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Re: If Debian decides that the Gnu Free Doc License is not free...



Hi Hans.

How about setting the "feelings towards Stallman" issue aside for a moment an
focusing on the problem of how Debian handles the credits in you program.

I'm not sure whether, for example, moving the Credits to sponsors from being
displayed by the programs themselves to the man page and / or the
usr/share/doc/reiserfsprogs directory would be an option for Debian. Also, a
note about where to find credits could be displayed upon invocation of the
reiserfs tools. Another option would be displaying it with --version.
The reason those were removed from the executable seems to be usability. (I.e.
no displaying a whole page when - as in most cases those tools are used -
working in a critical (fs corruption or similar) environment.

Also, if you would ask specifically to include files a, b, c from the source
tarball (and the README file seems to be obmitted in the packages by an honest
mistake - in fact, obmitting documentation files from the tarballs root
directory is all too common in Debian), I'm 100% certain, that this would be
done very soon.

If you don't want you tools to be not distributed without displaying these
credits in all invocations, you should also clearly state this. Then Debian
could decide what to make of it, but right know they have the problem that they
don't know what you want, other than a vage "you don't give proper credit".
Generally, Debian makes every effort (the developers, that is) to ensure that
Copyright is respected.

While I can understand that you're upset about the present reiserfs packages in
Debian, I have to say that neither your nor the Debian peoples' messages have
done much to resolve the issue.

Now, if you prefer to debate the issue Debian has with the Gnu FDL, that's OK,
too, but doing so by complaining "why are all you guys disrespecting Stallman"
in a that *could* have been about properly including credits for reiserfs tools
doesn't help at all.

Cheers

T.

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