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Re: REVISED PROPOSAL regarding DFSG 3 and 4, licenses, and modifiable text



On Sun, Dec 02, 2001 at 07:24:54PM +0100, Bernd Warken wrote:

I'm sorry, but much of your message is difficult to comprehend.

Please also pay attention to:
Mail-Copies-To: nobody
X-No-CC: I subscribe to this list; do not CC me on replies.

> Exactly, so the documents go as 2) and are not ruled by DFSG.

That's one possible interpretation.  I advocate another.  Do you agree
with Thomas Bushnell or not?

> The only one so far is the GNU FDL.

There is also the OPL, and the traditional FSF documentation license.  I
referenced all three in my proposal; it surprises me that you remain
unaware of them, unless -- as is popular -- you didn't actually read it.

> If you feel that the FDL is not good enough then provide a better one.

Please see the "Impact" section of my proposal.

> But remember that the Debian history is not quite bright with major
> members moving to commercial experiments.  

I don't even understand what this means.

> Debian opinions used to change like the weather.

One thing that obviously hasn't changed is people's passion for jumping
into the middle of the thread and launching tirades based on their
incomplete information.

> For license issues, much experience is needed.  The only reliable
> constant for protecting freedom was the FSF - during the last 2
> decades.  So Debian would do very good to come in terms with the FSF.

I agree that concordance with the FSF is a desirable goal, but Debian
need not and should not abandon its autonomy for the sake of this end.
Debian is an independent project with its own goals.

> If Debian makes the groff documents licensed under the FDL non-free
> without providing a license that garantees the same protection as the
> FDL then Debian will risk a lot of trouble.

Debian is not empowered to license "the groff documents".  Only the
copyright holder has that power.  More generally, Debian does not have
the power to unilaterally change the license on packages in non-free so
that they suddenly become suitable for inclusion in main.  If that were
the case, I doubt we'd have a non-free repository at all.

> Then I would argue that there are forces at work, who intentionally
> want to weaken the free licenses in order to trash the whole concept
> of freeness.

This strikes me as a total non sequitur.  If this follows from what
you've said, you're going to have to give me more signposts.

> I'm speaking about big trouble!

-- 
G. Branden Robinson                |
Debian GNU/Linux                   |           If existence exists,
branden@debian.org                 |           why create a creator?
http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |

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