Re: Social Contract GR's Affect on sarge
On Tue, 27 Apr 2004 13:38:26 +1000, Anthony Towns <aj@azure.humbug.org.au> said:
> On Mon, Apr 26, 2004 at 02:56:50PM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
>> > I don't really understand how you could be a member of the
>> > project in that case: we've never made any particularly strong
>> > efforts to rid the Debian system of non-free documentation or
>> > other data. If you believed that was in violation of the social
>> > contract, I can't really understand your silence.
>> I was surprised at the RM's lack of support for a free OS,
> Uh, Manoj, go fuck yourself. There is no need to descend to that
> level of gratuitous personal insult.
I see the constructive part if this discussion is over. Well,
telling me that with my beliefs I should have skulked out of the
project with my tail tucked under my legs is just as egrigious as me
telling you that in my opinion you were violating the SC. If you
can't take it, don't dish it out.
> I've devoted a significant chunk of my life at this point to this
> free OS, whether in trying to make it continue working, to improve
> it, and to make it freer. I don't deserve that comment, and I insist
> you both take it back and apologise for it. Take your
> holier-than-thou fucking rhetoric and shove it.
You take back your accusations of my beliefs being
inconsistent with membership in the project, and its a deal.
>> We have ,often, failed to follow the social contract in the past,
>> though this was the first wilful violation I recall.
> Unless you're living in a state of perpetual ignorance, that's
> bullshit:
There have been other wilful violations in the past?
>> > Well, obviously it doesn't: the text of the GPL isn't distributed
>> > under DFSG-free terms, for instance. The Debian logo isn't
>> > licensed under DFSG-free terms either, for that matter. The
>> > doc-debian package doesn't include a license for the Debian
>> > Manifesto.
>> Oh, if you must descend to quibbles and nitpicks
> Is it important for these things to be free or not? They go on
> Debian CDs. And all of the problems listed there have been around
> almost as long as I've been in the project.
It is important for the debian logo to be relicensed, yes. It
is important for documentation to be free. The doc debian package
should provide a license of further distribution of the manifesto (I
was not aware of this). So we have not been in good compliance; but
have the people who maintain these bits refused to change the
licensing?
> You can point at Bruce -- who hasn't been actively involved in the
> project, again for almost as long as I've been around -- and what he
> thinks all you like, but I really don't see how you can have failed
> to have noticed that we've _never_ had a serious policy of applying
> the DFSG to docs.
I had not actually paid that much attention, but I felt the
goal had always been to throw non-free bits out of main, as and when
it was decided that the bits were non-free.
>> (you know this we3ll, since you were aware of the discussion in
>> legal where all this has been long spelled out): The license texts
>> are indeed special cased, since they determine our right to
>> distrivbute the software in the first place, and in no way hinder
>> the ability to modify and distribute mods to the packages in
>> Debian.
> That's nice. Why do you think it's okay to make special cases like
> that?
You are actually going back to the licencing the license
idiocy? You are now trolling, and, if you truly do not know, go read
debian-legal archives.
> Why is it okay for you to make special cases because it's
> convenient for you to violate the social contract, but why does it
> show "a lack of support for a free OS" for me to act on my best
> understanding of the social contract and not be a fascist about
> documentation licenses, and, if we're going to make up special cases
> out of thin air, why shouldn't someone come along and say "this
> social contract thing is nonsense, let's add some SCO licensed code
> and start making money" ?
Yup, I smell a troll.
>> > Violating the social contract -- doing something it explicitly
>> > forbids -- is different to not fully achieving the goals it
>> > implies, of course.
>> Well, in my eyes, you were already doing the former (since I
>> thought that it was obvious that the SC applied to everything on
>> the CD). I realize now that what was obvious to me was not so for
>> everyone else.
> You know, people keep asking for me to say more stuff, but whenever
> I do, they just ignore it. Why do you imagine I kept saying that the
> Social Contract only applies to "software", ie, "programs",
> everytime the issue of documentation came up? Because I like the
> look of my own pixels or something?
It hadn't actually registered with me that you kept saying
that.
manoj
--
Mr. Rockford? This is Betty Joe Withers. I got four shirts of yours
from the Bo Peep Cleaners by mistake. I don't know why they gave me
men's shirts but they're going back. "The Rockford Files"
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
1024R/C7261095 print CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05 CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E
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