Re: Sponsorship requirements and copyright files
On Tue, Mar 24 2009, Ben Finney wrote:
> Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> writes:
>
>> At this stage? If you are not willing to listen to feedback,
>> that had better be never.
>
> Feedback on the machine-parseable copyright specification is openly
> solicited (though it is currently inefficiently gathered and
> processed, and that needs to be addressed) and has driven the entire
> formation of the specification to date.
>
>> If the intent is for this to be broadly adopted, the specification
>> should be fixed as early as possible, and we should not adopt a
>> flawed specification inder the guise that it is currently
>> "voluntary".
>
> I don't see what you're saying with this. Are you saying that it
> should not be adopted by *anyone* to see how it works, until it
> becomes mandatory? Or is there some specific “we” you're thinking
> of?
If the spec is being bruited under the understanding that the
flaws do not matter, only people who like it will adopt it, flaws and
all, and at some later date it shall be made into policy (by somehow
magically getting widely adopted), there is a logc flaw in there
somewhere.
So answering criticism of the current spec with "well, it is not
going to be policy any time soon, so just urn your attention elsewhere"
seems a little --- suboptimal. If that is not the intent, why answer
criticisms of the unviability of the current mechanism with "Oh, it is
not going to be policy anytime soon"?
> Surely it's necessary for the specification to actually be implemented
> in various real circumstances (which I can only see as meeting the
> definition of “adopted” by those who choose to use it), to find and
> fix the wrinkles *before* making it mandatory.
There are wrinkles being pointed out already. One deas not need
to eat the egg to know it is rotten. Ignoring what people are pointing
out as major drawbacks, or dismissing these issues with "well, you
don't have to adopt it then" rather than trying to fix it, leads to
partial adoption of a bad spec.
manoj
--
If Machiavelli were a hacker, he'd have worked for the CSSG. Phil
Lapsley
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/>
1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C
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