Re: Please remove RFCs from the documentation in Debian packages
* Branden Robinson (branden@debian.org) wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 03, 2003 at 03:38:18PM +0200, Marco d'Itri wrote:
> > On Jul 03, Petter Reinholdtsen <pere@hungry.com> wrote:
> >
> > >I believe this whole case of RFC standards are not confirming to The
> > >Debian Free Software Guidelines display a complete lack of
> > >understanding of the value of standards, and should be rejected.
> > >Standards are not software, nor software manuals, and should not be
> > >treated as such.
> > I fully agree. Banning RFCs from debian is just silly.
>
> So, what other non-DFSG-free stuff is it "silly" to ban? Netscape
> Navigator? Adobe Acrobat Reader?
Keep in mind that this hard-line stance of applying the DFSG to
everything in the archive will probably make it more difficult to gain
support for the non-free removal resolution. I think most people
perceive RFCs as being free enough for their purpose, even though they
are not DFSG-free. Of course you can come up with scenerios where
someone could have a completely legitimate desire to use an RFC in a
derivative work, but in comparison to situations where one wants to
modify software this is extremely infrequent. I think non-free removal
will seem more radical if it means that Debian will no longer distribute
RFCs on the basis that their licensing is not permissive enough. RFCs
are the end product of a community process that represents everything
Debian stands for.
(Yes, I know that non-free is not part of Debian. All I claim above is
that in the status quo Debian distributes non-free.)
--
Josh Haberman
Debian GNU/Linux developer
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