rather than rephrasing him I'm attaching his mail with his
permission to this.
In my opinion DFSG #10 is not a guideline but a statement giving example
compared to other DFSG's so even I feel it is better to drop DFSG
#10. So I would like to formally start a discussion on this topic
here. Please share your suggestions.
[1] http://www.debian.org/social_contract
[2] /usr/share/doc/debian/social_contract.txt.gz
Best Regards
--
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When DFSG was initially written, the authors had most likely the
original BSD license (the one with 4 clauses, one of them being an
obnoxious advertising clause) in mind, as it was the only common BSD
license back then.
* Vasudev Kamath , 2012-12-20, 13:10:
>I mentioned that DFSG at [1] is linking the *BSD* text to BSD-3-clause
>license
There was the 4-clause BSD at this URL in 1999:
http://web.archive.org/web/19990417142705/http://www.debian.org/misc/bsd.license
>Hence we thought this should be fixed in the social_contract.txt file
>which is shipped as part of *doc-debian* package.
In my opinion, this file should contain the actual text only, not
someone's interpretation of it.
I'm not personally fond of DFSG§10. All the license names it mentions
are ambiguous: there a 2 versions of Artistic License, 3 versions of GPL
and multitude of BSD license variants in the wild. Many of these are
considered as “bad” licenses by some developers.
But I'd rather get rid of DFSG§10 completely than try to fix it.
Anyway, I'd suggest you to discuss it publicly. I think debian-project
would be the correct forum (not debian-legal, as Jonas suggested). If
you start such discussion, feel free to forward my mail.
--
Jakub Wilk
My MUA is on the fritz, so I can quote anyone, but I totally agree with
Jakub's point of view.
I also agree with Jonas as well, although I'm not sure we need d-legal
(as both BSD-3 and BSD-4 are DFSG free), it's a consistency issue.
On Thu, Dec 20, 2012 at 01:10:30PM +0530, Vasudev Kamath wrote:
> Hello All,
>
> As part of my NM process *P&P-1* intrigeri asked me whether I agree to
> DFSG. And my response was yes. Later intrigeri told DFSG #10 which gives
> example about DFSG compatible license mentions about about BSD license
> but doesn't specify which BSD license it is talking about as there are
> multiple variants of it and do I still agree to it. I mentioned that
> DFSG at [1] is linking the *BSD* text to BSD-3-clause license and hence
> should not be a problem.
>
> But intrigeri noted that the file under
> /usr/share/doc/debian/social_contract.txt does not provide any reference
> which can clarify which BSD license it is talking about and this text
> file will be normally used to refer social_contract as it is shipped
> with each copy of Debian.
IIRC, BSD-4, 3, and simplified are all DFSG free :)
I do, however agree that DFSG #10 is silly. I'd just as soon yield to
efforts to remove that clause then add consistency there :)
>
> Hence we thought this should be fixed in the social_contract.txt file
> which is shipped as part of *doc-debian* package.
>
> I searched across the bugs filed on doc-debian to see if this issue is
> already discussed but I couldn't find any. I also found some of GR's
> which were done for changing the social_contract / DFSG texts but not
> related to the issue I mentioned here. I assume normal way to change
> social_contra
