Re: An attempt to narrow the issues
Anthony Towns <aj@azure.humbug.org.au> writes:
> On Fri, Dec 14, 2001 at 08:37:58PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
> > A. Only copyright statements themselves can be invariant.
> > B. Only copyright statements and associated licenses can be invariant.
> > C. Only Copyright statements, licenses, giving-credit-where-
> > credit-is-due, and no-warranty requirements can be invariant.
>
> I invite you to show anyone who's argued that some of A, B and C are okay,
> but not all of them.
Of course, I said nobody has held to A or B. Didn't you read that far
down?
C is inconsistent with A. C allows a "no-warranty" statement to be a
piece of invariant text; A does not allow that. I point out the
logical existence of A and B precisely to show the advocates of C that
they are not holding the most narrow position possible.
> > D. Small amounts of text can be invariant if they are not
> > documentary. (A "documentary" text is one which needs to change
> > if the associated software changes.)
> > E. Small amounts of text of any kind can be invariant.
> > F. Any amount of text of any kind can be invariant.
>
> Further, I invite you to look back over my debian-doc suggestion and note
> that it doesn't conform to any of your options above.
Right, the problem with debian-doc is that it just doesn't conform to
the Emacs license which requires that the two parts be distributed
together. If RMS agrees with such a separation of text (presumably
one would also need to have the emacs manual depend on debian-doc),
then that is a different style of proposal entirely. [And,
incidentally, I would not have a problem with it.]
> I also dispute your handwaving to declare that Branden's interpretation
> ("everything in main must be DFSG-free") is untenable, and that
> implication that modifying them in the way that everyone does is
> hypocritical.
The following three propositions are inconsistent. They cannot all be
true:
1: Everything in main must be DFSG-free.
2: Invariant text is not DFSG-free.
3: Licenses are invariant text.
4: Licenses are allowed in main.
Since numbers 2-4 seem uncontroverted, I take number 1 to be false.
What is true is:
"Everything in main, except certain excepted things, must be
DFSG-free."
What the exceptions are is what we are arguing about, and I want to
impress on people that *everyone* is making some exceptions; the
question is whether it should be limited to copyright statements,
debian-doc, licenses, no-warranty statements, and the like, or should
be broadened to include small political manifestos and such.
Thomas
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