On Tue, Apr 09, 2002 at 02:03:11PM -0400, Dale Scheetz wrote: > On Mon, 8 Apr 2002, Joseph Carter wrote: > > On Mon, Apr 08, 2002 at 09:53:54AM -0500, Jeff Licquia wrote: > > > > > DFSG stand for "Debian Free Software Guidelines". > > > > Yes, and since Debian is 100% Free Software, that applies to everything > > > > in Debian. > > > Documentation isn't software. Neither are conffiles, icons, etc. So, > > > if we're to be true to our creed, here's what we have to do: > > Ahh, but icons which fail the DFSG have been declared non-free in the > > past. So we have (still more) precedent for applying the DFSG to > > non-software. > The point being made, which everyone is so carfully ignoring is the word > "Software" in the title. > These are software guidelines, nothing more. They don't even define the > whole of Debian, just the software. And how do we get to this conclusion given the first sentence of the Social Contract? The only argument I've seen anyone offer here so far amounts to "Oh, but they don't mean that /literally/, that would be silly." Well, tough -- those are the words we're given, and those are the words I've agreed to uphold so long as I'm a Debian developer. Until someone goes to the trouble of getting those words changed (a process that doesn't happen on this particular mailing list, I might add), the only definition of software that allows us to ship half the stuff we do is the one that treats all data as software; which means there is also a very clear line that marks stuff we *aren't* allowed to ship. As a developer, I am by no means in a position to try to interpret what the phrasers of the Social Contract /really/ meant to say. They wrote what they wrote, and I agreed to it as written; as did many other developers we have today, who were not involved in the original composition of the Social Contract and the DFSG. I believe it would be useful, and not in conflict with the spirit of Debian, to make it clear that documentation can still be considered free even if it limits the manner in which modifications are made. But I could be very wrong -- which is why it's so important that such a change be made through the established procedure, rather than by tacit agreement. Steve Langasek postmodern programmer
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