Re: Social Contract GR's Affect on sarge

[tb@becket.net (Thomas Bushnell, BSG)]

Raul Miller <moth@debian.org> writes:

> On Mon, Apr 26, 2004 at 03:21:25PM -0700, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
> > For a font, this is not quite true.  Many fonts in Debian are the
> > output of little languages or the equivalent.  So we have no problem
> > with the METAFONT-generated fonts.  IIUC, there is similarly no
> > problem with Truetype fonts.
> 
> P.S. in this case the source code for the program obviously includes the
> source code to that little language, if we want the font to be 100% free.
> If you have some other interpretation, please be more specific.

Huh?  The little language is a language, not a program.  Do you mean
the source code to the program?  Or the source code to the language
interpreter?  Or both?

As I said, the METAFONT-generated fonts (if we have the METAFONT
programs) are no problem.  See how easy that was?

> P.P.S.  I find it extremely ironic that one of the more vocal supporters
> for the "get rid of non-free" meme is now arguing [rather vehemently]
> against a somewhat milder implementation of that meme than was originally
> proposed.

It's only ironic if you want to see everything on a political
spectrum.  I think that we should not distribute non-free on Debian;
that is an entirely separate question from whether a particular thing
is or is not free.

Nor am I arguing for a milder implementation of anything.  All I have
said is that it is inappropriate to apply the GPL's definition of
sourcecode unreflectively.  That definition is not, and never has
been, a part of the DFSG, and we should not make it so now.

Thomas