Re: [PROPOSAL] Let's ship all firmwares included inthe pristine upstream kernel tarball in debian/etch.

[Sven Luther]

On Fri, Oct 06, 2006 at 07:58:24AM +0200, Frank Küster wrote:
> Frank Küster <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> > Hi,
> >
> > this is at least clearly worded, unambiguous, and if it succeeds will
> > allow to release etch without delay (at least without delay because of
> > firmware problems).
> 
> It seems this is not true (qlogic), and still might be "interpreted",

There is nothing we can do about qlogic, the d-i team has already decided they
will not support users needing it.

> namely as trying to force the teams and RM to include things they think

There is nothing we can do to force the RMs to do such, they already said that
they will not be held by it, and will still block distribution of things they
find undistributable (well, they and the ftp-masters).

Furthermore, the wording of the proposal "allow inclusion" means that we can
include all those firmwares, but by no means that we will or must. As such, it
perfectly allows to remove those firmwares the RM find non-distributable, and
allows for a technical decision to be taken by the RM team and the kernel team
(and to a lesser degree the ftp-masters), 

> are undistributable.  Furthermore, I see Sven's current actions and
> statements as being destructive only, and do not want to help with
> that. 

No. I made this proposal, because Anthony asked for a vote to be held, and
Manoj abused his power to get the vote going, while he perfectly knew the
proposal at :

  http://wiki.debian.org/KernelFirmwareLicensing

was still under discussion. This is especially bad, since as has been noted by
Steve's reply to the DPL, the current proposal doesn't allow for the
distribution of important drivers, like the tg3 one.

Furthermore, i have been trying since a couple of weeks to reach a consensual
solution, while getting destructive behaviour from those we need to reach a
consensus with, as well as intimidation on vairous irc channels.

I am hearthily sick of this, and i guess most of the folk following -vote is
also, so this minimal and clear proposal allows the discussion to end, while
at the same time allowing to get a good solution on the technical level and
out of -vote.

As such, i urge you to not revert your seconding, just because you believe i
am destructive, which i am not, especially as this has nothing whatsoever to
do with the sub-thread concerning frans insidious ad-hominem attack against
me.

Friendly,

Sven Luther


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Re: [AMENDMENT]: Release Etch now, with source-less but legal and freely licensed firmware

[Sven Luther]

On Fri, Oct 06, 2006 at 07:50:49AM +0200, Frank Küster wrote:
> Sven Luther <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> > List masters, this is evidence that Frans is not going to stop this, and as 
> > i
> > asked yesterday, i now re-iterate the demand for his ban from debian-vote.
> 
> Come on, calm down.  That one was neither insulting nor attacking.  

Ah, no ? It nothing else it is false, and it is an attack.

It claims that i "tendency to take disagreement as a personal insult of his
intelligence", which is not the case, i take badly people unwilling to take an
argumented position, and then resorting to ad-hominem attacks, and the kind of
"i already told you so many times" i have been getting here, while at the same
time they never say things clearly, and discard anything i say as the raving
of a madman or whatever, not counting the numerous tries to shut me up i get
from various irc channels.

It mentions my "inability to properly read and really consider arguments from
others", just because i don't give up on repetitious bashing and hammering of
arguments which are poorly substantivated by arguments, and there is evidence
that others in this thread, including Frans himself, are indeed not even
reading what i write.

He mentions me always wanting to get the last word, while they refuse
argumentation and try to shut me up on menace, and resort to such tactics as
banning from project or mailing lists, because they happen to have the power
to do so, instead of providing valable argumentation, and accepting countering
arguments if they happen to be wrong.

Then it further claims that i "say" i want to obtain consensus, while at the
same time doing all their possible to stop me from being able to reach such
consensus, not wanting to discuss possible better wording, and propose
comments.

How can this discussion go forward and be ended in a reasonable way, if some
of the parties who need to be reached consensus with are unwilling to play the
game, and resort to insidious ad-hominem attacks ? 

And this behaviour has been coming from Frans since last fall, and he did so
on purpose as he told me on irc, and is nothing but an attempt to totally
discredit me, since he and others (like Steve Langasek), are bathed in
respectability, so they have the upper hand in these discussions, even though
they are on shacky argumentative ground.

And no, if they don't like my arguments and position, it is unacceptable to
resort to such ad-hominem attacks. They should provide proper argumentation,
and not always come repeating those same dubious and shaky ones, and they
should take in account counter arguments, as i have modified the initial
proposal and position based on feedback (and even on flames here). If nothing
else, they should respect the time i spent on this issue, as i respect the
time they spend on their respective areas of interest.

This is not what is happening, so saying calm down is fine, but i have been
under this kind of stuff since over a year now, and i can't take it anymore.

Friendly,

Sven Luther


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Re: [PROPOSAL] Let's ship all firmwares included inthe pristine upstream kernel tarball in debian/etch.

[Frank Küster]

Frank Küster <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> this is at least clearly worded, unambiguous, and if it succeeds will
> allow to release etch without delay (at least without delay because of
> firmware problems).

It seems this is not true (qlogic), and still might be "interpreted",
namely as trying to force the teams and RM to include things they think
are undistributable.  Furthermore, I see Sven's current actions and
statements as being destructive only, and do not want to help with
that. 

> Sven Luther <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>> === START OF PROPOSAL ===
>> Given the difficulty of finding a common ground about the non-free firmware
>> issue, the Debian Project does resolve that :
>>
>>   1) We allow inclusion in Debian Etch of all firmwares currently shipped in
>>   the upstream linux kernel tarball.
>> ===  END OF PROPOSAL  ===
>
> I second this proposal.  I don't care whether it's on separate or common,
> landscape or portrait, b/w or colored ballots.

I therefore withdraw my second.

Regards, Frank

-- 
Frank Küster
Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer (teTeX/TeXLive)


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Re: [AMENDMENT]: Release Etch now, with source-less but legal and freely licensed firmware

[Frank Küster]

Sven Luther <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> List masters, this is evidence that Frans is not going to stop this, and as i
> asked yesterday, i now re-iterate the demand for his ban from debian-vote.

Come on, calm down.  That one was neither insulting nor attacking.  

Regards, Frank
-- 
Frank Küster
Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer (teTeX/TeXLive)

Re: draft ballot for the firmware vote

[Sven Luther]

On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 11:28:28PM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> With the vote being called, here is a draft ballot for the
>  firmware vote. The voting period has not yet started.

Manoj, if you don't stop this manipulation now, i am going to ask for your
recall as secretary, not sure if this is possible under the constitution.

During weeks, you have resisted bringing the original proposal from frank to
vote, and now, because there are new proposals you dislike, you are going to
rush the election. This is a clear abuse of your Secretarial position, and is
not in order.

It pains me to see you resorting to such base tricks.

Friendly,

Sven Luther


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Re: Asking for the ban of Frans Pop from debian-vote ... (Was: [AMENDMENT]: Release Etch now, with source-less but legal and freely licensed firmware)

[Sven Luther]

On Fri, Oct 06, 2006 at 12:27:04PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 06:26:01PM +0200, Sven Luther wrote:
> > i now officially ask for Frans Pop to be banned from debian-vote, 
> 
> As per 4.2(5) of the constitution, it's required that any developer
> may post to the list designated for proposals, sponsors, amendments,
> calls for votes and other formal actions, which is -vote. So aiui,
> developers cannot be banned from -vote.

Then we sure can require that he asks a third party to read and forward his
mails. Or he can show proper behaviour, and not take ad-hominem (even
disguised ones) attacks against posters holding opinion he disaproves of.

This was already the behaviour he showed in all the dispute over the technical
details of the d-i team, ever since last fall, and why he had me outcast from
the d-i team, and why i asked for your mediation back in spring.

Friendly,

Sven Luther


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Re: [AMENDMENT]: Release Etch now, with source-less but legal and freely licensed firmware

[Sven Luther]

On Fri, Oct 06, 2006 at 02:23:17AM +0200, Frans Pop wrote:
> Sorry, my comments were general and aimed at several persons participating 
> in the discussion. (Though it would be foolish to deny that Sven was one of 
> them. And it is also no secret that I find Sven's total domination (as 
> evidenced by the sheer volume of mail he sends, his endless repetition, his 
> tendency to take disagreement as a personal insult of his intelligence, his 
> apparent inability to properly read and really consider arguments from 
> others before fiering off a reply and his apparent need to always have the 
> last word) of any discussion which he remotely cares about totally 
> unacceptable.)

List masters, this is evidence that Frans is not going to stop this, and as i
asked yesterday, i now re-iterate the demand for his ban from debian-vote.

Friendly,

Sven Luther


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draft ballot for the firmware vote

[Manoj Srivastava]

Hi,

With the vote being called, here is a draft ballot for the
 firmware vote. The voting period has not yet started.

manoj

 Voting period starts  00:00:01 UTC on Sunday,8th October 2006
 Votes must be received by 23:59:59 UTC on Saturday, 14th October 2006

The following ballot is for voting on a General Resolution for a
position statement on handling source-less firmware in the Linux
kernel.  The vote is being conducted in accordance with the policy
delineated in Section A, Standard Resolution Procedure, of the Debian
Constitution.

The details of the general resolution can be found at:
http://www.debian.org/vote/vote_007

You may see the constitution at http://www.debian.org/devel/constitution.
For voting questions contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

HOW TO VOTE

First, read the full text of the GR and amendments, if any. The ballot
does not claim to be complete rendition of the proposal(s), or even
accurately depict the spirit of each proposal.

Do not erase anything between the lines below and do not change the
choice names.

In the brackets next to your preferred choice, place a 1. Place a 2 in
the brackets next to your next choice.  Do not enter a number smaller
than 1 or larger than 2.  You may skip numbers.  You may rank options
equally (as long as all choices X you make fall in the range 1<= X <=
3).

Make sure you have read the proposal in detail.

To vote "no, no matter what" rank "Further discussion" as more
desirable than the unacceptable choices, or You may rank the "Further
discussion" choice, and leave choices you consider unacceptable
blank. Unranked choices are considered equally the least desired
choices, and ranked below all ranked choices. (Note: if the Further
Discussion choice is unranked, then it is equal to all other unranked
choices, if any -- no special consideration is given to the Further
discussion choice by the voting software).

Then mail the ballot to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]  Don't worry
about spacing of the columns or any quote characters (">") that your
reply inserts. NOTE: The vote must be GPG signed (or PGP signed) (or
encrypted) with your key that is in the Debian keyring.

- - -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
c2d43675-9efa-4809-a4aa-af042b62786e
[   ] Choice 1: Release Etch even with kernel firmware issues
[   ] Choice 2: Special exception to DFSG2 for firmware as long as required 
[3:1]
[   ] Choice 3: Further discussion
- - -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-


--

The responses to a valid vote shall be signed by the vote key created
for this vote. The public key for the vote, signed by the Project
secretary, is appended below.

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arch-tag: 1c14135a-7b23-45f7-b0d5-78e68b24d4f8

-- 
squatcho, n.: The button at the top of a baseball cap. "Sniglets",
Rich Hall & Friends
Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B  924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C

Re: [AMENDMENT]: Release Etch now, with source-less but legal and freely licensed firmware

[Sven Luther]

On Fri, Oct 06, 2006 at 12:28:38AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 11:05:57AM +0200, Sven Luther wrote:
> > > >   5. We further note that some of these firmware do not have proper 
> > > > license,
> > Ah, no, i forgot to change this to what Manoj suggested this morning :
> >   We further note that some of these firmware do not have individual 
> > license,
> >   and thus implicitly fall under the the generic linux kernel GPL license.
> > We then continue by saying that we will distribute them as part of etch, and
> > investigate afterward, in the meanwhile urge the vendors to do the right 
> > thing ?
> 
> Oh right, sorry, that's completely different to what I thought you
> were saying.

:)

> > So, given the word modification above, is that not plainly what we say ? 
> 
> Yup. My only comment is that adding that clause to the GR will presumably
> delay us by another week, for no real benefit that I can see. As long
> as we're not trying to do something that we're simultaneously claiming
> is illegal, I'm happy with pretty much anything.

Cool.

> I presume various folks won't agree with the "license does not normally
> allow modification" part (as in, not just sourceless but definitively
> non-free stuff) clause, though -- that's what Manoj proposed his amendment
> to exclude, aiui.
> 
> Steve raised his GR for this issue on the 22nd August; it's now the 6th

Well, Steve was aware that a GR was being drafted by the kernel team, he
disregarded it and prefered to go with his own GR, with the result we saw, and
the mess that was caused by it.

> of September, and it'll be at least the 15th of October. Another week's

I guess that first one was the 6th of october.

> delay will mean we've spent two months trying to work out the right
> phrasing for allowing us to leave a couple of drivers in the kernel for
> now, that we're immediately going to work on removing as soon as etch
> is out. Do we really not have better things to do with our time?

Probably, especially if some start trying to get ad-hominem and bashing at
proposers.

I profundly believe that we should in the future impose a freeze of GRs 6
month before the supposed release date (and maybe a month after the supposed
release date if it slips).

Friendly,

Sven Luther


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Re: Call for voting period to start on the firmware vote

[Don Armstrong]

On Thu, 05 Oct 2006, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
> On Thu, 5 Oct 2006 17:04:32 +1000, Anthony Towns  
> said: 
> > I don't think it's worth further delaying this vote to include this
> > position statement; as per [0] the minimum discussion period for
> > Manoj's amendment as accepted by Frederik [1] ended 4th Oct 2006
> > 19:53:58 UTC, which is about 11 hours ago; so we could get on with
> > calling for a vote and have this over and done with in a little over
> > a week if the proposers and seconders are willing.
> 
> > [0] http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2006/10/msg5.html[1]
> > http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2006/09/msg00567.html
> 
> This is a call for votes to start on the firmware resolution:
>  The proposed ballot is:
>  [  ] Release Etch even with kernel firmware issues
>  [  ] Special exception to DFSG #2 for firmware as long as required [3:1]
>  [  ] Further discussion
> 
> I'm attaching the proposed WML page for this vote (vote_007.wml).

Are there any objections to shortening the vote period for this vote?


Don Armstrong

-- 
LEADERSHIP -- A form of self-preservation exhibited by people with
autodestructive imaginations in order to ensure that when it comes to
the crunch it'll be someone else's bones which go crack and not their
own. 
 -- The HipCrime Vocab by Chad C. Mulligan 
(John Brunner _Stand On Zanzibar_ p256-7)

http://www.donarmstrong.com  http://rzlab.ucr.edu


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Re: Asking for the ban of Frans Pop from debian-vote ... (Was: [AMENDMENT]: Release Etch now, with source-less but legal and freely licensed firmware)

[Anthony Towns]

On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 06:26:01PM +0200, Sven Luther wrote:
> i now officially ask for Frans Pop to be banned from debian-vote, 

As per 4.2(5) of the constitution, it's required that any developer
may post to the list designated for proposals, sponsors, amendments,
calls for votes and other formal actions, which is -vote. So aiui,
developers cannot be banned from -vote.

Cheers,
aj



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Description: Digital signature

Re: [AMENDMENT]: Release Etch now, with source-less but legal and freely licensed firmware

[Anthony Towns]

On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 07:09:05PM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
> Anthony Towns  wrote:
> > Frederik's proposal as amended by Manoj has been seconded by:
> [...]
> > MJ Ray <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> That is not a second of Frederik's proposal.  Does it still count?

It's a second of the proposal *as amended by Manoj*, no?

I didn't look at any of the seconds of the original proposal that didn't
re-second after the amendment.

Cheers,
aj



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Re: [AMENDMENT]: Release Etch now, with source-less but legal and freely licensed firmware

[Anthony Towns]

On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 11:05:57AM +0200, Sven Luther wrote:
> > >   5. We further note that some of these firmware do not have proper 
> > > license,
> Ah, no, i forgot to change this to what Manoj suggested this morning :
>   We further note that some of these firmware do not have individual license,
>   and thus implicitly fall under the the generic linux kernel GPL license.
> We then continue by saying that we will distribute them as part of etch, and
> investigate afterward, in the meanwhile urge the vendors to do the right 
> thing ?

Oh right, sorry, that's completely different to what I thought you
were saying.

> So, given the word modification above, is that not plainly what we say ? 

Yup. My only comment is that adding that clause to the GR will presumably
delay us by another week, for no real benefit that I can see. As long
as we're not trying to do something that we're simultaneously claiming
is illegal, I'm happy with pretty much anything.

I presume various folks won't agree with the "license does not normally
allow modification" part (as in, not just sourceless but definitively
non-free stuff) clause, though -- that's what Manoj proposed his amendment
to exclude, aiui.

Steve raised his GR for this issue on the 22nd August; it's now the 6th
of September, and it'll be at least the 15th of October. Another week's
delay will mean we've spent two months trying to work out the right
phrasing for allowing us to leave a couple of drivers in the kernel for
now, that we're immediately going to work on removing as soon as etch
is out. Do we really not have better things to do with our time?

Cheers,
aj



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Re: are GPLed sourceless firmwares legal to distribute ?

[Anthony Towns]

On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 02:57:33PM +0300, Markus Laire wrote:
> Hopefully (but I doubt this) someone in Debian will get sued for this
> violation in Etch, to stop such a behaviour in the future.

You do realise we're going to voluntarily stop it immediately after
releasing etch anyway, right?

Cheers,
aj



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Re: [AMENDMENT]: Release Etch now, with source-less but legal and freely licensed firmware

[Frans Pop]

On Friday 06 October 2006 02:46, Don Armstrong wrote:
> This is not the case. A trivial counter example is the distribution of
> a binary object which is statically linked to (or otherwise in
> combination forms a derivative work of) a GPLed codebase, where the
> copyright holder of the binary object does not (completely) control
> the copyright of the GPLed codebase.

Note also that this example also falls under my exception of "unless there 
are very clear indications that they or the person accepting the code into 
the kernel have been careless".


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Re: [AMENDMENT]: Release Etch now, with source-less but legal and freely licensed firmware

[Frans Pop]

On Friday 06 October 2006 02:46, Don Armstrong wrote:
> If you have specific questions about what the GPL says and means,
> please contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] to clarify it before putting the
> archive in a position which is legally hazardous.

Right, which was exactly my point: this discussion does not belong on this 
list.


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Re: [AMENDMENT]: Release Etch now, with source-less but legal and freely licensed firmware

[Don Armstrong]

On Fri, 06 Oct 2006, Frans Pop wrote:
> My, just as amateurish, standpoint is: the preferred from of
> modification of code for firmware blobs included in a driver that is
> otherwise coded in C (or assembler or whatnot) - and for that matter
> for images, video and even documentation - is whatever the
> licenceholder chose to distribute it as.

This is not the case. A trivial counter example is the distribution of
a binary object which is statically linked to (or otherwise in
combination forms a derivative work of) a GPLed codebase, where the
copyright holder of the binary object does not (completely) control
the copyright of the GPLed codebase.

Unless the binary object is actually the prefered form for
modification, anyone who distributes the work does so in violation of
the GPL (or possible future violation if distributed under 3b). Any
copyright holder of the GPLed codebase (or for that matter, any
recepient of the work) can demand the source code to the binary
object. If we as distributors are unable to provide it, we (or our
mirror operators) could be held liable.

If you have specific questions about what the GPL says and means,
please contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] to clarify it before putting the
archive in a position which is legally hazardous.


Don Armstrong

-- 
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired
signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are
not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is
not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers,
the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a
way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is
humanity hanging on a cross of iron.
 -- Dwight Eisenhower, April 16, 1953

http://www.donarmstrong.com  http://rzlab.ucr.edu


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Re: [AMENDMENT]: Release Etch now, with source-less but legal and freely licensed firmware

[Frans Pop]

On Thursday 05 October 2006 17:19, Frank Küster wrote:
> I can understand that.  However, I'd rather have that discussion before
> the GR than after it, when it turns out that people do *not* agree about
> the meaning of it...  

Sure. However it makes no sense having a discussion about individual blobs 
or, even worse, about whether these are distributable under the GPL at all. 
As Steve has pointed out repeatedly, that last responsibility lies with the 
maintainer (the kernel team) and the FTP masters, not with debian-vote.

All that was asked for (at least after AJ withdrew his initial proposal) was 
to allow the RMs (in collaboration with the kernel team and maybe the d-i 
team) to decide what was acceptable and practical for the Etch release and 
what not. And from the fact that Steve was the first person to spot 
the "regression" in the kernel packaging that previously excluded firware 
was being included again I feel that the project would have done well to 
trust their judgement.
This whole discussion on vote has gone off on absurd tangents with (several) 
people who are not lawyers making even more absurd statements about 
legality.

How the hell do you expect a list discussion between non-qualified people 
_ever_ come to a conclusion instead of degenerating into flamewars?

I have two times proposed to postpone the detailed analysis of the firmware 
situation until after the release, and I still feel that that is where it 
belongs: not on the list, but with a (delegated) team of developers who 
have access to proper legal advice and can study the implementation issues 
surrounding it in relative quiet and can prepare a position statement (with 
alternatives) that can _then_ be voted on.

> And I know that Sven Luther is able to rise high 
> emotions, but still it seems to me that what he says *is* reasonable.

Sorry, my comments were general and aimed at several persons participating 
in the discussion. (Though it would be foolish to deny that Sven was one of 
them. And it is also no secret that I find Sven's total domination (as 
evidenced by the sheer volume of mail he sends, his endless repetition, his 
tendency to take disagreement as a personal insult of his intelligence, his 
apparent inability to properly read and really consider arguments from 
others before fiering off a reply and his apparent need to always have the 
last word) of any discussion which he remotely cares about totally 
unacceptable.)

The crazy part is where people _say_ they are seeking consensus, but instead 
keep firing off amendments that draw further and further away from the 
original goal of the GR and only serve to confuse the vast majority of 
people why try to follow the discussion.

> > So, no, I will not support the current proposal (though I may vote for
> > it). And, no, I am no longer interested in participating in the
> > discussion, seeing as it is completely dominated by people I don't
> > agree with anyway, who don't seem to be able to listen to arguments nor
> > have any sense of what the majority of the project actually wants.
>
> I also have a feeling like "Oh, well, nearly everybody wants the same,
> let's just do it without bothering about the wording".  And I would be
> surprised if after the vote someone among the relevant teams would step
> up and say "Hey, sorry to tell you, but these drivers (A, B, and C)
> cannot be kept in etch according to my understanding of the GR, and my
> investigation of their details".  However, I do not think we can be
> sure, and since I do *not* want to be surprised, I'd rather have a
> proper discussion before the vote.

That's exactly why the wording should be general and the final decision 
should *not* be bound down in the GR, but should lie with people who can be 
expected to take that responsibility seriously (RMs). If they make a 
decision you do not agree with, you can always still email them (or file a 
BR) and say "sorry, but for the following reasons I think you made a 
mistake there...".

> The problem is that there are individual drivers/firmware for which that
> is in doubt.  For example, Larry Doolittle said recently:
>
> ,
> | I am not perfect, but I have plenty of experience using and writing
> | firmware of many kinds.  I would be very surprised if any of the
> | listed firmware is not derived from a human-legible design file of
> | one form or another.
> `

This is still an interpretation of the intention of the GPL, not a legal 
standpoint.
My, just as amateurish, standpoint is: the preferred from of modification of 
code for firmware blobs included in a driver that is otherwise coded in C 
(or assembler or whatnot) - and for that matter for images, video and even 
documentation - is whatever the licenceholder chose to distribute it as.
This does not mean that it is the optimal form from a Free Software point of 
view, it also does not mean that if someone chooses to reimplement the 
firmware that he could not choose another form. What i

Re: Asking for the ban of Frans Pop from debian-vote ... (Was: [AMENDMENT]: Release Etch now, with source-less but legal and freely licensed firmware)

[Bill Allombert]

On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 06:45:05PM +0200, Luk Claes wrote:
> The reason why you were banned from debian-release was mostly because of
> turning it in a discussion list which it is not intended for.

It was rather because someone has an urge to feel power flowing through
their body by banning somebody.

Cheers,
-- 
Bill. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

Imagine a large red swirl here.


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Re: Kernel Firmware issue: are GPLed sourceless firmwares legal to distribute ?

[MJ Ray]

Sven Luther <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hi debian-legal, ...

I've trimmed -release, as luk suggested it's unwelcome there.

> [...] The real problem is that there are a certain
> amount of firmware in the kernel, embedded in the drivers, which have no
> license notice whatsoever, and as thus fall implicitly under the common GPL
> license of the linux kernel. The audit from Larry lists some 40+ such firmware
> blobs.
> 
> There is some claims that some of those blobs represent just register dumps,
> but even then one could argue that the hex blobs doesn't in any way represent
> the prefered form of modification, but rather some kind of register
> name/number and value pair.
> 
> So, the RMs are making claims that those sourceless GPLed drivers don't cause
> any kind of distribution problem, while i strongly believe that the GPL clause
> saying that all the distribution rights under the GPL are lost if you cannot
> abide by all points, including the requirement for sources.

I'd defer to Larry Doolittle on this one, but I think unless we have
some reason to think there is another form used as source code, it's
fine to consider the only codes our source code - for all we know, it
was written that way.  Best of all would be to get clarifications of
what type each firmware is, but I doubt that's easy in all cases.

However, if we strongly suspect that we don't have a valid permission
to modify, distribute and so on, run a mile.

> Since i am seen as not trusthy to analyze such problems, i think to deblock
> this situation, it would be best to have a statement from debian-legal to back
> those claims (or to claim i am wrong in the above). 

debian-legal is a mailing list.  It is not easy for it to make a
statement itself.

Hope that helps,
-- 
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/
Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct


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Re: [AMENDMENT]: Release Etch now, with source-less but legal and freely licensed firmware

[MJ Ray]

Anthony Towns  wrote:
> Frederik's proposal as amended by Manoj has been seconded by:
[...]
> MJ Ray <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

That is not a second of Frederik's proposal.  Does it still count?

-- 
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/
Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct


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Re: are GPLed sourceless firmwares legal to distribute ?

[MJ Ray]

Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> On Thu, 5 Oct 2006 14:57:33 +0300, Markus Laire <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said: 
> > Hopefully (but I doubt this) someone in Debian will get sued for
> > this violation in Etch, to stop such a behaviour in the future.
> 
> Nice. But the only one who can sue is the person whose
>  copytright we are violating -- namely, the person who provided the
>  firmware in the first place.  I'll leave it up to you to determine
>  the likelihood of that.

Copyright violation has criminal liability here.

I think section 107(1) and (2) in Part I of the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988 suggests that anyone in England making debian
discs for sale, or mirroring debian publicly, while knowing that it
contains infringing material is committing a *criminal* offence.
Up to six months prison for sale, and three months for mirroring,
or fines.  See http://www.jenkins-ip.com/patlaw/cdpa1.htm#s107
I expect that the rest of the EU is similar, but I've not checked.

Yes, we can have the police coming through our doors over copyright
problems these days.  Such is the power of Big Music and Big Movies
lobbying our lawmakers.  The police and public libraries are doing
their dirty work. :-(

Please try to avoid making debian resellers criminals, and remember
IANAL and you should get your own legal advice if it matters.

Thanks,
-- 
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/
Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct


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Re: [PROPOSAL] Postpone the etch release until all firmware issues are solved.

[Neil McGovern]

On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 11:07:20PM +0200, Frederik Schueler wrote:
> > === START OF PROPOSAL ===
> > The debian project resolves that :
> > 
> >   1) We recognizes that there are many uncleared issues with the
> >   current binary firmware files in linux kernel.
> > 
> >   2) We will not ship a kernel package with such problematic licensing 
> > issues
> >   as part of a stable release.
> > 
> >   3) We will delay the debian/etch release until all these issues are 
> > sorted,
> >   and we can ship a linux kernel package without any problematic licensing
> >   issues
> > ===  END OF PROPOSAL  ===

Simply to get the option on the ballot, I hereby second the above proposal.

-- 
 Maulkin: there is no html tag  (yet? could be
extended like foo -> Ganneff kills foo?) :)


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Re: [PROPOSAL] Postpone the etch release until all firmware issues are solved.

[Frederik Schueler]

Hello,

for the sake of completeness in the ballot, and having 4 options from
"release with all firmwares" to "delay the release", I hereby second
this proosal.

> === START OF PROPOSAL ===
> The debian project resolves that :
> 
>   1) We recognizes that there are many uncleared issues with the
>   current binary firmware files in linux kernel.
> 
>   2) We will not ship a kernel package with such problematic licensing issues
>   as part of a stable release.
> 
>   3) We will delay the debian/etch release until all these issues are sorted,
>   and we can ship a linux kernel package without any problematic licensing
>   issues
> ===  END OF PROPOSAL  ===

Best regards
Frederik Schueler

-- 
ENOSIG


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[PROPOSAL] Postpone the etch release until all firmware issues are solved.

[Sven Luther]

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Hash: SHA1

=== START OF PROPOSAL ===
The debian project resolves that :

  1) We recognizes that there are many uncleared issues with the
  current binary firmware files in linux kernel.

  2) We will not ship a kernel package with such problematic licensing issues
  as part of a stable release.

  3) We will delay the debian/etch release until all these issues are sorted,
  and we can ship a linux kernel package without any problematic licensing
  issues
===  END OF PROPOSAL  ===
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Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux)

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Re: [PROPOSAL] Let's ship all firmwares included inthe pristine upstream kernel tarball in debian/etch.

[Sven Luther]

On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 09:28:13PM +0100, Neil McGovern wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 09:04:06PM +0200, Sven Luther wrote:
> > === START OF PROPOSAL ===
> > Given the difficulty of finding a common ground about the non-free firmware
> > issue, the Debian Project does resolve that :
> > 
> >   1) We allow inclusion in Debian Etch of all firmwares currently shipped in
> >   the upstream linux kernel tarball.
> > ===  END OF PROPOSAL  ===
> 
> I second the above proposal, without amendment, as the wording seems to
> me to be too critical of the D-I team.

Well, you can propose a modified wording of the amendment which cures that,
i don't care all that much myself, because i don't own a qlogic based card,
but when i asked the d-i team what the qlogic situation would be, and if they
at least intented to propose some hints of a workaround for users of qlogic
cards in the release notes, and got a "No way" back from frans, i think the
critics are warranted.

Friendly,

Sven Luther


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Re: [PROPOSAL] Let's ship all firmwares included inthe pristine upstream kernel tarball in debian/etch.

[Neil McGovern]

On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 09:04:06PM +0200, Sven Luther wrote:
> === START OF PROPOSAL ===
> Given the difficulty of finding a common ground about the non-free firmware
> issue, the Debian Project does resolve that :
> 
>   1) We allow inclusion in Debian Etch of all firmwares currently shipped in
>   the upstream linux kernel tarball.
> ===  END OF PROPOSAL  ===

I second the above proposal, without amendment, as the wording seems to
me to be too critical of the D-I team.

Cheers,
Neil
-- 
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Re: Call for voting period to start on the firmware vote

[Sven Luther]

On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 02:41:40PM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
> On Thu, 5 Oct 2006 17:04:32 +1000, Anthony Towns  
> said: 
>  
> > I don't think it's worth further delaying this vote to include this
> > position statement; as per [0] the minimum discussion period for
> > Manoj's amendment as accepted by Frederik [1] ended 4th Oct 2006
> > 19:53:58 UTC, which is about 11 hours ago; so we could get on with
> > calling for a vote and have this over and done with in a little over
> > a week if the proposers and seconders are willing.
> 
> > [0] http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2006/10/msg5.html[1]
> > http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2006/09/msg00567.html
> 
> This is a call for votes to start on the firmware resolution:
>  The proposed ballot is:
>  [  ] Release Etch even with kernel firmware issues
>  [  ] Special exception to DFSG #2 for firmware as long as required [3:1]
>  [  ] Further discussion
> 
> I'm attaching the proposed WML page for this vote (vote_007.wml).

I strongly oppose this. You know we are working on a clarification of
Frederik's proposal, and there are two new proposal on the table getting
seconds.

This kind of behaviour on your part, are the ones which give credit to those
accusing you of twisting the voting system to your liking, and as i was
outraged when those accusations where made against you, i would much have
preffered that you didn't act in such a way.

Friendly,

Sven Luther


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Re: [PROPOSAL] Let's ship all firmwares included inthe pristine upstream kernel tarball in debian/etch.

[Cesar Mendoza]

I second the proposal.

On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 09:04:06PM +0200, Sven Luther wrote:
> === START OF PROPOSAL ===
> Given the difficulty of finding a common ground about the non-free firmware
> issue, the Debian Project does resolve that :
> 
>   1) We allow inclusion in Debian Etch of all firmwares currently shipped in
>   the upstream linux kernel tarball.
> ===  END OF PROPOSAL  ===
> 
> 
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> 
Bye
Cesar Mendoza
http://www.kitiara.org
--
"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."
  --Isaac Newton


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Re: [AMENDMENT]: Release Etch now, with source-less but legal and freely licensed firmware

[Steve Langasek]

On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 05:19:55PM +0200, Frank Küster wrote:
> > The current discussion in no way helps 
> > the release of Etch.

> Why not *name* the drivers that get an exception?  This way, anybody who
> *really* can contribute more than general doubt has to do it now, before
> the vote.

The reason I oppose asking the project to approve a list of drivers is that
first, such a list is inflexible, so if we find another driver that we
thought was free but isn't, that seems to require another GR; second, it
gives most of the voters no practical means of understanding what they're
asked to agree to, since the majority are not likely to have the time to go
through and understand why each individual driver is not DFSG-compliant.

-- 
Steve Langasek   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer   to set it on, and I can move the world.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://www.debian.org/


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Re: Kernel Firmware issue: are GPLed sourceless firmwares legal to distribute ?

[Frank Küster]

Steve Langasek <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> The *relevant* claim I have made is that it is
> inappropriate to use our GR mechanism to attempt to *decide* whether GPLed
> drivers cause a distribution problem.  The release team, the ftp team, and I
> suspect even most of the kernel team have no interest in a GR that
> authorizes any distribution of software which it at the same time asserts is
> illegal.

Thank you for making this claim public on this list (where it belongs).
I think it's an important point, and if you've already said this to Sven
some time ago in a different medium, then I understand the reactions of
some people towards him.

> I have previously given my own understanding of why it is not a problem for
> us to distribute GPLed firmware blobs pending license clarifications, but I
> don't see any indication that Sven is interested in understanding that POV,
> only in tilting at strawmen; so I don't intend to lose any more time on
> discussing this point beyond this single clarification email.

It has already clarified much, and since I personally trust you, I don't
insist on your repeating the explanation.  However, I'd like to point
out that other people are trying to follow this discussion, too.  I
don't think that your previous explanation was posted to -vote, which
IMHO is the relevant list for such discussions.  

I feel it's particularly hard this time to follow the discussion; with
no other GR have there been so many "this has been said elsewhere"
(where? IRC?)  statements by so many people, without trying to sum up on
a web page or similar.

Regards, Frank
-- 
Frank Küster
Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer (teTeX/TeXLive)

Re: Kernel Firmware issue: are GPLed sourceless firmwares legal to distribute ?

[Sven Luther]

On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 07:09:53AM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 04, 2006 at 10:28:20AM +0200, Sven Luther wrote:
> 
> > There is some claims that some of those blobs represent just register dumps,
> 
> This is a strawman, and Sven knows this as I have told him quite plainly
> that this is not my claim.

Where did i say it was your claim ? And what exactly do you claim, your
position on this, or at least the way you communicated your position has been
changing all over, which makes reaching a consensus with you as was the
intention of the DPL quite damn hard.

> > So, the RMs are making claims that those sourceless GPLed drivers don't
> > cause any kind of distribution problem,
> 
> This is a red herring.  The *relevant* claim I have made is that it is
> inappropriate to use our GR mechanism to attempt to *decide* whether GPLed
> drivers cause a distribution problem.  The release team, the ftp team, and I
> suspect even most of the kernel team have no interest in a GR that
> authorizes any distribution of software which it at the same time asserts is
> illegal.

Please read the new wording of the proposal on :

  http://wiki.debian.org/KernelFirmwareLicensing

It should take care of all problems regarding your fears, but then, i guess
nobody cares about my proposals, because they come from me, right ? 

> It is not reasonable for the project to vote on questions of legality, nor
> is it appropriate to rely on debian-legal for questions of legality.  If the
> relevant delegates/maintainers have questions about the legality of
> distributing a particular piece of software, they should consult a lawyer.

Yeah, but it is ok for you to say we won't distribute illegal to distribute
firmwares, while at the same time distributing firmware illegaly. As long as
we don't say it, everything is fine, right ?

> Sven is incongruously insisting both that these firmware blobs must be
> included in etch, *and* that they're illegal to distribute.  This is

No, i believe in being honest and saying things like they are. But this is
clearly a position which is not welcome in debian these days, and which needs
even to be shuted down by aggresive bashing.

> nonsense; trying to convince the release team and the ftp team that these
> are illegal to distribute is contrary to his stated goal of including
> maximum hardware support in etch.  He can't have it both ways, because no GR
> can compel the release team or the ftp team to knowingly break the law.

Why do you want a GR then, why did you lose everyone's time by starting this
huge threads, while the kernel team was working on a good and consensual
proposal, which you didn't want to participate in, and hurried your own
proposal out the door, with the result we know ? 

> > while i strongly believe that the GPL clause saying that all the
> > distribution rights under the GPL are lost if you cannot abide by all
> > points, including the requirement for sources.
> 
> I have previously given my own understanding of why it is not a problem for
> us to distribute GPLed firmware blobs pending license clarifications, but I
> don't see any indication that Sven is interested in understanding that POV,
> only in tilting at strawmen; so I don't intend to lose any more time on
> discussing this point beyond this single clarification email.

Yeah, because an opponent doesn't agree with you, you don't discuss his
argument, but try to bring him down by dirty methods and FUD. I wonder if you
are in connivance with Frans's new bashing against me, or if that was just
coincidence.

Hurt,

Sven Luther


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Re: ^^^ here is a no-op mail abo ut: a so-called NO-OP vote ... […]

[Sven Luther]

On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 09:24:34PM +0200, Pierre Habouzit wrote:
> > Just for information.
> >
> > This is a no-op vote, since we either reafirm the current status quo
> > (already re-afirmed previous to the sarge release), or further
> > discuss the issue, but in all cases, nothing will prevent further
> > discussion at a later time, and indeed our DPL has already said he
> > intent to trigger further discussion about these issues around the
> > edinbourg debconf time.
> 
> yay yay yay yay. that's your what, 100th 110th mail on the subject ?

Thanks very much, and also thanks to all those french guys who have nothing
else to do with their time than bashing folk on irc, while proposing GRs to
recall the DPL and other such nonsense.

> > So, i am not going to vote on this one.
> 
> very clever, if you're against sth, you have to vote against, else 
> abstention goes to the wining side.

so what ? you don't like Don's proposal, then you should have proposed an
amendment to say something else. Voting further discussion doesn't mean voting
for the opposite of don's amendment, it just means that you believe it should
be further discussed, for whatever reason, either because you don't like the
syntax, there is a typo in it you want corrected, you think there should be
another amendment represeting the opposite view, or you consulted your
astronomer and he said you it is not an auspisious day for holding a vote.

A full no-op, so i am not going to vote on it. (or maybe i should, and vote
both FD and the proposal equally ?).

Friendly,

Sven Luther


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Call for voting period to start on the firmware vote

[Manoj Srivastava]

On Thu, 5 Oct 2006 17:04:32 +1000, Anthony Towns  said: 
 
> I don't think it's worth further delaying this vote to include this
> position statement; as per [0] the minimum discussion period for
> Manoj's amendment as accepted by Frederik [1] ended 4th Oct 2006
> 19:53:58 UTC, which is about 11 hours ago; so we could get on with
> calling for a vote and have this over and done with in a little over
> a week if the proposers and seconders are willing.

> [0] http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2006/10/msg5.html[1]
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2006/09/msg00567.html

This is a call for votes to start on the firmware resolution:
 The proposed ballot is:
 [  ] Release Etch even with kernel firmware issues
 [  ] Special exception to DFSG #2 for firmware as long as required [3:1]
 [  ] Further discussion

I'm attaching the proposed WML page for this vote (vote_007.wml).

manoj



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General Resolution: Handling source-less firmware in the L
inux kernel
D
# meanings of the  tag:
# P: proposed
# D: discussed
# V: voted on
# F: finished
# O: other (or just write anything else)

#use wml::debian::template title="" BARETITLE="true" NOHEADER="true"
#use wml::debian::toc
#use wml::debian::votebar







# The Tags beginning with v are will become H3 headings and are defined in 
# english/template/debian/votebar.wml
# all possible Tags:

# vdate, vtimeline, vnominations, vdebate, vplatforms, 
# Proposers
#  vproposer,  vproposera, vproposerb, vproposerc, vproposerd,
#  vproposere, vproposerf
# Seconds
#  vseconds,   vsecondsa, vsecondsb, vsecondsc, vsecondsd, vsecondse, 
#  vsecondsf,  vopposition
# vtext, vtextb, vtextc, vtextd, vtexte, vtextf
# vchoices
# vamendments, vamendmentproposer, vamendmentseconds, vamendmenttext
# vproceedings, vmajorityreq, vstatistics, vquorum, vmindiscuss, 
# vballot, vforum, voutcome




  
Proposal and amendment
Wednesday,  30th August,2006
Wednesday,  27th September, 2006
  
  
Discussion Period:
Wednesday,  28th September, 2006
 
  
  
Voting Period
 
 
  



 Frederik Schueler
  [[EMAIL PROTECTED]]




   Manoj Srivastava
[[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
  
   Steve Langasek
[[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
  
   Frank Küster
[[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
  
   Bill Allombert 
[[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
  
   Bastian Blank 
[[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
  
   MJ Ray
[[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
  
   Aníbal Monsalve Salazar
[[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
  
   Daniel Ruoso
[[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
  


 Choice 1.
  The actual text of the resolution is as follows. Please note
  that this does not include preludes, prologues, any preambles to
  the resolution, post-ambles to the resolution, abstracts,
  fore-words, after-words, rationales, supporting documents,
  opinion polls, arguments for and against, and any of the other
  important material you will find on the mailing list
  archives. Please read the debian-vote mailing list archives for
  details.

Release Etch even with kernel firmware issues


   
  
  We affirm that our Priorities are our users and the free
  software community (Social Contract #4);
  
   
   
  
 We acknowledge that there is a lot of progress in the
 kernel firmware issue; however, it is not yet finally
 sorted out;
  
   
   
  
We assure the community that there will be no regressions
in the progress made for freedom in the kernel distributed
by Debian relative to the Sarge release in Etch
  
   
   
  
We give priority to the timely release of Etch over
sorting every bit out; for this reason, we will treat
removal of sourceless firmware as a best-effort process,
and deliver firmware in udebs as long as it is necessary
for installation (like all udebs), and firmware included
in the kernel itself as part of Debian Etch, as long as we
are legally allowed to do so, and the firmware is
distributed upstream under a license that complies with
the DFSG.
  
   


 Josselin Mouette
  [[EMAIL PROTECTED]]




   Pierre Habouzit
[[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
  
   Julien BLACHE
[[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
  
   Aurelien Jarno
[[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
  
   Julien Danjou
[[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
  
   Clément Stenac
[[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
  



 Choice 2.
  The actual text of the resolution is as follows.  Please note
  th

Re: Call for vote

[Denis Barbier]

On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 08:19:16AM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
> Hi,
> On Thu, 05 Oct 2006 09:02:22 +0200, Romain Francoise <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
> said: 
> 
> > Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> >> The draft ballot for this vote is appended. Please note that this
> >> is a draft ballot, voting has not yet started.
> 
> > Will this vote have secret ballots?
> 
> No, I don't see anything that implies that a general
>  resolution for recalls needs to have a secret ballot.

If there are good reasons to have secret ballots for leader election,
it seems logical to me that the same reasons apply to a recall vote
as well.

Denis


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Re: [AMENDMENT]: Release Etch now, with source-less but legal and freely licensed firmware

[Steve Langasek]

On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 05:04:32PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> I don't think it's worth further delaying this vote to include this
> position statement; as per [0] the minimum discussion period for Manoj's
> amendment as accepted by Frederik [1] ended 4th Oct 2006 19:53:58 UTC,
> which is about 11 hours ago; so we could get on with calling for a vote
> and have this over and done with in a little over a week if the proposers
> and seconders are willing. 

Given the latest accepted draft this seems to leave us without a clear
statement regarding the tg3 and typhoon firmware blobs, which are relevant
to the installer and do not have a license permitting modification.

Though if the Project passes that GR rather than attempting to twiddle the
language further to explicitly cover those two blobs, I'm probably willing
to go out on a limb as RM and allow their inclusion in main for etch along
with the others.

-- 
Steve Langasek   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer   to set it on, and I can move the world.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://www.debian.org/


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Re: Kernel Firmware issue: are GPLed sourceless firmwares legal to distribute ?

[Steve Langasek]

On Wed, Oct 04, 2006 at 10:28:20AM +0200, Sven Luther wrote:

> There is some claims that some of those blobs represent just register dumps,

This is a strawman, and Sven knows this as I have told him quite plainly
that this is not my claim.

> So, the RMs are making claims that those sourceless GPLed drivers don't
> cause any kind of distribution problem,

This is a red herring.  The *relevant* claim I have made is that it is
inappropriate to use our GR mechanism to attempt to *decide* whether GPLed
drivers cause a distribution problem.  The release team, the ftp team, and I
suspect even most of the kernel team have no interest in a GR that
authorizes any distribution of software which it at the same time asserts is
illegal.

It is not reasonable for the project to vote on questions of legality, nor
is it appropriate to rely on debian-legal for questions of legality.  If the
relevant delegates/maintainers have questions about the legality of
distributing a particular piece of software, they should consult a lawyer.

Sven is incongruously insisting both that these firmware blobs must be
included in etch, *and* that they're illegal to distribute.  This is
nonsense; trying to convince the release team and the ftp team that these
are illegal to distribute is contrary to his stated goal of including
maximum hardware support in etch.  He can't have it both ways, because no GR
can compel the release team or the ftp team to knowingly break the law.

> while i strongly believe that the GPL clause saying that all the
> distribution rights under the GPL are lost if you cannot abide by all
> points, including the requirement for sources.

I have previously given my own understanding of why it is not a problem for
us to distribute GPLed firmware blobs pending license clarifications, but I
don't see any indication that Sven is interested in understanding that POV,
only in tilting at strawmen; so I don't intend to lose any more time on
discussing this point beyond this single clarification email.

-- 
Steve Langasek   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer   to set it on, and I can move the world.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://www.debian.org/


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Re: [PROPOSAL] Let's ship all firmwares included inthe pristine upstream kernel tarball in debian/etch.

[Frank Küster]

Hi,

this is at least clearly worded, unambiguous, and if it succeeds will
allow to release etch without delay (at least without delay because of
firmware problems).

Sven Luther <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> === START OF PROPOSAL ===
> Given the difficulty of finding a common ground about the non-free firmware
> issue, the Debian Project does resolve that :
>
>   1) We allow inclusion in Debian Etch of all firmwares currently shipped in
>   the upstream linux kernel tarball.
> ===  END OF PROPOSAL  ===

I second this proposal.  I don't care whether it's on separate or common,
landscape or portrait, b/w or colored ballots.

Regards, Frank
-- 
Frank Küster
Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer (teTeX/TeXLive)


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Re: Asking for the ban of Frans Pop from debian-vote ... (Was: [AMENDMENT]: Release Etch now, with source-less but legal and freely licensed firmware)

[Neil McGovern]

On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 09:12:27PM +0200, Sven Luther wrote:
> What do i care if he thrusts me, he is difaming me in public, and making
> degrading comments against me.
> 

Would you like to point out exactly what in Message-id:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> is deflamatory towards you?

I see nothing. It doesn't even mention you.

Neil
-- 
 bah Germans. You just put 100 DDs in one country and then they all
become friends of each other.


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Re: Asking for the ban of Frans Pop from debian-vote ...

[Frank Küster]

Err, 

I didn't want to join this ugly subthread.  But I do.

Sven has earned quite some points in this list for trying to argue to
the point.  No matter whether he was wrong (nobody has really shown
that?).  Now his whining and the post to d-d-a has nearly emptied his
account.  However...

Luk Claes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> I don't believe he will try to attack you, though he might be cautious and you
> may be felt as attacked because of that...

Err, how come you believe he will not attack, when the last mail that we
have from him was an attack?  Calling the ones who do take part in this
discussion as being not among those "who [are] remotely reasonable (with
a few exceptions who are mostly forced to stay involved because of their
roles in the project)" is a personal attack on Sven (and maybe others),
what else?

Regards, Frank


-- 
Frank Küster
Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer (teTeX/TeXLive)

[AMENDMENT] Let's ship all firmwares included inthe pristine upstream kernel tarball in debian/etch, and reinclude the non-free qlogic firmware.

[Sven Luther]

I hereby propose the below amendment, to the original proposal, so both will
appear on the ballot if enough seconds are reached.

Friendly,

Sven Luther
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

=== START OF PROPOSAL ===
Given the difficulty of finding a common ground about the non-free firmware
issue, the Debian Project does resolve that :

  1) We allow inclusion in Debian Etch of all firmwares currently shipped in
  the upstream linux kernel tarball.

  2) We will furthermore reintegrate the qlogic firmware in the main linux-2.6 
  package, since the d-i team will not implement support for loading non-free
  firmware for etch, and we want to allow users of qlogic hardware to be able
  to install debian etch.
===  END OF PROPOSAL  ===
-BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
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=RTFh
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^^^ here is a no-op mail about: a so-called NO-OP vote ... […]

[Pierre Habouzit]

> Just for information.
>
> This is a no-op vote, since we either reafirm the current status quo
> (already re-afirmed previous to the sarge release), or further
> discuss the issue, but in all cases, nothing will prevent further
> discussion at a later time, and indeed our DPL has already said he
> intent to trigger further discussion about these issues around the
> edinbourg debconf time.

yay yay yay yay. that's your what, 100th 110th mail on the subject ?

> So, i am not going to vote on this one.

very clever, if you're against sth, you have to vote against, else 
abstention goes to the wining side.
-- 
·O·  Pierre Habouzit
··O[EMAIL PROTECTED]
OOOhttp://www.madism.org


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Re: [PROPOSAL] Let's ship all firmwares included inthe pristine upstream kernel tarball in debian/etch.

[Frederik Schueler]

I second the following proposal:

On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 09:04:06PM +0200, Sven Luther wrote:
> === START OF PROPOSAL ===
> Given the difficulty of finding a common ground about the non-free firmware
> issue, the Debian Project does resolve that :
> 
>   1) We allow inclusion in Debian Etch of all firmwares currently shipped in
>   the upstream linux kernel tarball.
> ===  END OF PROPOSAL  ===

Best regards
Frederik Schueler

-- 
ENOSIG


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Re: Asking for the ban of Frans Pop from debian-vote ... (Was: [AMENDMENT]: Release Etch now, with source-less but legal and freely licensed firmware)

[Sven Luther]

On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 08:55:50PM +0200, Luk Claes wrote:
> Sven Luther wrote:
> > On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 06:45:05PM +0200, Luk Claes wrote:
> >> Sven Luther wrote:
> >>> Hi list masters and DPL,
> >> Hi Sven
> >>
> >>> Since it seems Frans is not able to leave ad-hominem attacks out of this
> >>> discussion, and given the precedent of my ban from -release on similar 
> >>> issues,
> >>> i now officially ask for Frans Pop to be banned from debian-vote, until 
> >>> such a
> >>> time as he is able to discuss issues, without being able to resort to
> >>> ad-hominem and defaming attacks like he has done here, even if in a 
> >>> slightly
> >>> disguised form.
> >>>
> >>> Mails like his don't help the issue to be solved, bring absolutely 
> >>> nothing,
> >>> and are borderline insulting, and nobody want to go into another repeat of
> >>> what happened last spring.
> >> Communication is always between two or more ends...
> > 
> > Maybe, but then i don't see what such conversation brings if one party is
> > acting in evident bad faith, and whose whole purpose is to hurt me and
> > continnue making me the scapegoat in order to make my opinion count less.
> 
> Please, stop this whining it doesn't bring you anything. I don't believe Frans
> is acting in bad faith, though he might still not trust you or even like you,
> but that's something totally different...

What do i care if he thrusts me, he is difaming me in public, and making
degrading comments against me.

> >> As Frans is not interested in participating in the discussion anymore, I 
> >> don't
> >> see what a ban would bring if it would be justified to ban him in the first
> >> place...
> > 
> > He says that, but he will again try to attack me in such a way, he has been
> > doing so repeteadly over these last month, altough always in insidious and
> > hidden ways.
> 
> I don't believe he will try to attack you, though he might be cautious and you
> may be felt as attacked because of that...

He has done so twice already since i was banned from debian-release.

> >> The reason why you were banned from debian-release was mostly because of
> >> turning it in a discussion list which it is not intended for. The tone of 
> >> the
> > 
> > Because Frans ad-hominem attacked me in the first place (dismissing my 
> > opinion
> > in the subject of module .udebs, and accusing me of having an hidden 
> > agenda).
> > But then nobody saw anything wrong in that.
> 
> Most people just want to work together, not reply to whining... Your
> accusations might be correct, though it doesn't bring you or the project
> anything if you keep repeating them...

Yes, except i am the perfect scapegoat half the project is dead set on to
bash at the minor occasion, i am seriously sick of this, it is as if people
are trying to drive me out. So, Frans can keep on insulting me and making
insidious derogative comments, and everyone finds it just fine, while i get
attacks on irc when i post perfectly reasonable stuff and try to have a
reasonable discussion.

Also, half the folk in this threads are repeating all the same things all
over.

> >> messages was something that made it clear that you were not going to stop
> >> sending such mails to the list...
> > 
> > And the tone of Frans message makes it clear that he will not stop sending
> > such mails to the list, maybe not in the immediate future
> 
> I wouldn't count on that, people differ quite a bit...

Well, it has been a constant since around fall last year, so i have lost hope
of it ever changing.

> >> PS: Sending Cc's to debian-release in the middle of a discussion is not 
> >> very
> >> clever when you just get unbanned...
> > 
> > How was i to know i was unbanned ? 
> >
> > Also, you have to be aware that Andreas Barth complained i didn't send
> > information to the debian-release list concerning the new proposals, so what
> > am i to do ? 
> 
> Andreas Barth asking you to send something to debian-release could be seen at
> least as a sign of being unbanned...

How would i know, vorlon told me weeks ago that he was going to ask for my
unbanning, and when i asked you, i was told this was not the case, and i had
no news since then.

> You could send a notice about the proposals and maybe asking to join the
> discussion on debian-vote, but certainly not sending a Cc to debian-release in
> the middle of a discussion.

Are you sure i did that ? i don't remember CCing stuff in the middle of a
thread, only sent there new threads, believing it will be blocked by the ban
anyway.

> Cheers

Not cheerfulness at all on my part.

Friendly,

Sven Luther


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[PROPOSAL] Let's ship all firmwares included inthe pristine upstream kernel tarball in debian/etch.

[Sven Luther]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

=== START OF PROPOSAL ===
Given the difficulty of finding a common ground about the non-free firmware
issue, the Debian Project does resolve that :

  1) We allow inclusion in Debian Etch of all firmwares currently shipped in
  the upstream linux kernel tarball.
===  END OF PROPOSAL  ===
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Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux)

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cxzwVY0jYt4SWfPN/rZM2e0=
=ACHF
-END PGP SIGNATURE-


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Re: Asking for the ban of Frans Pop from debian-vote ... (Was: [AMENDMENT]: Release Etch now, with source-less but legal and freely licensed firmware)

[Luk Claes]

Sven Luther wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 06:45:05PM +0200, Luk Claes wrote:
>> Sven Luther wrote:
>>> Hi list masters and DPL,
>> Hi Sven
>>
>>> Since it seems Frans is not able to leave ad-hominem attacks out of this
>>> discussion, and given the precedent of my ban from -release on similar 
>>> issues,
>>> i now officially ask for Frans Pop to be banned from debian-vote, until 
>>> such a
>>> time as he is able to discuss issues, without being able to resort to
>>> ad-hominem and defaming attacks like he has done here, even if in a slightly
>>> disguised form.
>>>
>>> Mails like his don't help the issue to be solved, bring absolutely nothing,
>>> and are borderline insulting, and nobody want to go into another repeat of
>>> what happened last spring.
>> Communication is always between two or more ends...
> 
> Maybe, but then i don't see what such conversation brings if one party is
> acting in evident bad faith, and whose whole purpose is to hurt me and
> continnue making me the scapegoat in order to make my opinion count less.

Please, stop this whining it doesn't bring you anything. I don't believe Frans
is acting in bad faith, though he might still not trust you or even like you,
but that's something totally different...

>> As Frans is not interested in participating in the discussion anymore, I 
>> don't
>> see what a ban would bring if it would be justified to ban him in the first
>> place...
> 
> He says that, but he will again try to attack me in such a way, he has been
> doing so repeteadly over these last month, altough always in insidious and
> hidden ways.

I don't believe he will try to attack you, though he might be cautious and you
may be felt as attacked because of that...

>> The reason why you were banned from debian-release was mostly because of
>> turning it in a discussion list which it is not intended for. The tone of the
> 
> Because Frans ad-hominem attacked me in the first place (dismissing my opinion
> in the subject of module .udebs, and accusing me of having an hidden agenda).
> But then nobody saw anything wrong in that.

Most people just want to work together, not reply to whining... Your
accusations might be correct, though it doesn't bring you or the project
anything if you keep repeating them...

>> messages was something that made it clear that you were not going to stop
>> sending such mails to the list...
> 
> And the tone of Frans message makes it clear that he will not stop sending
> such mails to the list, maybe not in the immediate future

I wouldn't count on that, people differ quite a bit...

>> PS: Sending Cc's to debian-release in the middle of a discussion is not very
>> clever when you just get unbanned...
> 
> How was i to know i was unbanned ? 
>
> Also, you have to be aware that Andreas Barth complained i didn't send
> information to the debian-release list concerning the new proposals, so what
> am i to do ? 

Andreas Barth asking you to send something to debian-release could be seen at
least as a sign of being unbanned...

You could send a notice about the proposals and maybe asking to join the
discussion on debian-vote, but certainly not sending a Cc to debian-release in
the middle of a discussion.

Cheers

Luk

-- 
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Fingerprint:   D5AF 25FB 316B 53BB 08E7   F999 E544 DE07 9B7C 328D



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NO-OP vote ... Re: FIRST CALL FOR VOTES FOR "DFSG #2 applies to all programmatic works"

[Sven Luther]

On Sat, Sep 30, 2006 at 06:05:28PM -0500, Debian Project Secretary wrote:
> - - -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
> 22fc4edd-1f6c-454f-b204-6aa0bad0ce1d
> [   ] Choice 1: DFSG #2 applies to all programmatic works
> [   ] Choice 2: Further discussion
> - - -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Just for information.

This is a no-op vote, since we either reafirm the current status quo (already
re-afirmed previous to the sarge release), or further discuss the issue, but
in all cases, nothing will prevent further discussion at a later time, and
indeed our DPL has already said he intent to trigger further discussion about
these issues around the edinbourg debconf time.

So, i am not going to vote on this one.

Friendly,

Sven Luther


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Re: Asking for the ban of Frans Pop from debian-vote ... (Was: [AMENDMENT]: Release Etch now, with source-less but legal and freely licensed firmware)

[Sven Luther]

On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 06:45:05PM +0200, Luk Claes wrote:
> Sven Luther wrote:
> > Hi list masters and DPL,
> 
> Hi Sven
> 
> > Since it seems Frans is not able to leave ad-hominem attacks out of this
> > discussion, and given the precedent of my ban from -release on similar 
> > issues,
> > i now officially ask for Frans Pop to be banned from debian-vote, until 
> > such a
> > time as he is able to discuss issues, without being able to resort to
> > ad-hominem and defaming attacks like he has done here, even if in a slightly
> > disguised form.
> > 
> > Mails like his don't help the issue to be solved, bring absolutely nothing,
> > and are borderline insulting, and nobody want to go into another repeat of
> > what happened last spring.
> 
> Communication is always between two or more ends...

Maybe, but then i don't see what such conversation brings if one party is
acting in evident bad faith, and whose whole purpose is to hurt me and
continnue making me the scapegoat in order to make my opinion count less.

> As Frans is not interested in participating in the discussion anymore, I don't
> see what a ban would bring if it would be justified to ban him in the first
> place...

He says that, but he will again try to attack me in such a way, he has been
doing so repeteadly over these last month, altough always in insidious and
hidden ways.

> The reason why you were banned from debian-release was mostly because of
> turning it in a discussion list which it is not intended for. The tone of the

Because Frans ad-hominem attacked me in the first place (dismissing my opinion
in the subject of module .udebs, and accusing me of having an hidden agenda).
But then nobody saw anything wrong in that.

> messages was something that made it clear that you were not going to stop
> sending such mails to the list...

And the tone of Frans message makes it clear that he will not stop sending
such mails to the list, maybe not in the immediate future

> PS: Sending Cc's to debian-release in the middle of a discussion is not very
> clever when you just get unbanned...

How was i to know i was unbanned ? 

Also, you have to be aware that Andreas Barth complained i didn't send
information to the debian-release list concerning the new proposals, so what
am i to do ? 

Friendly,

Sven Luther


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Re: Asking for the ban of Frans Pop from debian-vote ... (Was: [AMENDMENT]: Release Etch now, with source-less but legal and freely licensed firmware)

[Luk Claes]

Sven Luther wrote:
> Hi list masters and DPL,

Hi Sven

> Since it seems Frans is not able to leave ad-hominem attacks out of this
> discussion, and given the precedent of my ban from -release on similar issues,
> i now officially ask for Frans Pop to be banned from debian-vote, until such a
> time as he is able to discuss issues, without being able to resort to
> ad-hominem and defaming attacks like he has done here, even if in a slightly
> disguised form.
> 
> Mails like his don't help the issue to be solved, bring absolutely nothing,
> and are borderline insulting, and nobody want to go into another repeat of
> what happened last spring.

Communication is always between two or more ends...

> Sven Luther
> 
> On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 04:33:06PM +0200, Frans Pop wrote:
>> On Thursday 05 October 2006 11:43, Frank Küster wrote:
>>> first of all, I wonder why so few people from the teams involved take
>>> part in this discussion.  I assume one reason might be that they prefer
>>> IRC.  However, debian-vote is the list that's supposed to hold the
>>> important information for the vote, isn't it?
>> No, it is because everybody who is remotely reasonable (with a few 
>> exceptions who are mostly forced to stay involved because of their roles in 
>> the project) has long since become totally disgusted with this anal 
>> discussion and the people pushing it .

I don't take part in the discussion as I think it's way too high volume to
repeat points that were already brought to the list...

>> Instead of a simple GR that leaves the decision with what is acceptable for 
>> Etch with the Release Managers, we now have a convoluted proposal that 
>> tries to do a lot more than was ever intended.
>> So, no, I will not support the current proposal (though I may vote for it). 
>> And, no, I am no longer interested in participating in the discussion, 

As Frans is not interested in participating in the discussion anymore, I don't
see what a ban would bring if it would be justified to ban him in the first
place...

The reason why you were banned from debian-release was mostly because of
turning it in a discussion list which it is not intended for. The tone of the
messages was something that made it clear that you were not going to stop
sending such mails to the list...

Cheers

Luk

PS: Sending Cc's to debian-release in the middle of a discussion is not very
clever when you just get unbanned...

-- 
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Fingerprint:   D5AF 25FB 316B 53BB 08E7   F999 E544 DE07 9B7C 328D



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Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Asking for the ban of Frans Pop from debian-vote ... (Was: [AMENDMENT]: Release Etch now, with source-less but legal and freely licensed firmware)

[Sven Luther]

Hi list masters and DPL,

Since it seems Frans is not able to leave ad-hominem attacks out of this
discussion, and given the precedent of my ban from -release on similar issues,
i now officially ask for Frans Pop to be banned from debian-vote, until such a
time as he is able to discuss issues, without being able to resort to
ad-hominem and defaming attacks like he has done here, even if in a slightly
disguised form.

Mails like his don't help the issue to be solved, bring absolutely nothing,
and are borderline insulting, and nobody want to go into another repeat of
what happened last spring.

Sven Luther

On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 04:33:06PM +0200, Frans Pop wrote:
> On Thursday 05 October 2006 11:43, Frank Küster wrote:
> > first of all, I wonder why so few people from the teams involved take
> > part in this discussion.  I assume one reason might be that they prefer
> > IRC.  However, debian-vote is the list that's supposed to hold the
> > important information for the vote, isn't it?
> 
> No, it is because everybody who is remotely reasonable (with a few 
> exceptions who are mostly forced to stay involved because of their roles in 
> the project) has long since become totally disgusted with this anal 
> discussion and the people pushing it .
> 
> Instead of a simple GR that leaves the decision with what is acceptable for 
> Etch with the Release Managers, we now have a convoluted proposal that 
> tries to do a lot more than was ever intended.
> So, no, I will not support the current proposal (though I may vote for it). 
> And, no, I am no longer interested in participating in the discussion, 
> seeing as it is completely dominated by people I don't agree with anyway, 
> who don't seem to be able to listen to arguments nor have any sense of what 
> the majority of the project actually wants.
> 
> IANAL, but at least I don't act like I am, like some others in this 
> discussion who seem so unbelievably sure that _they_ are right and so, of 
> course, nobody else can be.
> I have much more confidence in the more general consensus displayed by 
> upstream and _all_ other distributions that firmware blobs *are* 
> distributable under the GPL (of course, if there are individual 
> drivers/firmware for which that is in doubt, this should be investigated, 
> but I've lost any faith in the ability of people involved with debian-legal 
> to provide an unbiased opinion on that).
> 
> I'm willing to discuss if they are free or non-free according to the DFSG 
> and the SC, and will argue that Debian should allow (at least limited) 
> support for these types of files. The current discussion in no way helps 
> the release of Etch.



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Re: [AMENDMENT]: Release Etch now, with source-less but legal and freely licensed firmware

[Frank Küster]

Frans Pop <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> On Thursday 05 October 2006 11:43, Frank Küster wrote:
>> first of all, I wonder why so few people from the teams involved take
>> part in this discussion.  I assume one reason might be that they prefer
>> IRC.  However, debian-vote is the list that's supposed to hold the
>> important information for the vote, isn't it?
>
> No, it is because everybody who is remotely reasonable (with a few 
> exceptions who are mostly forced to stay involved because of their roles in 
> the project) has long since become totally disgusted with this anal 
> discussion and the people pushing it .

I can understand that.  However, I'd rather have that discussion before
the GR than after it, when it turns out that people do *not* agree about
the meaning of it...  And I know that Sven Luther is able to rise high
emotions, but still it seems to me that what he says *is* reasonable.

> So, no, I will not support the current proposal (though I may vote for it). 
> And, no, I am no longer interested in participating in the discussion, 
> seeing as it is completely dominated by people I don't agree with anyway, 
> who don't seem to be able to listen to arguments nor have any sense of what 
> the majority of the project actually wants.

I also have a feeling like "Oh, well, nearly everybody wants the same,
let's just do it without bothering about the wording".  And I would be
surprised if after the vote someone among the relevant teams would step
up and say "Hey, sorry to tell you, but these drivers (A, B, and C)
cannot be kept in etch according to my understanding of the GR, and my
investigation of their details".  However, I do not think we can be
sure, and since I do *not* want to be surprised, I'd rather have a
proper discussion before the vote.

> IANAL, but at least I don't act like I am, like some others in this 
> discussion who seem so unbelievably sure that _they_ are right and so, of 
> course, nobody else can be.
> I have much more confidence in the more general consensus displayed by 
> upstream and _all_ other distributions that firmware blobs *are* 
> distributable under the GPL (of course, if there are individual 
> drivers/firmware for which that is in doubt, this should be investigated, 
> but I've lost any faith in the ability of people involved with debian-legal 
> to provide an unbiased opinion on that).

The problem is that there are individual drivers/firmware for which that
is in doubt.  For example, Larry Doolittle said recently:

,
| I am not perfect, but I have plenty of experience using and writing
| firmware of many kinds.  I would be very surprised if any of the
| listed firmware is not derived from a human-legible design file of
| one form or another.
`

and even suspected that in some cases the firmware might just be
sniffed.  I am confident that this will have no legal consequences.  But
what if 2 days after the GR some kernel contributor steps up and says:
"Well, to be honest, I got this from a guy who owned the device and told
me he had sniffed it"?  Will we exclude this firmware or have an other
GR?

> The current discussion in no way helps 
> the release of Etch.

Why not *name* the drivers that get an exception?  This way, anybody who
*really* can contribute more than general doubt has to do it now, before
the vote.

Regards, Frank
-- 
Frank Küster
Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer (teTeX/TeXLive)

Re: [AMENDMENT]: Release Etch now, with source-less but legal and freely licensed firmware

[Frans Pop]

On Thursday 05 October 2006 11:43, Frank Küster wrote:
> first of all, I wonder why so few people from the teams involved take
> part in this discussion.  I assume one reason might be that they prefer
> IRC.  However, debian-vote is the list that's supposed to hold the
> important information for the vote, isn't it?

No, it is because everybody who is remotely reasonable (with a few 
exceptions who are mostly forced to stay involved because of their roles in 
the project) has long since become totally disgusted with this anal 
discussion and the people pushing it .

Instead of a simple GR that leaves the decision with what is acceptable for 
Etch with the Release Managers, we now have a convoluted proposal that 
tries to do a lot more than was ever intended.
So, no, I will not support the current proposal (though I may vote for it). 
And, no, I am no longer interested in participating in the discussion, 
seeing as it is completely dominated by people I don't agree with anyway, 
who don't seem to be able to listen to arguments nor have any sense of what 
the majority of the project actually wants.

IANAL, but at least I don't act like I am, like some others in this 
discussion who seem so unbelievably sure that _they_ are right and so, of 
course, nobody else can be.
I have much more confidence in the more general consensus displayed by 
upstream and _all_ other distributions that firmware blobs *are* 
distributable under the GPL (of course, if there are individual 
drivers/firmware for which that is in doubt, this should be investigated, 
but I've lost any faith in the ability of people involved with debian-legal 
to provide an unbiased opinion on that).

I'm willing to discuss if they are free or non-free according to the DFSG 
and the SC, and will argue that Debian should allow (at least limited) 
support for these types of files. The current discussion in no way helps 
the release of Etch.


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Description: PGP signature

Re: are GPLed sourceless firmwares legal to distribute ?

[Sven Luther]

On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 08:29:23AM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
> On Thu, 5 Oct 2006 14:57:33 +0300, Markus Laire <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said: 
> 
> > Hopefully (but I doubt this) someone in Debian will get sued for
> > this violation in Etch, to stop such a behaviour in the future.
> 
> Nice. But the only one who can sue is the person whose
>  copytright we are violating -- namely, the person who provided the
>  firmware in the first place.  I'll leave it up to you to determine
>  the likelihood of that.

Then why is everyone making such a fuss when i propose to say clearly how
things stand with regard to GPLed sourceless drivers ? 

And why can't we decide to distribute all the firmwares which are in upstream,
even though they happen to have a strange license which makes them
undistributable ? 

Friendly,

Sven Luther


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Re: are GPLed sourceless firmwares legal to distribute ?

[Manoj Srivastava]

On Thu, 5 Oct 2006 14:57:33 +0300, Markus Laire <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said: 

> Hopefully (but I doubt this) someone in Debian will get sued for
> this violation in Etch, to stop such a behaviour in the future.

Nice. But the only one who can sue is the person whose
 copytright we are violating -- namely, the person who provided the
 firmware in the first place.  I'll leave it up to you to determine
 the likelihood of that.

manoj
-- 
Everything might be different in the present if only one thing had
been different in the past.
Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
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Re: Call for vote

[Manoj Srivastava]

Hi,
On Thu, 05 Oct 2006 09:02:22 +0200, Romain Francoise <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said: 

> Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>> The draft ballot for this vote is appended. Please note that this
>> is a draft ballot, voting has not yet started.

> Will this vote have secret ballots?

No, I don't see anything that implies that a general
 resolution for recalls needs to have a secret ballot.

manoj
-- 
I reject get-it-done, make-it-happen thinking. I want to slow things
down so I understand them better.  -- Governor Jerry Brown
Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B  924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C


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Re: Call for a vote: Re-affirm support to the Debian Project Leader

[Manoj Srivastava]

Hi,

 The draft ballot for this vote is appended. Please note that
  this is a draft ballot, voting has not yet started. For operational
  reasons, I have decided to start and end the vote in the middle of the
  weekend (I  am not able to guarantee being able to meet a schedule
  during the week day). I have changed s/;/,/, since otherwise
  devotee's config file parsing grammar throws a hissy fit.

manoj

 Voting period starts  00:00:01 UTC on Sunday,  
 Votes must be received by 23:59:59 UTC on Saturday,

The following ballot is for voting on a General Resolution to
re-affirm support for the Debian project leader.  The vote is being
conducted in accordance with the policy delineated in Section A,
Standard Resolution Procedure, of the Debian Constitution.

The details of the general resolution can be found at:
http://www.debian.org/vote/vote_006

You may see the constitution at http://www.debian.org/devel/constitution.
For voting questions contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

HOW TO VOTE

First, read the full text of the GR and amendments, if any. The ballot
does not claim to be complete rendition of the proposal(s), or even
accurately depict the spirit of each proposal.

Do not erase anything between the lines below and do not change the
choice names.

In the brackets next to your preferred choice, place a 1. Place a 2 in
the brackets next to your next choice.  Do not enter a number smaller
than 1 or larger than 2.  You may skip numbers.  You may rank options
equally (as long as all choices X you make fall in the range 1<= X <=
3).

Make sure you have read the proposal in detail.

To vote "no, no matter what" rank "Further discussion" as more
desirable than the unacceptable choices, or You may rank the "Further
discussion" choice, and leave choices you consider unacceptable
blank. Unranked choices are considered equally the least desired
choices, and ranked below all ranked choices. (Note: if the Further
Discussion choice is unranked, then it is equal to all other unranked
choices, if any -- no special consideration is given to the Further
discussion choice by the voting software).

Then mail the ballot to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]  Don't worry
about spacing of the columns or any quote characters (">") that your
reply inserts. NOTE: The vote must be GPG signed (or PGP signed) (or
encrypted) with your key that is in the Debian keyring.

- - -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
a65763d3-b1e2-4530-8ff8-aa5915274eb4
[   ] Choice 1: Re-affirm DPL, wish success to unofficial Dunc Tank
[   ] Choice 2: Re-affirm DPL, do not endorse nor support his other projects
[   ] Choice 3: Further discussion
- - -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-


--

The responses to a valid vote shall be signed by the vote key created
for this vote. The public key for the vote, signed by the Project
secretary, is appended below.

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arch-tag: 1c14135a-7b23-45f7-b0d5-78e68b24d4f8

-- 
Lawrence Radiation Laboratory keeps all its data in an old gray trunk.
Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: are GPLed sourceless firmwares legal to distribute ?

[Markus Laire]

On 10/5/06, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Frank -
> So the real question is whether we want to do that, whether in the
> particular cases there's in fact any doubt, etc.

In making the list, I left off all cases where I had any doubt.
I am not perfect, but I have plenty of experience using and writing
firmware of many kinds.  I would be very surprised if any of the
listed firmware is not derived from a human-legible design file of
one form or another.

So while it is perhaps a polite excuse that "we don't know for sure
if these thousands of bytes of hex code were ever compiled from source",
no sane person would bet against it.


I don't think "polite excuse" is proper term for this.

IMHO it's a blatant attempt to knowingly violate the copyright law
without actually admitting the violation.

But unfortunately there doesn't seem to be much I could actually do in
this case to stop this. I'll try to do what I can by voicing my
opposition to this as a user of Debian.

Hopefully (but I doubt this) someone in Debian will get sued for this
violation in Etch, to stop such a behaviour in the future.

--
Markus Laire
Disclaimer: IANAL, IANADD


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Re: Call for vote

[Stephen Gran]

This one time, at band camp, Romain Francoise said:
> Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> 
> > The draft ballot for this vote is appended. Please note that this is a
> > draft ballot, voting has not yet started.
> 
> Will this vote have secret ballots?

The constitution doesn't say it has to, so I see no reason to make this
a secret ballot.
-- 
 -
|   ,''`.Stephen Gran |
|  : :' :[EMAIL PROTECTED] |
|  `. `'Debian user, admin, and developer |
|`- http://www.debian.org |
 -


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Description: Digital signature

Re: [AMENDMENT]: Release Etch now, with source-less but legal and freely licensed firmware

[Frank Küster]

Hi,

first of all, I wonder why so few people from the teams involved take
part in this discussion.  I assume one reason might be that they prefer
IRC.  However, debian-vote is the list that's supposed to hold the
important information for the vote, isn't it?

Anthony Towns  wrote:

> On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 10:08:40AM +0200, Sven Luther wrote:
>> Indeed, so we need to strip those GPLed firmwares ? 
>
> I'm not going to repeat myself on that again.

No need to do that - I didn't read anything substantial from you yet.

>>   5. We further note that some of these firmware do not have proper license,
>
> Again, no, Debian is not distributing anything we're not confident we
> have a valid license to distribute. And no, "confident" doesn't mean
> "certain beyond all possible doubt" -- it means we make a good faith
> attempt to comply with the stated wishes of the rights holders.

The problem is that several people (also on -legal) have shown evidence
that some of the firmware under discussion never was intended to comply
with the GPL, for various reasons.  I don't feel well with just ignoring
this evidence.

Regards, Frank
-- 
Frank Küster
Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer (teTeX/TeXLive)

Re: [AMENDMENT]: Release Etch now, with source-less but legal and freely licensed firmware

[Sven Luther]

On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 06:28:55PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 10:08:40AM +0200, Sven Luther wrote:
> > Indeed, so we need to strip those GPLed firmwares ? 
> 
> I'm not going to repeat myself on that again.
> 
> > > I don't think it's worth further delaying this vote to include this
> > Anthony, this is a strong breach of thrust. When you asked me to delay my
> > original call for vote, it was to achieve a consensual proposal, [...]
> 
> > I don't think so, it is my understanding that Manoj's amendment has not
> > reached enough seconds for the vote to go on.
> 
> Frederik's proposal as amended by Manoj has been seconded by:
> 
> Steve Langasek <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Bill Allombert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Bastian Blank <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Frank Kuster <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> MJ Ray <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Anibal Monsalve Salazar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Daniel Ruoso <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 
> Depending on whether Manoj or Frederik is considered the proposer,
> Frederik might also count as a second, but only five are needed, and
> there are seven above.
> 
> >   5. We further note that some of these firmware do not have proper license,
> 
> Again, no, Debian is not distributing anything we're not confident we

Ah, no, i forgot to change this to what Manoj suggested this morning :

  We further note that some of these firmware do not have individual license,
  and thus implicitly fall under the the generic linux kernel GPL license.

We then continue by saying that we will distribute them as part of etch, and
investigate afterward, in the meanwhile urge the vendors to do the right thing ?

> have a valid license to distribute. And no, "confident" doesn't mean
> "certain beyond all possible doubt" -- it means we make a good faith

So, given the word modification above, is that not plainly what we say ? 

> attempt to comply with the stated wishes of the rights holders.

we are not making a good faith attempt, we are willingly closing our eyes over
the issue, but i understand why you would like not to say that, which is why i
changed the clause 5. as it is, together with Frederik, and why we dropped
clause 6.

Sure, there was a typo which i now fixed, but you didn't even consider the
whole proposal, which is rather disapointing.

Friendly,

Sven Luther


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Re: [AMENDMENT]: Release Etch now, with source-less but legal and freely licensed firmware

[Anthony Towns]

On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 10:08:40AM +0200, Sven Luther wrote:
> Indeed, so we need to strip those GPLed firmwares ? 

I'm not going to repeat myself on that again.

> > I don't think it's worth further delaying this vote to include this
> Anthony, this is a strong breach of thrust. When you asked me to delay my
> original call for vote, it was to achieve a consensual proposal, [...]

> I don't think so, it is my understanding that Manoj's amendment has not
> reached enough seconds for the vote to go on.

Frederik's proposal as amended by Manoj has been seconded by:

Steve Langasek <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Bill Allombert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Bastian Blank <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Frank Kuster <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
MJ Ray <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Anibal Monsalve Salazar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Daniel Ruoso <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

Depending on whether Manoj or Frederik is considered the proposer,
Frederik might also count as a second, but only five are needed, and
there are seven above.

>   5. We further note that some of these firmware do not have proper license,

Again, no, Debian is not distributing anything we're not confident we
have a valid license to distribute. And no, "confident" doesn't mean
"certain beyond all possible doubt" -- it means we make a good faith
attempt to comply with the stated wishes of the rights holders.

Cheers,
aj



signature.asc
Description: Digital signature

Re: [AMENDMENT]: Release Etch now, with source-less but legal and freely licensed firmware

[Sven Luther]

On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 04:55:48PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 04, 2006 at 09:03:10PM -0700, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote:
> > Anthony Towns  writes:
> > > I believe that distributing firmware written in chunks of hex is in
> > > compliance with the GPL, and repetition of your arguments isn't going
> > > to change that belief.
> > Do you really think that the GPL contains an exception for firmware
> > blobs?  Or that the GPL doesn't mean what it says when it refers to
> > all source?
> 
> I don't believe it says or means what is being claimed on its behalf, no.
> As evidence, I'll simply cite everyone else with far more to lose and
> far more legal resources that simply aren't worrying about this.
> 
> I'm not going to explain my reasoning from the text though, sorry. After
> etch, when we're working on separating the stuff out properly and moving
> the hex stuff to non-free I'll be more than happy to talk GPL legal
> theory over beers, but in the meantime, I don't think the details are
> important enough to spend time on.

But if we vote, like you currently propose, that we won't distribute
non-distributable stuff, then we have to get ride of the GPLed drivers, all
40+ of them.

Will you or Steve be doing the work for it ? 

Friendly,

Sven Luther


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Re: [AMENDMENT]: Release Etch now, with source-less but legal and freely licensed firmware

[Sven Luther]

On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 05:04:32PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 04, 2006 at 10:49:35AM +0200, Sven Luther wrote:
> > On Wed, Oct 04, 2006 at 06:12:38PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> > > On Tue, Oct 03, 2006 at 07:20:35PM +0200, Sven Luther wrote:
> > > > Anthony, this is bullshit. 
> > > Sven, if the GPL prohibits us from distributing the code, we (which is
> > > to say ftpmaster) won't distribute it. There's no way of phrasing a GR
> > > to change that.
> > Well, i agree with you to a point, but as everyone intent to distribute 
> > those
> > sourceless GPLed firmwares even if they are non-distributable, i cannot 
> > accept
> > the above claim.
> 
> It doesn't really matter what you can accept or not; we have a very
> firm policy of not breaking the law by distributing copyrighted stuff
> in violation of their license.

Indeed, so we need to strip those GPLed firmwares ? 

> What we don't have is a policy of not distributing copyright stuff
> because Sven Luther thinks the license is being violated.

Yeah, but it is not only me, Larry has made a study, and with his knowledge of
the firmware issue, he has strong suspisions, that this is inded so, and
current replies from debian-legal seem to support us (altough there are not
many such).

> I don't think it's worth further delaying this vote to include this

Anthony, this is a strong breach of thrust. When you asked me to delay my
original call for vote, it was to achieve a consensual proposal, and even if
you claimed widely on d-d-a that there was such a consensus reached, this is
not the case. I think the original proposal from Frederik is ways better than
the one proposed by Manoj, and yesterday evening still we where working with
Frederik on finding a consensual text, which you can see at : 

  
http://wiki.debian.org/KernelFirmwareLicensing#head-bf5edfa54af87d70d2f39f434703848b55569eef

and which i asked you yesterday on irc to review, without any kind of
feedback. I also attach it to this email, for the lazy folk who don't want to
fire up their browser, i am still a bit dissatisfied with the second sentence
of point 3., which overlaps point 4. upto a point.

> position statement; as per [0] the minimum discussion period for Manoj's
> amendment as accepted by Frederik [1] ended 4th Oct 2006 19:53:58 UTC,
> which is about 11 hours ago; so we could get on with calling for a vote
> and have this over and done with in a little over a week if the proposers
> and seconders are willing. 

I don't think so, it is my understanding that Manoj's amendment has not
reached enough seconds for the vote to go on.

> A position statement (and press release or similar) to get the ball
> rolling on encouraging driver/firmware developers to make original source
> code available under a DFSG license can happen at the same time, and be
> done even sooner.

Maybe, but i still think we should be clear in the GR, and not be coupable of
willfully hiding our head in the sand, as it is happening now.

Anyway, here is the full proposal, comments are welcome :

  1. We affirm that our Priorities are our users and the free software
 community (Social Contract #4);

  2. We acknowledge that there is a lot of progress in the kernel firmware
 issue, both upstream and in the debian packaging; however, it is not
 yet finally sorted out;

  3. We give priority to the timely release of Etch over sorting every bit out;
 for this reason, we will treat removal of problematic firmware as a
 best-effort process, and deliver firmware in the debian linux kernel
 package as well as installer components (.udebs), as part of Debian Etch.

  4. We allow inclusion into etch, even if the license does not normally allow
 modification, as long as we are legally allowed to distribute them.

  5. We further note that some of these firmware do not have proper license,
 and as thus fall implicitly under the generic linux kernel GPL license.
 We will include these firmware in etch and review them after the release.
 Vendors of GPLed firmware are advised to investigate the licensing terms,
 and make sure the GPL distribution conditions are respected, especially
 with regards to source availability.

Friendly,

Sven Luther


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Re: [AMENDMENT]: Release Etch now, with source-less but legal and freely licensed firmware

[Anthony Towns]

On Wed, Oct 04, 2006 at 10:49:35AM +0200, Sven Luther wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 04, 2006 at 06:12:38PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> > On Tue, Oct 03, 2006 at 07:20:35PM +0200, Sven Luther wrote:
> > > Anthony, this is bullshit. 
> > Sven, if the GPL prohibits us from distributing the code, we (which is
> > to say ftpmaster) won't distribute it. There's no way of phrasing a GR
> > to change that.
> Well, i agree with you to a point, but as everyone intent to distribute those
> sourceless GPLed firmwares even if they are non-distributable, i cannot accept
> the above claim.

It doesn't really matter what you can accept or not; we have a very
firm policy of not breaking the law by distributing copyrighted stuff
in violation of their license.

What we don't have is a policy of not distributing copyright stuff
because Sven Luther thinks the license is being violated.

I don't think it's worth further delaying this vote to include this
position statement; as per [0] the minimum discussion period for Manoj's
amendment as accepted by Frederik [1] ended 4th Oct 2006 19:53:58 UTC,
which is about 11 hours ago; so we could get on with calling for a vote
and have this over and done with in a little over a week if the proposers
and seconders are willing. 

A position statement (and press release or similar) to get the ball
rolling on encouraging driver/firmware developers to make original source
code available under a DFSG license can happen at the same time, and be
done even sooner.

Cheers,
aj

[0] http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2006/10/msg5.html
[1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2006/09/msg00567.html



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Re: [AMENDMENT]: Release Etch now, with source-less but legal and freely licensed firmware

[Anthony Towns]

On Wed, Oct 04, 2006 at 09:03:10PM -0700, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote:
> Anthony Towns  writes:
> > I believe that distributing firmware written in chunks of hex is in
> > compliance with the GPL, and repetition of your arguments isn't going
> > to change that belief.
> Do you really think that the GPL contains an exception for firmware
> blobs?  Or that the GPL doesn't mean what it says when it refers to
> all source?

I don't believe it says or means what is being claimed on its behalf, no.
As evidence, I'll simply cite everyone else with far more to lose and
far more legal resources that simply aren't worrying about this.

I'm not going to explain my reasoning from the text though, sorry. After
etch, when we're working on separating the stuff out properly and moving
the hex stuff to non-free I'll be more than happy to talk GPL legal
theory over beers, but in the meantime, I don't think the details are
important enough to spend time on.

Cheers,
aj



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Re: Call for vote

[Romain Francoise]

Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> The draft ballot for this vote is appended. Please note that this is a
> draft ballot, voting has not yet started.

Will this vote have secret ballots?

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 : :' :Romain Francoise <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
 `. `' http://people.debian.org/~rfrancoise/
   `-


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