Re: a right to privacy is not in the DFSG, therfore you don't have one
On Mon, Jan 31, 2005 at 02:08:30PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote:
> Your papers are not in order, citizen...
>
> On Fri, Jan 21, 2005 at 10:04:25PM -0700, Joel Aelwyn wrote:
> > All in all, I think that Branden's fifth freedom[1] is important, and
> > should come into play here. Privacy in one's person includes fundamental
> [...]
> > [1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/06/msg00096.html
>
> Ah, but my fifth freedom is not in the DFSG, so under the nouveau scheme
> of license analysis that some would have us apply, we are morally obliged
> to completely disregard it.
This argument also says that "you must eat a cat and pet a chicken before
modifying this work" is free (since freedom to not do those things isn't
explicitly in the DFSG). Fortunately, the DFSG does have explicit
requirements about restrictions to modification; just as "capture a rabid
bear" clauses can be legitimately called non-free, so can "give me your
name", if such clauses are considered onerous. So, I don't think the strict
"it's-not-in-the-letter-of-the-DFSG-how-dare-you-keep-my-warez-out-of-main?"
arguments have any merit at all.
(FWIW, that's just an extended "I agree".)
There are some people who argue that the project can call things that aren't
explicitly in the DFSG non-free, but it'd take the whole project to do so,
not just lists created for that discussion (d-legal and d-project). I believe
they also claim a GR isn't necessary. This leads to a "we can do it, but there's
no way to convince me that we actually have", which is functionally equivalent
to "we can't do it". I don't think this argument has any merit, either--if
people want to attempt to increase exposure to these issues, go ahead, but
don't attempt to cripple the project's ability to deal with onerous license
restrictions in the meantime.
> Thanks for the props, however. I continue to believe that a DFSG analysis
> is the *beginning* of a process of understanding whether something is free
> software or not, not a substitute for the whole thing. Certain well-known
> people in the project have stridently insisted to me, however, that this
> opinion puts me into an extremely small minority.
I don't believe you're in the minority at all--if you are, it's probably
time to scrap the DFSG entirely, since the Project must no longer care
about Free Software principles at all.
--
Glenn Maynard
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