On Sun, Mar 27, 2005 at 09:33:11PM -0500, Benj. Mako Hill wrote: > <quote who="Andrew Suffield" date="2005-03-28 01:43:54 +0100"> > > On Sun, Mar 27, 2005 at 12:50:15PM -0500, Benj. Mako Hill wrote: > > > I think it also helps to remember > > > that this isn't the same as source code and the the nature of bugs > > > is somewhat different. It's, for lack of a better word, > > > fuzzier. Contracts are interpreted by people and, ultimately, by > > > people who are judges and things like reasonable expectations, > > > intent, and good/bad faith that don't make sense in the source > > > code metaphor are central aspects in law and licensing. I think we > > > are sometimes guilty of giving these less weight than we should. > > > > We *can't* give serious consideration to that sort of thing. It is > > precisely because these issues are fuzzy that we can't afford to. As > > soon as you start saying "This might be non-free, but it's okay, you > > might be able to get out of it anyway" then what you're also saying > > is "You are going to have to go to court if you want to exercise the > > things enumerated in the DFSG, and you might lose". > > Well, that's not what I'm saying at all. I think that the chance of > this going to court every is next to none. I think that the chance of > it going to court and lasting more than a day in front the judge are > next to next to none. You're just restating our normal approach to things in a confusing manner, and claiming that we don't do it? Logical disconnect there, but since you don't seem to have a point, I can't be bothered to dissect it. > The authors of the license and everyone who know who uses it > understands these one way that is more than an equally valid > interpretation than the apocalyptic scenario we seem to be optimizing > for. So your argument here is based entirely on denying the existence of people who hold differing opinions about the interpretation? > Besides, we can't stop other people from taking us to court. That's American foolishness, most countries don't really suffer from nuisance lawsuits. > Requiring a known free license issued by the copyright holder is a > damn good way to do this and I support it (of course). I'm not saying > we should just start accepting any license in the grey area (or even > this licenses and I think has some unambiguously non-free bits); I'm > saying that there is nothing but a grey area. Sounds like the old "because you can't be perfect, there's no point trying" argument. You can apply that one to any RC bug, not just licensing bugs. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- |
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