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

[tb@becket.net (Thomas Bushnell, BSG)]

Branden Robinson <branden@debian.org> writes:

> The arbitrary definition of "software" that you seek undermines your
> objections to my arbitrary threshold on the quantity of invariant text.

I understand what "software" means, and I guess it's quite sad that
you don't.  Oh well.  I don't claim there *is* a rigid
definition--it's *you* who are seemingly obsessed with the need to
rigidly define everything in sight for fear that some pedant or
sophist will accidentally or deliberately get it wrong.

> I submit that I'm not the only one.  Sunnavind Fenderson and Scott Dier
> don't appear to think the issue is better left swept under the rug.
> Bernd Warken and Thomas Uwe Guettmueller don't seem to either, though it
> is unclear to me that they agree with either one of us as to the
> particulars.

So why not a policy that calls for judgment?  You move from "we need a
policy" to "we need a policy that could be implemented by an automated
system devoid of human judgment".  

> I have yet to hear back from anyone as to whether the GNU Emacs Manual
> comes in under this limit or not.  

Before you propose any more policies, I expect *you* to rather more
thoroughly investigate their impact.  The subject of the Emacs and GCC
manuals have come up several times; you are the one proposing
proposals, why should not you be the one to gather the information on
whether these given manuals do or do not run afoul of your proposed
standard?! 

> If it does, would that impact your
> thinking on this matter at all?  Or are you opposed to a quantitative
> limit even if it's so high as to have no practical effect on the present
> contents of the Debian GNU/Linux Distribution?  Let's get at the root of
> your animosity.

I would be ok with a proportional limit, provided that it was set high
enough to cause no problems for things already in the archive.