Re: [Discussioni] OSD && DFSG convergence
> Henning Makholm writes:
> > It seems that most of the debian-legal regulars have decided for
> > themselves that, sure there are things that might be said clearer, but
> > it's not broken enough to turn the Constitution upside down to fix it.
On Tue, 28 Jan 2003, Russell Nelson wrote:
> And yet, you're doing that right now.
No, we're not. We're acknowledging that our guidelines are incomplete and
living with that state. That's clearly different than turning the
constitution upside down.
> One cannot rely on the language of the DFSG to decide if something is
> DFSG-free. One must apply to an elite cabal of Debian members who are
> completely unaccountable and may decide anything they wish.
True.
> And you think that's not a broken process?
I think it's not a broken process. It could be improved, but it does what
I, as a debian user, want it to do. I get well-packaged software that I
can trust is free.
> Would you rather have the current state of affairs, where one group of
> free software developers says the RPSL is a free software license, and
> another says it's not a free software license? I can't imagine
> anybody would think that's a good thing.
I'd much rather see the current state of affairs than one where RPSL code
is declared free just because there's no specific rule against it, even
when a large group of developers thinks otherwise.
So, here we are. If you approach it from a different standpoint (we have
two processes for determining what's free, and both can be improved),
there may be some benefits everyone can see.
Personally, I'd love to see a stronger OSD, with the loopholes and caveats
that come up closed when they're found. If it works well, I expect Debian
will be more likely to use it as a template, or at least reference
document, when deciding if something is debian-free.
If I can help toward this end, please let me know.
--
Mark Rafn dagon@dagon.net <http://www.dagon.net/>
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