Re: license requirements for a book to be in free section

[Sven <luther@dpt-info.u-strasbg.fr>]

On Tue, Jan 29, 2002 at 12:03:47AM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
> Sven <luther@dpt-info.u-strasbg.fr> writes:
> 
> > Also, if you decide it will be non free, then is this a modification of the
> > DFSG, a clarification that will be known only to the people involved and may
> > well be forgotten for another similar problem in the future, or will it be
> > filled somewhere accesible and advertised ? 
> 
> Nope, it's already understood by the DFSG to be nonfree.  We have not
> yet thought there would be any benefit of some kind of summation of
> debian-legal opinions.  There are, of course the archives.  And the
> collected experience of a big giant bunch of people.

and the influence of the cabal :)))

> > My feeling is that it is DFSG non free, or at least that we
> > interpret the DFSG as such, it even seemed strange to me this bit
> > about aggregation, which seem meaningless if you interpret it so,
> > and i ask myself why it was put there, and for what useage.
> 
> Ah, such questions are in the bowels of history.  Probably it's best
> to chalk it up to a mistaken conception of what freeness needs to
> include, and one that we can harmlessly fix.

Yes, please, remove it and clarify this stuff.

(it would need a vote though, isn't it ?

> > But anyway, for other people to know it and for it to not be a one time
> > thing, it should either be put in words in the DFSG (heavy as it may be), or
> > at least in some DFSG explanation and interpretation faq or something.
> 
> It's always workable the way it is now.  The rule is, in essence, all
> the parts have to be free, just about however you want to distribute
> them.

But it makes for lost time speaking about it, for misinterpretation from
outside folk (like the oreilly guys reading the dfsg and thinking it is ok)
and weaken our position. Again, clarifying this in the source would be much
better than long discutions. ...

Ok, i have to go now, i already lost too much time on this, and real life work
is waiting :(((

Friendly,

Sven Luther