Re: Social Contract GR's Affect on sarge
On Wed, 28 Apr 2004 12:51:13 -0400, Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org> said:
> Manoj Srivastava wrote:
>> Which leads us to a dilemma: the longer the GFDL remain
>> unchallenged, the more entrenched it gets. There is also evidence
>> that people are using invariant sections in a manner not envisaged
>> by the authors of the GFDL: Ralf Hildebrandt's postfix page used to
>> have this license statement: `
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under
>> the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any
>> later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the
>> Invariant Sections being THE WHOLE DOCUMENT (each section is
>> invariant). No Front- or Back-Cover Texts are provided. '
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> I think the conclusions drawn by the Debian community need to be
>> disseminated to the free software community, and the sooner the
>> better; I've been dissuaded from doing that by the dangling carrot
>> of the looming fix to the license. But, at some point, unless one
>> can bite into the carrot, it fails to be a motivator.
> You know, nothing is stopping package maintainers from talking to
> their upstreams about the problem and helping them choose a license
> other then the GFDL for their documentation. I already have. I don't
> know if making slashdot again with a position paper is the most
> effective way to cut down on the number of GFDLed works.
I have talked to my upstream as well -- who, unfortunately are
the FSF. And also, there are lots of packages I do not handle. Also,
there are lots of programs out there that Debian odes not package --
and while it would be easy for me to rein in and only be concerned
with my narrow little fiefdom that is my packages, some times I do
commit the folly of trying to help the larger community out there.
I do think a wider appreciation of the problems in the GFDL
would result in fewer works migrating to using that license for their
documentation. There are a couple of success stories already where,
when apprised of the issue, the authors changed the licensing. But we
can't reach every-one by contacting them individually; I do think
that the issue is education, and broadcasting the issues is the
fastest way of educating the largest number of authors who can still
be swayed.
I have indeed kept a lid on it for 6 months, despite my
misgivings, but there has been little to report for that, and I am
merely wondering if we shall ever put an end to this potentially
stalled process (I know mako does not think it is stalled, but he has
also admitted that there has been little progress to report from the
FSF).
And while you may like to present the my pressing for an exit
strategem as a an attempt to blare out the problems on the rooftops
and /., the alternative seems to be sticking our heads in the sand
and keeping a lid on the problems of the GFDL (we can also look at it
less negatively).
Do you think we should try to get our packages fixed, one by
one, give up on those that can't be fixed and dump the docs, and keep
mum about it forever? You do not think we have any obligation to the
greater community out there? If not, what is so wrong with trying to
set a reasonable deadline?
manoj
--
For a man to truly understand rejection, he must first be ignored by a
cat.
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
1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C
Reply to: