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Re: Regarding BitKeeper and its price list



On Sun, Oct 06, 2002 at 11:59:26PM -0600, Jason Gunthorpe wrote:
> On Sun, 6 Oct 2002, Branden Robinson wrote:
> 
> > May I request, on behalf of the Debian Project, a copy of the email you
> > got from Larry McVoy that threatened you with a copyright infringement
> > lawsuit if you continued to publish the price list that BitMover
> > furnished you with?
> 
> <blink>

Back at ya.

> What exactly does this have to do with Debian and why are you trying to
> involve the project in it?

See my message to debian-devel-announce, which was deliberately targeted
internally to the Project.

> I'm also slightly confused why you are talking as though you represent
> the project.

I made a request for information on behalf of the Project to communicate
the fact that I'd be sharing said information with rest of Debian.  It
would have been misleading to give the impression that I was planning on
keeping the requested information to myself.

> I have seen nothing from Bdale, and AFAIK it is generally expected
> that generally the DPL or a representative will be the ones to make
> statements on behalf of the project. 

Well, there a few responses to this:

1) The Constitution[1] doesn't vest all power in the Project Leader;
2) Some members of the Cabal that Doesn't Exist have advised me that
   it's better to just take the initiative and do something instead of
   waiting for the DPL to make a specific grant of power and only then
   undertaking the task;
3) I am engaged in information gathering, not issuing position
   statements (you'll note that my words advising caution among our
   developers before adopting BitKeeper are targeted only at an audience
   of Debian developers -- or are you asking me not to even speak on my
   own behalf to that audience?);
4) I see nothing in the Constitution that requires me to seek the Debian
   Project Leader's permission before simply asking people for
   information that is to be shared with the rest of the Project;
5) Even if the DPL doesn't (or doesn't want to) do something, the
   developers can do it anyway, or override his/her decision, with a
   General Resolution, so his/her power is hardly absolute;
6) If Bdale thinks I've done something inappropriate, I invite him to
   let me know;
<facetiously>
7) Perhaps I pay about as much attention to our Constitution as you do
   to our Mailing List Code of Conduct[2].

  "# When replying to messages on the mailing list, do not send a carbon
   copy (CC) to the original poster unless they explicitly request to be
   copied."

  From: Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@debian.org>
  To: Branden Robinson <branden@debian.org>
  Cc: Debian Developers <debian-devel@lists.debian.org>
  Message-id: <[🔎] Pine.LNX.3.96.1021006234149.13005A-100000@wakko.debian.net>

</facetiously>

> I personally think it's very lame to get involved with this guy. Despite
> how you might feel it is standard buisness practice in North America to
> keep quotations in confidence. BK is not doing something unusual or
> illegal here. I manage a fair number of quotations in my day job and they
> all have confidentiality statements on them.

I should have made it clear that I was putting my personal hat back on
when advising Mr. Hansen to contact the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse,
given that I'm not certain that the Debian Project as a whole holds
traditional free speech rights as more important than copyright
privileges.  In any event, since that encouragement that could be
construed as a position statement, albeit a vague one, I'm CCing Zac
Hansen on this message to clarify my intentions and apologize for any
misperceptions.

I won't opine on standard business practices and confidentiality on
quotations aside from to wonder if the availablity -- free-of-charge --
of the same product that is being quoted under certain circumstances
doesn't merit a slightly different approach.  In the instant case,
adopting BitKeeper under the gratis terms without knowing in advance the
neighborhood of the amount of money a pay license is likely to cost is
going forward without being fully informed, since the gratis license can
be changed -- and therefore revoked -- unilaterally by BitMover.

Anyway, Bdale, would you care to shed some light here?

[1] http://www.debian.org/devel/constitution
[2] http://www.debian.org/MailingLists/

-- 
G. Branden Robinson                |
Debian GNU/Linux                   |           If ignorance is bliss,
branden@debian.org                 |           is omniscience hell?
http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |

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