On Fri, Jun 13, 2003 at 03:29:03PM +0300, Anton Zinoviev wrote: > I'd like to mention here that FSF talks about free software and free > documentation and not about free works. Well, they're the Free *Software* Foundation. Presumably, they care first and foremost about software. > It is questionable whether we have to require these freedoms from > works that are not software, nor documentation. What's questionable about it? This sort of rhetoric is FUD. > For our Debian distribution the difference is not much important as we > distribute only software and documentation. Not true, unless you define "software and documentation" so broadly that you open yourself up to exactly the same sort of ridicule that I received for calling everything in Debian main "effectively software". Things like the music files for frozen-bubble are neither software nor documentaiton. > Nevertheless there is a great philosophical difference. This is an assertion for which you have provided no foundation. > Do we start promoting philosophical ideas that are not directly > related to our own work? I think that's more a question for those who seek to have us promulgate philosophical ideas of any stripe, e.g., RMS. > I doubt there will be any benefit if we start doing this. One might object to the GNU FDL on precisely those grounds, and more importantly to specific manuals carrying the "GNU Manifesto". > > 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. > > Yes, we should require this from all software in Debian. > > But I don't think it is desirable to add this to the definition of > free software (and free documentation) because of this: > > * If some software spies me and its license disallows me to remove the > bad code in it, then this won't be a free software, because I am not > allowed to modify and improve it. > > * If the software spies me, but its license permits me to remove the > bad code, then this will be bad software, but free software. I am > allowed to improve it. You are thinking only about what the software can do, and not about what the *license* might do. > * Debian has its guidelines rather than its definition of free > software. I don't think we have any interest in more confrontation > with FSF and initiate a third movement in our community (as OSI > already did). Some people in FSF are too sensitive about > definitions. I don't think it makes sense to treat the FSF as some sort of unstable psychotic who's likely to go off and start shooting people if his every whim is not sated. I expect the FSF to conduct itself rationally and ethically, and I cannot think of a situation where they have not done so. It is neither necessarily irrational nor necessarily unethical to disagree with the Debian Project about anything. I personally refuse to live in fear of what the FSF or RMS might think or say. I think the Debian Project would be well advised to share this perspective. -- G. Branden Robinson | That's the saving grace of humor: Debian GNU/Linux | if you fail, no one is laughing at branden@debian.org | you. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- A. Whitney Brown
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