Re: A possible GFDL compromise: a proposal

[Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>]

I am seeing a persistent pattern where you accuse me of dishonesty
based on little except supposition.  Here are several examples from
the mail I received last night.

    > Thomas Bushnell proposed another interpretation, in which certain
    > things that are included in the Debian package files are not "part of
    > Debian" for this purpose.  That way, you don't have to apply the DFSG
    > to them.

    No, I did not, and you know it.

That is what I thought you meant.  It is a natural interpretation of
your message.  I quote your message in full:

    > But Debian contains essays, logos, and licenses that cannot be
    > modified.  These are not programs; are they software?

    The essays and logos in question are in fact not part of Debian.

The essays I referred to are in Debian packages, or so I have
believed.  Perhaps I was wrong.  Anyway, assuming you are talking
about the same essays, you seem to be saying these essays are not
considered part of Debian even though they are in Debian packages.

I will take your word for it that you did not mean that.  However, the
accusation that I deliberately distorted your words is groundless.
Your words were terse, and anyone could have interpreted them as I
did.

				     I already corrected you on this
    misunderstanding.

"I already corrected you" carries an implication of "You are ignoring
the correction."  I had not ignored anything, since at the time I
wrote that message, I had not received your mail correcting this
misunderstanding.

I sent out the message saying that "Thomas Bushnell proposed another
interpretation" in batch 310.  At the time, the last mail I had
received was batch 309.  The message I quoted above was in batch 309.
It was the last message from you on this point that had arrived on my
machine at that time.

Here is another example:

    This has been explained to you enough times that your attempt to
    pretend it hasn't can no longer be attributed to ignorance.

I am not pretending anything--I consider the issue a red herring.  So
I have addressed the issues I think are important.

If I do not respond to one point, that doesn't mean I am pretending
anyting.  I may think it is not important enough to be worth a
response--or I may think it is important and be thinking about what to
say.  You made a groundless accusation here too.

Ironically, even as your accusation was waiting on my mail server, I
decided to respond directly to that point.  I did not have to do so,
but I had some time and decided to spend it by responding to your
message which raised this point.

Your message accusing me of pretending not to see the point, and my
message addressing the point, crossed in the mail.