Re: getting personalities out of the FSF-Debian argument
On Mon, 8 Sep 2003 23:38:16 -0700 (PDT), Bruce Perens <bruce@perens.com> said:
On Mon, 8 Sep 2003 21:56:51 -0700 (PDT), Bruce Perens <bruce@perens.com> said:
> Richard, Branden, and Co., I remain convinced that hot tempers are
> getting in the way. Thus, I would like to make two requests:
> 1. That the Debian folks designate someone other than Branden to
> speak the Debian side of this argument. Diplomacy
> counts. Branden, please do your talking to that person.
> 2. That FSF designate someone like Henri Poole, Eben Moglen, or Dan
> Ravicher to speak the FSF side of this argument. I do not
> recommend Bradley Kuhn for this role, as he's an FSF employee and
> I'd be putting him between a rock and a hard place.
> I am hoping that I can deal with both organizations _as_
> organizations.
I think this very premise is shaky. No one person can really
represent the Debian project when iot comes to the DFSG and the
social contract -- not even the DPL has power delegatged to him to
change fundamental issues about the project. The only decision can
be made is through a general resolution of the voting membership.
Given that, at best you have a representative that reflects
the management view, and can only reach an agreement that would need
to be ratified by the membership at large.
> From: Branden Robinson <branden@debian.org>
>> What, specifically are you requesting?
>>
>> A) That I stop CCing or otherwise mailing RMS with queries or
>> commentary
>> on this subject until your efforts have reached a conclusion, or
>> are abandoned;
>>
>> or
>>
>> B) That I be placed under a gag order and forbidden from discussing
>> the
>> GNU FDL in any Debian forum (or just this one?). (Presumably, this
>> restriction would have some sort of sunset as well.)
> I'm not asking for you to "be placed" under anything. I'm asking you
> to voluntarily restrict your own behavior such that you are not
> visibly standing out as Debian's driver in this matter. I don't
I am very disturbed by this. I think that this would be doing
the Debian community an injustice -- Branden has been one of the
luminaries of the debian legal mailing list, and his insight and
analysis have been invaluable to us. Any dickering or horse trading
involved (no matter what you may chose to call it, the positions for
both sides are, as you said, well known -- and any "discussion" is
merely negotiating to see what we can both live with -- thus, horse
trading). would require Brandens's insight and anaysis, as much as
anyone else who speaks here.
> think it's necessary for you to be that driver any longer, things
> have been stated clearly enough and lots of people are interested in
> pursuing them.
Sure, there are a lot of people interested in pursuing them --
but ultimately, the decision would lie with the developers, and
unless you satisfy people like Branden (and the other luminaries on
this list, pardon me for just singling out the fiend here), the talks
would lead nowhere. The best way of doing that is not muzzling
Branden.
> Were I in your place, I might consider retreating to debian-private
> and to private emails. Bradley reads debian-legal, I have no idea
> who else in FSF does. For the duration of this matter, I will not be
> reading debian-private. Feel free to huddle there.
No. Create a read-only list of your own, and let only some
people have posting rights there. That way you control exactly what
is said on the mailing list; and let each side create their own
moderator/gateway as they please.
> Brendan, I especially need you to do this so that I can ask for a
> similar change on the other side, so that we can treat FSF as an
> organization rather than an alias for Richard.
I think this is not symmetrical. You are asking Branden to
censor himself on a Debian mailing list -- are you going to ask
Richard to do so on a Gnu mailing list? I would stipulate gladly to
follow a condition that no Debian legal denizen post about this on a
Gnu mailing list.
manoj
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