On Sun, 2004-08-08 at 17:57, Branden Robinson wrote: > On Tue, Aug 03, 2004 at 12:20:47PM -0500, Joe Wreschnig wrote: > > On Tue, 2004-08-03 at 11:15, Matthew Garrett wrote: > > > The summary claims that clause 4 makes the license non-free. > > ...because we don't undestand what X-Oz means when they say it. ... which you didn't know until after the summary was published and even then I don't find questions of interpretations of clause 4, but mostly about clause 3. I'd prefer follow-ups on this topic to go to the other subthread though. > > > Since clause 4 is identical to what's contained in the X11 license, it > > > makes it difficult to take the summary terribly seriously. > > > > Oh, wow. > > > > Shame on you, Branden, for placing Debian's X packaging scripts under a > > non-free license! Or have you recanted from your position in > > http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/02/msg00162.html? > > Is this sort of remark intended to be productive, or are you just venting > your spleen because you don't appear to have actually comprehended the > message you cite? Since February, -legal has had an "official" (as official as they get) document claiming that even without further annoyances from X-Oz that clause is non-free. Simon Law, who wrote that summary, has since realized it was a huge mistake. That means something is wrong in the way we approach license analysis and summary writing. My hope is that in the future we will be more careful in our evaluation of licenses; we will compare them to existing licenses more often; we will try to keep our core criteria as the DFSG, and try, whenever possible, to relate arguments back to the DFSG. I don't think they're exhaustive or meant to be, but lately it seems that the proposed tests are our "core" criteria and the DFSG are treated as a sort of footnote. I realize this is because often the licenses we deal with here are on the borderline. But just because the DFSG aren't a checklist doesn't mean they're not useful. We also need to engage the rest of the project more; a common criticism of -legal is that we're too strict, and too closed to new ideas and participants. A good way to stop being closed is to admit when we're wrong. And that summary is wrong. -- Joe Wreschnig <piman@debian.org>
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