Re: Licenses for DebConf6
On Mon, 14 Nov 2005 15:04:51 +0100, Henning Makholm <henning@makholm.net> said:
> Scripsit David Nusinow <david_nusinow@verizon.net>
>> From reading the responses from Andreas, rather than people trying
>> poorly to interpret him, it's pretty apparent that they'll be
>> giving freely licensed talks a greater weight than non-free
>> ones. They're also going to make it easy to choose a free license
>> from their interface. Furthermore, it implies a very strong desire
>> to have freely licensed materials
> All of that is nice and well, but it does not change the fact that a
> DSFG-free license is not *required*.
Which is a pity.
The same benefit that accrue from freedom of software still
remain if that software bits represent a presentation; the
software/presentation can be modified to suit a particular need, and
redistributed, excepts can be used in other presentations, ica can be
part of a larger educational effort. Like any other software, having
the free software/presentation bits leads to collaboation,
invention, and greater benefit to the community of users.
It is a pity that a conference of debian developers, and
others interested in developing debian, which is itself dedicated to
being wholly free, and who has just rejected the GFDL as not being
free enough to be a part of debian, is now saying that in order to be
a part of Debian's conference, anything goes, and the sole rationale
given is that non-free stuff, while restricting the usage rights of
the community, is OK to ensure the success of the conference.
I se this as saying that freedom is OK until it comes to
something real, like holding a conference, and then the whole
community/rights/freedom thingy is unworkable and too restrictive for
words.
There has been no argument that the rights of software freedom
would not apply to software that represents presentations, only that
somehow freedom implies you do not get the best of what is out there.
Yes, a pity.
>> Hopefully if you don't like the way they run the conference you'll
>> get involved in the future and help to make it even better.
> I am perfectly happy with the way the conference is being run. I am
> opposing those people who want the organisers to change the way it
> is being run, such that DFSG-nonfree papers will be thrown out
> simply because of the licensing.
Yes, I understannd you are in opposition. What you have not
explained is why, or why are the reasons that software that
represents programs or software that represents documentation should
be free do not also apply to software that represents presentation
materials. Why is it that the end user who looks st the presentation
support software should not also gain the benefit of any free
software, to edit, modify, incorporate into larger works, and freely
distribute the result to others in the community.
manoj
--
There are two ways of disliking poetry; one way is to dislike it, the
other is to read Pope. -- Oscar Wilde
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C
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