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Re: A possible approach in "solving" the FDL problem



On Thu, Aug 07, 2003 at 09:51:12PM -0500, Lynn Winebarger wrote:
>   And yet whoever wrote them seemed to believe "software" refers to 
>   programs.
>   Let's see how many times "program" is referred to as thing being freely 
> licensed:

Let's see how the GNU GPL defines "program":

    0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains
  a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed
  under the terms of this General Public License.  The "Program", below,
  refers to any such program or work, and a "work based on the Program"

Plese explain what is unreasonable about interpreting "program" as "any
work".  Please explain what alternative interpretation of "program" the
participants of debian-legal are supposed to dream up given the lack of
any mandate from the Debian Constitution or Debian Project Leader.
Next, explain how that alternative interpretation is justified by the
the language of the Social Contract and Debian Free Software Guidelines,
and how it is consistent with the intentions of the authors of those
documents.

I have to ask myself if Lynn Winebarger has anything to offer but
sophistry.  A principled defense of freedom certainly does not seem to
be a forthcoming alternative.

-- 
G. Branden Robinson                |    It is the responsibility of
Debian GNU/Linux                   |    intellectuals to tell the truth and
branden@debian.org                 |    expose lies.
http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |    -- Noam Chomsky

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