Re: We distribute LyX?

[Raul Miller <rdm@test.legislate.com>]

Jules Bean <jmlb2@hermes.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> > There is no reason why we shouldn't approach them explaining why we think
> > it would be a good idea.  They don't have to agree.

Navindra Umanee <navindra@cs.mcgill.ca> wrote:
> It's one thing if people decide to Open Source their own product of
> their own accord.  Jehovah Witness/Hare Krishna tactics is a whole
> other matter and does nothing to better society.  It's only a huge
> annoyance for everyone and serves to discredit the "movement".

What problem are you trying to solve?  

Politely asking somebody for permission to redistribute their software
is, when we're in doubt about their intentions, is very different
from the "one true way" practices that you're alluding to.  We know
that no means no, and we try to have a well reasoned approach when
contacting authors.

Certainly, we don't have any kind of policy where people must contact
a certain number of software authors per unit time to "convert them".

> Political pressure or some other form of coercion is even more
> undesireable.)
> 
> Now, there's nothing wrong with independent, non-badgering type of
> promotion of your religion.  It's just aggression and badgering that I
> have a problem with, personally.  People should be free to evaluate
> the religion on its own merits and without any pressure.  The best
> thing to do is to make the information available.

I don't know why you think we're badgering.  Could you explain?

For that matter, I'm not certain why you think debian is a religion:
You can use vi, emacs, or whatever other editor of your choice.  We will
distribute religious and irreligious works from arbitrary religions.
We support a variety of hardware platforms.  Etc. etc.

We require that we be allowed to redistribute before we will redistribute,
but that's hardly a religious issue.

Xforms is a case where we've been granted partial redistribution
rights, and where our lives would be simpler if we were granted full
redistribution rights -- so it seems like a good idea to double-check
with the author.

-- 
Raul