Re: license requirements for a book to be in free section
On Tue, Jan 29, 2002 at 12:00:21AM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
> Sven <luther@dpt-info.u-strasbg.fr> writes:
>
> > I don't know, but notice that this is a constructive reply, which we
> > could ask Oreilly to clarify, and not something comparable with the
> > previous messages on this thread.
>
> Look, the procedure is to ask debian-legal. Sometimes things take
> discussion and time. Feel free to enter the discussion too.
And sometimes you get totally ignored, yes, i know, ...
I have followed this as best i could, but without letting my other debian
tasks aside, and well, there is real life, not everyone can afford to have a
debian related pay job like some, ...
> But your attitude is totally bogus here. Sometimes we have to argue
> through something, sometimes it really takes a while. It's not
> appropriate for you to declare "I'm going to ignore debian-legal and
> ask the FTP masters to do it".
Ok, i stand corrected, ...
I apologize for even suggesting it (altough it _did_ further clarify the
dsicution, didn't it) ...
> > If you tell stefano, we feel that this licence is non DFSG free, but don't
> > give more precise objections, i understand that he will get frustrated. And
> > the one line aggregation is not a good example, i don't think it will hold in
> > court altough IANAL.
>
> What do you mean by "won't hold in court"? The DFSG isn't a
> court-enforced document. It's up to Debian, and only Debian, to
> decide what meets it.
Well, the only problem we have trully on this point, is that someonbe can take
the stuff out of the debian distribution, and make a book of it, adding a one
liner to it.
If this happen, then surely oreilly will take them to court, if they feel like
it, and it is out of our hands.
And anyway, adding a one liner and publishing it, is not true to the meaning
of the first article to the DFSG, it is a play with words, an evasion,
whatever, i guess you understand me.
> So far, we have generally chosen to interpret the aggregation clause
> *very* strictly, as requiring even trivial aggregations to be
> permitted. The license should also be neutral about the medium it is
> distributed on.
Well, why not simply drop this clause, if it can be circumvented easily by
adding a one liner, one wonders why it went into the DFSG in the first place,
and what we would have to remove from debian if we would remove this clause.
> O'Reilly really doesn't want free documentation. It's perfectly clear
> why; they have *never* wanted free documentation.
Ok, but ...
My problem is that i would really like to have this documentation installed on
my computer, so i can look at itwhen i want, even if i don't own the book.
This is already possible, since they make the full book available per web, but
it would be ncie to have it also in debian, so i can install it form the
debian CDs on my offline home box. (altough i own the book also)
Not what is the problem with this ? It adds to the value of debian, adds to
the freedom of the users, who may wich to ship only part of it, collect it
with other valuable info and so on.
But the non printable clause, to whom does it add freedom, only to those who
wqnt to print the book and sell it, i guess it doesn't even block people from
printing it for themselves, or joining money to have a set of them printed,
where each copy will get to the personal use of the people printing them, and
not sold.
The only people who will have a problem with this, would be those guys who
look at the debian stuff, and say, look at this nice book, let's get it print
it withtout change, and sell it to make profit. This kind of behavior adds
nothing to the debian community nor to the society in general, it only makes
some people richer and that is it.
Also, when would we consider that we should only use open source hardware to
run debian ?
Friendly,
Sven Luther
>
> Thomas
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