Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta

[Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>]

MJ Ray <mjr@phonecoop.coop> writes:
> Anthony Towns <aj@azure.humbug.org.au> wrote: [...]

>> No, punting to a GR [...] ends up with -legal folks complaining that
>> the resolution doesn't make sense.

> I think that most are reasonable and do that only if the resolution
> includes no explanation.

One of the inherent problems of resolving license discussions about
specific licenses by GR is that you probably won't get a rationale, since
everyone voting may have a different rationale.  With the GFDL, for
instance, I expect that among the people voting to allow it into main were
people who believe that the GFDL license terms sans invarient sections
truly are DFSG-free, people who feel the DFSG is too restrictive, people
who think that they aren't DFSG-free but we should make an exception for
the GFDL, people who feel the DFSG are only guidelines and shouldn't be
applied restrictively, and probably several other opinions.

There's no way of separating those out afterwards, and I don't think we're
likely to come up with a reasonable ballot on a single license that would
do so.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org)               <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>