Re: Q for all candidates: license and copyright requirements
On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 10:45:46PM +0100, Marc Haber wrote: On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 02:10:23PM +0100, Mike Hommey wrote: At the risk of repeating myself (I already said it in an answer to Charles' GR proposal), these core values are also what all DDs agreed to abide by. If Charles doesn't like Debian's core values, maybe he should resign. The last thing that Debian needs right now is losing even more personpower. Absolutely. And I consider that if our core values are erroded, then there would be a large loss of manpower. Neil -- Erik_J good day! i hear this might be a good place to get some technical advice when one is debian eliterate :) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100325090156.gs28...@halon.org.uk
Re: Q for all candidates: license and copyright requirements
On Wed, 24 Mar 2010 08:27:43 +0900, Charles Plessy wrote: Salut Charles, Our users, if they want to modify, study, redistribute or use after rebuild our ^^ system, need the source. At no moment these operations involve modifying a RFC ^^ ^ The marked spots above seem to be a contradiction to me. or a binary program that is aimed at run on a Windows system. I conclude that that kind of file, although present in our source packages, are not part of the source of our operating system. JFTR: Like some others I disagree on this point of view. IMO Debian, the distribution consists equally of binary and source packages, so if a package wants to be considered free as defined by the DFSG there must not be any non-free parts neither in the binary nor in the source package. Cheers, gregor -- .''`. http://info.comodo.priv.at/ -- GPG Key IDs: 0x8649AA06, 0x00F3CFE4 : :' : Debian GNU/Linux user, admin, developer - http://www.debian.org/ `. `' Member of VIBE!AT SPI, fellow of Free Software Foundation Europe `-NP: Peter Ratzenbeck: Recycling Rag signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Q for all candidates: license and copyright requirements
Our users includes not only an individual with a single computer who never sees the source, but also derivative distributions, private organizations, system administrators, etc, all of whom may need to modify the source for their own purposes. Our users, if they want to modify, study, redistribute or use after rebuild our system, need the source. At no moment these operations involve modifying a RFC or a binary program that is aimed at run on a Windows system. I conclude that that kind of file, although present in our source packages, are not part of the source of our operating system. *cough* (My first thought was *WAYS* more impolite.) So, you want to make Debian unfit to be distributed by anyone. You seriously consider distributing undistributable files just because you are too lazy to do your maintainers work. You seriously want to put all our mirrors, all or CD distributors AND ALL OUR USERS at risk to break laws and maybe get sued (some of our users definitely are large enough to be a nice target for law trolls), just because you fucking dont want to do the work? I think that we should have the possibility to redistribute a bit-identical upstream archive when possible. Thats possible whenever upstream has fixed his tarball to not include non-free bits. repacked tarballes, we can do with pristine ones. If we do not trust each other that a couple of useless non-DFSG-free files can be ignored, what else can't we trust ? You. -- bye, Joerg You know, boys, a nuclear reactor is a lot like a woman. You just have to read the manual and press the right buttons. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87sk7qku6t@gkar.ganneff.de
Re: Q for all candidates: license and copyright requirements
On 24/03/10 00:27, Charles Plessy wrote: Our users, if they want to modify, study, redistribute or use after rebuild our system, need the source. At no moment these operations involve modifying a RFC or a binary program that is aimed at run on a Windows system. I conclude that that kind of file, although present in our source packages, are not part of the source of our operating system. To me, the sources of Debian are the source packages. Saying that something shipped in the source packages is not part of the Debian sources sounds a bit contradictory :) I understand well Stefano's point of view that we serve better our users by making things clear and removing these files from our source packages so that we can say that anything that is in our main section is DFSG-free. I do not think it is so useful, however, since one can not blindly use DFSG-free material as we tolerate advertisement clauses, renaming clauses, and clauses forbidding to sell the software alone. Not to mention patents and trademark issues. You can assume that the Debian sources are DFSG free. No more, no less. Arguing that since you can trust the sources are patent-free we should stop making them DFSG-free doesn't sound too logical to me. I think that we should have the possibility to redistribute a bit-identical upstream archive when possible. We have. I do it all the time. When the upstream tarball is free. In the title of my platform, I wrote ‘more trust’. What we can do with repacked tarballes, we can do with pristine ones. If we do not trust each other that a couple of useless non-DFSG-free files can be ignored, what else can't we trust ? We trust each other not to introduce non-free works in the upstream tarballs when packaging new releases. Isn't that trust? I don't buy how 'trust that a developer introduces non-free works' is anything we want. Emilio -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4ba9ebff.2010...@debian.org
Re: Q for all candidates: license and copyright requirements
Hi, On Dienstag, 23. März 2010, Joerg Jaspert wrote: The second option aims at clarifying what is the source of the Debian operating system. It is controversial. It is a lot but not controversial, actually its pretty clear. For that statement alone *I* hope NOTA will have a big win over you, sorry. It shows you are way off with actual project. I've been thinking about this statement last night and this morning and noon, and came to the conclusion that I have to fullheartly agree with what Joerg wrote. Charles, I think your ideas how Debian should change because it's oh so much work for no gain to do the right thing are almost insulting to the core values of the project. Good thing that values cannot be insulted ;-) cheers, Holger signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: Q for all candidates: license and copyright requirements
Dmitrijs Ledkovs wrote: I you would like to guarantee to the users that unpacked debian source is DFSG we should hook into unpack (similar to DpkgSrc3.0 / quilt) and remove DFSG blobs at maintainers discretion for example by parsing debian/copyright. [...] This change will result in maintainers spending less time by recuding effort required for packaging software with non-DFSG-pristine-tarball. Debian developer time is precious and very limited and IMHO should be used as efficiently as possible. IMHO, writing a hook at unpack time to remove non-DFSG stuff and repackaging require the same effort. I would even say the former is more error-prone (in the sense that it can leave non-DFSG bits behind in some unexpected situation) and therefore requires more time. Cheers, -- Stéphane -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4baa0b82.5050...@glondu.net
Re: Q for all candidates: license and copyright requirements
On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 02:00:38PM +0100, Holger Levsen wrote: Hi, On Dienstag, 23. März 2010, Joerg Jaspert wrote: The second option aims at clarifying what is the source of the Debian operating system. It is controversial. It is a lot but not controversial, actually its pretty clear. For that statement alone *I* hope NOTA will have a big win over you, sorry. It shows you are way off with actual project. I've been thinking about this statement last night and this morning and noon, and came to the conclusion that I have to fullheartly agree with what Joerg wrote. Charles, I think your ideas how Debian should change because it's oh so much work for no gain to do the right thing are almost insulting to the core values of the project. Good thing that values cannot be insulted ;-) At the risk of repeating myself (I already said it in an answer to Charles' GR proposal), these core values are also what all DDs agreed to abide by. If Charles doesn't like Debian's core values, maybe he should resign. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100324131023.ga2...@glandium.org
Re: Q for all candidates: license and copyright requirements
On Wed, 24 Mar 2010 00:32:19 +, Dmitrijs Ledkovs wrote 2. If tarball is not redistributable It belongs in non-free, or must be repackaged to become redistributable No, If its not redistributable, It doesn't belong in non-free or any other place we distribute software. This is why we don't distribute other popular non-redistributable software like Opera or skype or flash in non-free. stew signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Q for all candidates: license and copyright requirements
Hi, On Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 3:45 PM, Bernd Zeimetz be...@bzed.de wrote: with 20100124144741.gd13...@kunpuu.plessy.org Charles Plessy came up with a draft GR Simplification of license and copyright requirements for the Debian packages.. I'd like to know from Charles Plessy if the draft from January still reflect his current opinion or if his mind changed. From the other candidates I'd like to know their opinion and plans (if there are any) about license/copyright requirements in Debian. I agree with zack that this is not a decision that the DPL should take. It's a decision that should be done through a GR, that the DPL can support or not, but I hope that Charles knows that even if he won, it wouldn't mean that it'd be ok to change such policy without a GR (or, at least, another form of consensus on this matter). Regarding the proposal itself, I'm not sure I see how much we would be gaining by not mentioning the copyright holder or reproducing the copyright notice. We would still have to analyze whether the license requires the copyright notice, the copyright holder, or both. In that case, I think it's simpler to keep with what we have, but I don't have too strong a position about this. Regarding software in the source packages, I do believe that The Debian System is both the binary and the source packages, and as such we shouldn't distribute non-free stuff, either in the binary or in the source packages. -- Besos, Marga -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/e8bbf0361003241045o58258be5x3047377b2864e...@mail.gmail.com
Re: Q for all candidates: license and copyright requirements
Hi Marga, On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 02:45:11PM -0300, Margarita Manterola wrote: On Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 3:45 PM, Bernd Zeimetz be...@bzed.de wrote: with 20100124144741.gd13...@kunpuu.plessy.org Charles Plessy came up with a draft GR Simplification of license and copyright requirements for the Debian packages.. I'd like to know from Charles Plessy if the draft from January still reflect his current opinion or if his mind changed. From the other candidates I'd like to know their opinion and plans (if there are any) about license/copyright requirements in Debian. I agree with zack that this is not a decision that the DPL should take. It's a decision that should be done through a GR, that the DPL can support or not, but I hope that Charles knows that even if he won, it wouldn't mean that it'd be ok to change such policy without a GR (or, at least, another form of consensus on this matter). Regarding the proposal itself, I'm not sure I see how much we would be gaining by not mentioning the copyright holder or reproducing the copyright notice. We would still have to analyze whether the license requires the copyright notice, the copyright holder, or both. In that case, I think it's simpler to keep with what we have, but I don't have too strong a position about this. Regarding software in the source packages, I do believe that The Debian System is both the binary and the source packages, and as such we shouldn't distribute non-free stuff, either in the binary or in the source packages. If I understand you correctly, you dissociate yourself from Charles's POV about what's part of Debian and thus what needs to be free according to DFSG. In another thread you said all other candidates are above NOTA for you. After reading a few very strong opinions about what Charles said earlier wrt source and binary packages, I suppose some of them (and maybe others) might find that a bit contradicting. Actually that's how I read KiBi's last mail in the Who would you vote for thread. Would you mind commenting on that? Hauke signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Q for all candidates: license and copyright requirements
On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 3:14 PM, Jan Hauke Rahm j...@debian.org wrote: If I understand you correctly, you dissociate yourself from Charles's POV about what's part of Debian and thus what needs to be free according to DFSG. In another thread you said all other candidates are above NOTA for you. Yes, that's correct. After reading a few very strong opinions about what Charles said earlier wrt source and binary packages, I suppose some of them (and maybe others) might find that a bit contradicting. Actually that's how I read KiBi's last mail in the Who would you vote for thread. Yes, I was talking with KiBi about this on IRC just now. I guess there's not a clear position on what rating someone below NOTA really means. I feel that rating someone below NOTA is not to be done lightly, while other people probably feel it's a normal way of showing you disagree. Would you mind commenting on that? For me, rating someone below NOTA doesn't just mean I wouldn't like this person as DPL, it means I wouldn't stay in Debian if this person was elected. Reviewing my past votes, only in 2006 and 2007 have I voted someone below NOTA, and those were extreme cases where I felt very strongly that a candidate might be damaging to the project. KiBi's questioning, however, has made me think that maybe I was taking the below/above NOTA to an extreme. -- Besos, Marga -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/e8bbf0361003241146l480cce22v275c9c448b5d8...@mail.gmail.com
Re: Q for all candidates: license and copyright requirements
On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 02:10:23PM +0100, Mike Hommey wrote: At the risk of repeating myself (I already said it in an answer to Charles' GR proposal), these core values are also what all DDs agreed to abide by. If Charles doesn't like Debian's core values, maybe he should resign. The last thing that Debian needs right now is losing even more personpower. Greetings Marc -- - Marc Haber | I don't trust Computers. They | Mailadresse im Header Mannheim, Germany | lose things.Winona Ryder | Fon: *49 621 72739834 Nordisch by Nature | How to make an American Quilt | Fax: *49 3221 2323190 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100324214546.gb23...@torres.zugschlus.de
Re: Q for all candidates: license and copyright requirements
Le Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 01:01:40PM -0700, Manoj Srivastava a écrit : If we want to change our foundation documents, and remove the awoval to the concept of being 100% free, or to say that Debian, and thus the parts of Debian covered by the DFSG, are just the binary bits, then we can do so via constitutionally approved methods like GR's with appropriate majority requirements. Is this what is being considered? Le Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 02:04:06PM +0100, Holger Levsen a écrit : If I understand your correctly you seem to think that your proposal wouldnt need a GR if a DPL that supports it (e.g. you) would be elected. How so? In my GR proposal, there are three options, and none of them change the DFSG. The first of them apperars quite consensual. The only problem is that if everybody agrees that we are wasting time on over-documenting debian/copyright, why don't we change our archive policy? I think that if a DPL that agrees with that change is elected, he will have a strong position to discuss with the FTP team, and a GR will be unnecessary. The second option aims at clarifying what is the source of the Debian operating system. It is controversial. Despite it does not change our fundation documents, I think that a GR would be needed to make sure that there is a general agreement. Also, I think that GRs should be used to move forward when a choice is needed, but should be avoided when the result is to demotivate many developers. I will not push the second option if this is the case (not to mention that I think that a GR should be started only if it has good chances of being accepted). I hope this explains, -- Charles -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100323150300.ga3...@kunpuu.plessy.org
Re: Q for all candidates: license and copyright requirements
Hi Charles, On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 12:03:00AM +0900, Charles Plessy wrote: The second option aims at clarifying what is the source of the Debian operating system. It is controversial. I would like to say, for the record, that I believe you've lost track of what lives in Debian if you claim this. I agree with you that having to repack software for Debian is annoying, and that it may be a waste of time. I've had to do it myself, for beid, and it's not the most fun part of my involvement in Debian. However, I do think you're completely and utterly wrong in your above claim. Over the years, I've talked to many a Debian Developer, at FOSDEM, Debconf, or other gatherings, and never did I meet anyone who would even talk about this. If it indeed was controversial, as you claim, one would think that this would have happened a few times? -- The biometric identification system at the gates of the CIA headquarters works because there's a guard with a large gun making sure no one is trying to fool the system. http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/01/biometrics.html signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Q for all candidates: license and copyright requirements
On 03/23/2010 11:03 AM, Charles Plessy wrote: The second option aims at clarifying what is the source of the Debian operating system. It is controversial. To some of us, the Debian operating system is at least as much about the packaged source as it is about the packaged binaries. If you were to claim that DFSG freedom only mattered for things shipped in the binary packages, and not the things shipped in the source packages, i would find that upsetting. Our users includes not only an individual with a single computer who never sees the source, but also derivative distributions, private organizations, system administrators, etc, all of whom may need to modify the source for their own purposes. Knowing that the source of any package in main is free is a valuable feature of the Debian operating system. --dkg signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Q for all candidates: license and copyright requirements
Charles Plessy ple...@debian.org writes: The second option aims at clarifying what is the source of the Debian operating system. It is controversial. Despite it does not change our fundation documents, I think that a GR would be needed to make sure that there is a general agreement. For whatever it's worth, I believe the second option changes the foundation documents and would require a 3:1 majority. The person who's canonical on that is the Secretary, of course, but I wanted to note publicly that even the above statement about the nature of the proposal is controversial. -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87vdcmyi63@windlord.stanford.edu
Re: Q for all candidates: license and copyright requirements
The second option aims at clarifying what is the source of the Debian operating system. It is controversial. It is a lot but not controversial, actually its pretty clear. For that statement alone *I* hope NOTA will have a big win over you, sorry. It shows you are way off with actual project. -- bye, Joerg Mr. Scorpio says productivity is up 2%, and it's all because of my motivational techniques -- like donuts and the possibility of more donuts to come. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87ljdiu7b3@gkar.ganneff.de
Re: Q for all candidates: license and copyright requirements
Le Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 12:04:01PM -0400, Daniel Kahn Gillmor a écrit : Our users includes not only an individual with a single computer who never sees the source, but also derivative distributions, private organizations, system administrators, etc, all of whom may need to modify the source for their own purposes. Hi Daniel and everybody, Our users, if they want to modify, study, redistribute or use after rebuild our system, need the source. At no moment these operations involve modifying a RFC or a binary program that is aimed at run on a Windows system. I conclude that that kind of file, although present in our source packages, are not part of the source of our operating system. I understand well Stefano's point of view that we serve better our users by making things clear and removing these files from our source packages so that we can say that anything that is in our main section is DFSG-free. I do not think it is so useful, however, since one can not blindly use DFSG-free material as we tolerate advertisement clauses, renaming clauses, and clauses forbidding to sell the software alone. Not to mention patents and trademark issues. I think that we should have the possibility to redistribute a bit-identical upstream archive when possible. In the title of my platform, I wrote ‘more trust’. What we can do with repacked tarballes, we can do with pristine ones. If we do not trust each other that a couple of useless non-DFSG-free files can be ignored, what else can't we trust ? Cheers, -- Charles Plessy Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100323232743.ga5...@kunpuu.plessy.org
Re: Q for all candidates: license and copyright requirements
Very interesting thread. == In short == tarballs must be redistributable, unpacked debian source package should be DFSG-free, debian binary package must be DFSG-free. == Long == 1. Upstream tarball is not debian source Cause you cannot build/run/understand anything if you just have a bunch of tarballs. 2. If tarball is not redistributable It belongs in non-free, or must be repackaged to become redistributable 3. Debian source is tarball + debian diff/tar unpacked I you would like to guarantee to the users that unpacked debian source is DFSG we should hook into unpack (similar to DpkgSrc3.0 / quilt) and remove DFSG blobs at maintainers discretion for example by parsing debian/copyright. 4. Pristine tarballs on mirrors are a benefit They are still our build-dependency both for source and binary packages. But if we keep them pristine in the archive we will become mirrors for those upstreams. And it will give our users an opportunity to learn/study/use those DFSG blobs which are not part of debian source (definition 3 above). 5. This will reduce maintenance time This change will result in maintainers spending less time by recuding effort required for packaging software with non-DFSG-pristine-tarball. Debian developer time is precious and very limited and IMHO should be used as efficiently as possible. 6. Above is inline with DFSG DFSG are guidelines and this is my interpretation. I am not lawyer / DD. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/86ecb3c71003231732r7a82fefare15fe3f07d89c...@mail.gmail.com
Re: Q for all candidates: license and copyright requirements
Dmitrijs Ledkovs dmitrij.led...@ubuntu.com writes: 2. If tarball is not redistributable It belongs in non-free, or must be repackaged to become redistributable I think people are missing the degree of complexity in this. For instance, files included the source tarball that aren't used by the Debian build but are under a no commercial use license would mean that the Debian source packages can no longer be distributed by a commercial CD or DVD retailer. Binaries containing encryption code that can't be rebuilt from the sources in the source package, even if never used in Debian, suddenly potentially run afoul of US crypto export requirements. Etc. I suspect the original motivation is really limited just to files that are DFSG-compatible except for limitations on specific types of derivative works that don't involve commercial use, such as GFDL documents with invariant sections or IETF RFCs. But I think drawing a line around just that case, even if we all agreed it was desirable to do so, is harder than it looks. We did talk about this during http://www.debian.org/vote/2006/vote_001, I believe. -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87k4t2o82f@windlord.stanford.edu
Re: Q for all candidates: license and copyright requirements
On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 09:47:09AM +0900, Charles Plessy wrote:
I explained in my GR proposition what led me to conclude that not everything
in
the original archives distributed usptream is a source for Debian. Let's take
a
non-free RFC for example, that is not distributed in a binary package and is
not touched at build time. Why do you think it is part of the source of the
Debian operating system?
First of all I don't think there a single clear cut answer to the
question « what is part of Debian? », it is all a matter of where we set
the boundaries. Once they are set, we can easily inspect everything
which is inside and check it against DFSGs.
Nevertheless, I consider our mirrors (more precisely, the main
section) to be the most straightforward set of boundaries. Everything
which is there in is something we distribute to our users, it is our
main product and, ultimately, it is Debian.
Of course it is _still_ a matter of semantics, we can state that
something on the mirror is not Debian [1], but it will remain there,
just a apt-get source away from our users (and even if they did not
enable other archive parts than main in sources.list).
On a more pragmatic side, while with repacking we know that the non-free
bits cannot become part of the final .deb, without repacking we will
loose such a guarantee.
Cheers
PS while your question was perfectly fine, I don't think we should
hijack this thread discussing here the implications of your GR
proposals. If you want to do that, please rather resurrect the
appropriate thread.
[1] in fact, we do that for contrib and non-free, and it is not
surprising that in return some people contend that Debian is
advertising/distributing non-free software via its mirrors
--
Stefano Zacchiroli -o- PhD in Computer Science \ PostDoc @ Univ. Paris 7
z...@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} -- http://upsilon.cc/zack/
Dietro un grande uomo c'è ..| . |. Et ne m'en veux pas si je te tutoie
sempre uno zaino ...| ..: | Je dis tu à tous ceux que j'aime
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Re: Q for all candidates: license and copyright requirements
Hi Charles, On Sonntag, 21. März 2010, Charles Plessy wrote: Lastly, I am not sure if I will ask sponsors for this GR, as I wrote: ‘A GR that is accepted by a large majority is not necessarly a waste of time, because it dissipates misunderstantings that can arise with tacite agreements. But yes, there are alternatives, like electing a DPL that supports this change in his platform.’ If I understand your correctly you seem to think that your proposal wouldnt need a GR if a DPL that supports it (e.g. you) would be elected. How so? cheers, Holger signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: Q for all candidates: license and copyright requirements
On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 09:47:09AM +0900, Charles Plessy wrote: Le Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 02:42:51PM +0100, Stefano Zacchiroli a écrit : On the contrary, I'm against point (2) of the GR. I do consider our source packages to be part of Debian and hence subject to DFSG. If something in upstream tarball is non-free, I believe we should do repacking (there, we might use a bit more standardization on how we implement get-orig-source in such cases, but that's a different issue). In fact, doing that might even be a way to push our upstream to get rid of those non-free bits from their tarballs as well. Hi Stefano, I explained in my GR proposition what led me to conclude that not everything in the original archives distributed usptream is a source for Debian. Let's take a non-free RFC for example, that is not distributed in a binary package and is not touched at build time. Why do you think it is part of the source of the Debian operating system? Because it's in the source. If you do a 'find $source -iname '*rfc*', you will find it (unless the file has a silly name). More importantly, leaving files in the source package that must not be in the binary package increases the risk that a future NMU'er might miss the fact that this file is non-free and remove a --disable-foo option from the configure line in debian/rules, or something similar, thereby making the package in breach of the DFSG. I agree that it's a lot of work that might seem pointless and is not fun. But nobody ever said that working on Debian was going to be fun *all* the time. -- The biometric identification system at the gates of the CIA headquarters works because there's a guard with a large gun making sure no one is trying to fool the system. http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/01/biometrics.html signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Q for all candidates: license and copyright requirements
On Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 07:45:30PM +0100, Bernd Zeimetz wrote: From the other candidates I'd like to know their opinion and plans (if there are any) about license/copyright requirements in Debian. I have no specific plans. My opinion on the subject is that while there may be good reasons for the current (rather strict) policy, I don't believe there are real risks involved with the older, laxer, policy that Debian used to carry in the past. The current policy could be described as 'nitpicking'. I don't feel strong enough about that to do something about it, however. IANAL and everything -- I might well be completely wrong. I believe a question about this has gone out to a lawyer, so that could well be a perfectly good resolution to that question. -- The biometric identification system at the gates of the CIA headquarters works because there's a guard with a large gun making sure no one is trying to fool the system. http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/01/biometrics.html signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Q for all candidates: license and copyright requirements
Charles Plessy wrote: 2) I think that the Debian operating system is defined by the interaction of its binary version and the source files necessary to use, study, modifiy and redistribute it. Non-DFSG-free files that happen to be codistributed with the source of the Debian operating system but have no function at all are not part of the system, and I would like maintainers to be allowed to keep these files in the original upstream material if it simplifies their work. Would that include files which we are not allowed to distribute (for whatever reason)? Do you think that the number of packages where the source had to be repackages is high enough to warrant a change of the DFSG? Thanks and cheers, Bernd -- Bernd ZeimetzDebian GNU/Linux Developer http://bzed.dehttp://www.debian.org GPG Fingerprints: 06C8 C9A2 EAAD E37E 5B2C BE93 067A AD04 C93B FF79 ECA1 E3F2 8E11 2432 D485 DD95 EB36 171A 6FF9 435F -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4ba615d8.5030...@bzed.de
Re: Q for all candidates: license and copyright requirements
On Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 07:45:30PM +0100, Bernd Zeimetz wrote:
with 20100124144741.gd13...@kunpuu.plessy.org Charles Plessy came up
with a draft GR Simplification of license and copyright requirements
for the Debian packages..
From the other candidates I'd like to know their opinion and plans (if
there are any) about license/copyright requirements in Debian.
I don't think that such an important change in Debian should be pushed
by the DPL which, at best, should drive a discussion that lead to a
project-wide decision. While it is true (as Charles stated in [1]) that
electing a DPL with this in his/her platform would show some kind of
support to the initiative, it would be quite a twist: if we want to vote
on this, let's do that with the appropriate tool (a GR) rather than
piggybacking the decision in a different kind of vote.
On the content of the GR itself, I confess that point (1) (copyright
attributions) looks like a no-brainer to me. My reading of it is if
the license and/or the law do not require mentioning the copyright
*author*, let's avoid the self-infliction of doing that, with no other
change to the mention of *licenses* in debian/copyright. That is a
completely reasonable position.
A different question is how useful it will be in practice. AFAIK we do
have a pending question to the SPI lawyer on whether mentioning
copyright owner is mandatory anyhow no matter the license. Of course the
answer to that question will impact significantly on the potential
benefit of GR point (1).
On the contrary, I'm against point (2) of the GR. I do consider our
source packages to be part of Debian and hence subject to DFSG. If
something in upstream tarball is non-free, I believe we should do
repacking (there, we might use a bit more standardization on how we
implement get-orig-source in such cases, but that's a different
issue). In fact, doing that might even be a way to push our upstream to
get rid of those non-free bits from their tarballs as well.
As a final comment, I believe Charles GR proposal is sub-optimal in the
sense that it mixes (1) and (2), where one seems to be totally
controversial and the other might be quite consensual.
Cheers.
[1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2010/02/msg1.html
--
Stefano Zacchiroli -o- PhD in Computer Science \ PostDoc @ Univ. Paris 7
z...@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} -- http://upsilon.cc/zack/
Dietro un grande uomo c'è ..| . |. Et ne m'en veux pas si je te tutoie
sempre uno zaino ...| ..: | Je dis tu à tous ceux que j'aime
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Re: Q for all candidates: license and copyright requirements
Le Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 01:49:28PM +0100, Bernd Zeimetz a écrit : Charles Plessy wrote: 2) I think that the Debian operating system is defined by the interaction of its binary version and the source files necessary to use, study, modifiy and redistribute it. Non-DFSG-free files that happen to be codistributed with the source of the Debian operating system but have no function at all are not part of the system, and I would like maintainers to be allowed to keep these files in the original upstream material if it simplifies their work. Would that include files which we are not allowed to distribute (for whatever reason)? Do you think that the number of packages where the source had to be repackages is high enough to warrant a change of the DFSG? I think that we must not redistribute files that we are not allowed to redistribute, be they part of our operating system or not. I do not propose to change the DFSG, as it it relevant to the Debian operating system only, not to everything that the Debian project distributes (otherwise, we would not have a non-free section). I think that if a file that has no function in our operating system happens to be co-distributed on our source medias, like a RFC, a PDF file for which upstream forgot to provide its LaTeX source or a windows executable, our operating system is still DFSG-free. I use “More fun” in the title of my platform. DFSG-repacking is not fun. It provides no extra freedom, creates nothing, and syphons time and motivation (at least mine). I think that developers who do not go through NEW every month do not realise how long we spend repacking and cut-pasting coypright notices. In the meantime, other distributions innovate. One of my main motivations to stand up for DPL is that we remove all the barriers that contribute to Debian's immobilism. The copyright collection and tarball repacking are, in my opinion, one of them. Cheers, -- Charles Plessy Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100321145732.ga4...@kunpuu.plessy.org
Re: Q for all candidates: license and copyright requirements
Stefano Zacchiroli z...@debian.org writes: On the contrary, I'm against point (2) of the GR. I do consider our source packages to be part of Debian and hence subject to DFSG. If something in upstream tarball is non-free, I believe we should do repacking (there, we might use a bit more standardization on how we implement get-orig-source in such cases, but that's a different issue). In fact, doing that might even be a way to push our upstream to get rid of those non-free bits from their tarballs as well. In my experience, it definitely is. It can cause some upstream grumbling, but for example the next major version of OpenAFS will be usable without repacking (although I may end up still repacking to delete the very large WINNT directory that isn't used in the Debian build). -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87bpehse9g@windlord.stanford.edu
Re: Q for all candidates: license and copyright requirements
On Sun, Mar 21 2010, Russ Allbery wrote: Stefano Zacchiroli z...@debian.org writes: On the contrary, I'm against point (2) of the GR. I do consider our source packages to be part of Debian and hence subject to DFSG. If something in upstream tarball is non-free, I believe we should do repacking (there, we might use a bit more standardization on how we implement get-orig-source in such cases, but that's a different issue). In fact, doing that might even be a way to push our upstream to get rid of those non-free bits from their tarballs as well. In my experience, it definitely is. It can cause some upstream grumbling, but for example the next major version of OpenAFS will be usable without repacking (although I may end up still repacking to delete the very large WINNT directory that isn't used in the Debian build). I think that if Debian wants to still considered to be a part of the open source/free software community, it _has_ to contain the sources of the software. If the source software is a part of Debian (as it should be, in my opinion), the DFSG applies (seems somewhat weasely to try to wriggle our way out of the DFSG otherwise). If we want to change our foundation documents, and remove the awoval to the concept of being 100% free, or to say that Debian, and thus the parts of Debian covered by the DFSG, are just the binary bits, then we can do so via constitutionally approved methods like GR's with appropriate majority requirements. Is this what is being considered? manoj -- Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere. Manoj Srivastava sriva...@debian.org http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/ 4096R/C5779A1C E37E 5EC5 2A01 DA25 AD20 05B6 CF48 9438 C577 9A1C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87y6hll9zv@anzu.internal.golden-gryphon.com
Re: Q for all candidates: license and copyright requirements
Le Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 02:42:51PM +0100, Stefano Zacchiroli a écrit : On the contrary, I'm against point (2) of the GR. I do consider our source packages to be part of Debian and hence subject to DFSG. If something in upstream tarball is non-free, I believe we should do repacking (there, we might use a bit more standardization on how we implement get-orig-source in such cases, but that's a different issue). In fact, doing that might even be a way to push our upstream to get rid of those non-free bits from their tarballs as well. Hi Stefano, I explained in my GR proposition what led me to conclude that not everything in the original archives distributed usptream is a source for Debian. Let's take a non-free RFC for example, that is not distributed in a binary package and is not touched at build time. Why do you think it is part of the source of the Debian operating system? Have a nice day, -- Charles Plessy Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100322004708.ga8...@kunpuu.plessy.org
Re: Q for all candidates: license and copyright requirements
Le Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 07:45:30PM +0100, Bernd Zeimetz a écrit : Hi all, with 20100124144741.gd13...@kunpuu.plessy.org Charles Plessy came up with a draft GR Simplification of license and copyright requirements for the Debian packages.. I'd like to know from Charles Plessy if the draft from January still reflect his current opinion or if his mind changed. Dear Bernd, my current opinion is reflected by 20100207153515.ga20...@kunpuu.plessy.org, in which I clarified my proposal according to the first round of comments. In summary: 1) For the reproduction of copyright notices, let's do what law and licenses require from us, and not more. 2) I think that the Debian operating system is defined by the interaction of its binary version and the source files necessary to use, study, modifiy and redistribute it. Non-DFSG-free files that happen to be codistributed with the source of the Debian operating system but have no function at all are not part of the system, and I would like maintainers to be allowed to keep these files in the original upstream material if it simplifies their work. Lastly, I am not sure if I will ask sponsors for this GR, as I wrote: ‘A GR that is accepted by a large majority is not necessarly a waste of time, because it dissipates misunderstantings that can arise with tacite agreements. But yes, there are alternatives, like electing a DPL that supports this change in his platform.’ So I am definitely interested to read the opinion of the other candidates :) Cheers, -- Charles Plessy Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100321021728.gd31...@kunpuu.plessy.org
