Re: Social Contract: Practical Implications

[Michael Poole <mdpoole@troilus.org>]

Glenn Maynard writes:

> On Fri, May 07, 2004 at 11:35:49PM -0400, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
>> The GPL also does not adhere to the DFSG.  Previously, this didn't
>
> (The text of the GPL, of course; the terms of the GPL obviously do.)
>
>> matter because the GPL is a license, and not software.  With the new
>> social contract, this is now problematic, although the obvious thing
>> to do is to amend the social contract again to explicit exempt at
>> least the GPL.
>
> Many of us believe that any string of bits is software, and that the text
> of the GPL is software, and so the old SC applied to the GPL text equally
> to the new one--but nobody was silly enough to try to enforce that.

Then where do you get off trying to enforce the DFSG against firmware
blobs but not against license texts, which are used by an enormously
greater number of users than any firmware blob?  Calling something
"silly" does not excuse it as a violation of the DFSG.

Michael