Re: Licenses for DebConf6

[David Nusinow <david_nusinow@verizon.net>]

On Sun, Nov 13, 2005 at 10:13:31PM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote:
> Scripsit David Nusinow <david_nusinow@verizon.net>
> 
> >> > Debconf requires non-exclusive publication rights to papers,
> >> > presentations, and any additional handouts or audio/visual materials
> >> > used in conjunction with the presentation. The authors have the
> >> > freedom to pick a DFSG-free license for the papers themselves and
> >> > retain all copyrights.
> 
> > I agree with and support the decision of the organizers to allow any
> > DFSG-free license for the papers to be acceptable.
> 
> The point of the discussion is not whether authors should be *allowed*
> to licence their papers DFSG-freely. Everybody agrees that that is a
> good thing.
> 
> The disagreement is about whether authots should be *forced* to
> licence their papers DFSG-freely, under threat of exclusion from the
> conference.
> 
> > That they are mandating this is acceptible and is to be encouraged
> 
> They are *not* mandating a DFSG-free license. All they are mandating
> is that the conference gets non-exclusive publications rigthts.

>From reading the responses from Andreas, rather than people trying poorly
to interpret him, it's pretty apparent that they'll be giving freely
licensed talks a greater weight than non-free ones. They're also going to
make it easy to choose a free license from their interface. Furthermore, it
implies a very strong desire to have freely licensed materials. I believe
these desires are sincere and that they'll look to have a complete panel of
high quality freely licensed papers for the conference.

Ultimately though, it's a judgement call, and you simply have to trust the
people doing the work. They have shown a desire to encourage free software,
and have also shown the ability to put on a successful debconf. This is why
I support their decision to run the conference as their experience
dictates. Hopefully if you don't like the way they run the conference
you'll get involved in the future and help to make it even better.

 - David Nusinow