Re: Bug#147303: ITP: winex -- A DESCRIPTION
On Thu, 2002-05-23 at 19:47, Joe Drew wrote:
> On Thu, 2002-05-23 at 20:07, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
> > Joe Drew <hoserhead@woot.net> writes:
> > > Yet you expect free software to be respected by companies?
> >
> > Yes. I expect them to obey our license, and they expect us to obey
> > theirs. But I don't think we should be obliged to obey some pseudo
> > license.
>
> Nobody is obligated to obey anything but the actual license. However,
> just XFree86 have generally asked us not to distribute prereleases of X
> (IIRC). The license says nothing about not distributing prereleases but
> we still generally don't. I argue that this is a similar situation, but
> for different reasons.
Distributing a prerelease of XFree86 hurts Debian as much as it hurts
XFree86 (think incompatible changes in libraries, driver ABI problems,
etc.) So, in this case, XFree86 is dispensing good advice.
> (Substitute any package with a Free license who has asked us not to
> distribute it for one reason or another for X in the above if that's not
> accurate.)
In any example you could name, these projects request that we delay
distribution, and usually this request comes with a justification that
appeals to technical problems, a coming massive change, security, or
some other issue that, again, amounts to good advice. As I understand
your position concerning TransGaming, they would rather forbid us
entirely, without any time limit, and on grounds that we oppose on
principle.
OTOH, we in Debian have repeatedly stood on the ground that the license
is the clearest and most unambiguous statement of the upstream author's
wishes, and have looked askance at "special exceptions" and "implied
permissions" before. Isn't that a good course of action to take here?
Also, whenever there has been an ambiguity before, we start by asking
for a clarification from upstream. Has anyone asked what TransGaming's
position is, or are they on record as holding one position or the other?
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