Re: Proposed: Debian's Five Freedoms for Free Works

[iain d broadfoot <ibroadfo@cis.strath.ac.uk>]

* Jeremy Hankins (nowan@nowan.org) wrote:
> Branden Robinson <branden@debian.org> writes:
> 
> > I personally have advocated a fifth freedom:
> >
> > 5) The freedom to retain privacy in one's person, effects, and data,
> >    including, but not limited to, all Works in one's possession and
> >    one's own changes to Works written by others.
> 
> I think (though I'm not sure) that I agree with what you're trying to
> do, but I don't like using privacy as its basis[1].  Reasonable people
> can disagree, of course, but I think it's important to understand that
> privacy and the free flow of information are competing values, and the
> optimum is some point between either extreme that maximizes other
> social values.
> 
> To give a concrete example, accurate attribution of changes (e.g., a
> changelog) is a good thing because is strengthens the social
> structures that keep Free Software working, yet it's clearly a limit
> on privacy, albeit relatively minor.

it's not a limit on privacy, because it only applies when an individual
chooses to distribute a derived work.

iain

-- 
wh33, y1p33 3tc.

"If sharing a thing in no way diminishes it, it is not rightly owned if it is
not shared." -St. Augustine