Re: Licenses for DebConf6
On Sat, Nov 12, 2005 at 10:46:24AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> Of course, within Debian DFSG-freeness isn't mandatory or enforced: you
> can upload to non-free instead of main just by tweaking your control file.
The response is predictable, but here it is anyway: non-free isn't within
Debian; Debian mandates DFSG-freeness. The practical impact of that is
lessened due to the ease at which people can add non-free to their sources;
but if it's not fundamentally true, then SC#1 needs serious reinforcement.
> The hard part isn't finding the people, it's convincing them that a
> DFSG-free license is best. That's why pine and qmail remain in non-free
> even though we know exactly who their authors are. Or, for that matter,
> most of RMS's writings are still licensed in a non-DFSG-free manner.
UW, DJB and RMS may be fairly extreme examples of people who are difficult
to convince. :)
> No, it's not. In this case, I'd much rather be in a position where I
> can argue for making things DFSG-free when I can see enough specifics
> to think of good reasons why that woul dbe okay, and remain silent in
> the cases where I don't think that's a win.
It's usually so easy to find reasons why DFSG-freeness is a good thing,
I tend to assume they exist by default. So, I see it the other way around:
things should be DFSG-free unless I can see enough specifics to think of
good reasons why they shouldn't be.
> I don't think remaining silent when people are being pressured to do
> things that don't seem right is a good option though, so instead I find
> myself arguing against the DFSG.
I don't understand how licensing papers DFSG-freely way "doesn't seem right".
Incidentally, I care less about papers than many other things, so I'm not
going to spend much effort to try to convince people to DFSG-free them;
however, I'm a bit interested to understand the rationale behind not wanting
to, from people who are beyond "I don't want people putting words in my
mouth" responses. (But I understand not wanting to spend time arguing
*against* DFSG-freeness.)
--
Glenn Maynard
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