Re: license requirements for a book to be in free section
> Indeed. Debians manifesto doesn't even has a copyright notice not to
> speak
> of a license, and for the DFSG you will find people who say that even
> the
> copyright holders must not change it. Fact is that the FSF never was
> as
> zealous as some people want to make it appear.
I know. The reason I entered this thread was because someone said that
Debian was less zealous than the FSF, which I disagree with.
> The canonical term used
> by
> RMS is: generally useful information of technical nature.
>
> (To make this a more delightful read, here is one of his examples from
> a talk
> in Bruxelles: If you told him about a cool sexual practice you had,
> he'd ususally
> not feel that he must have the freedom to tell everyone about it. But
> if that
> sexual practice is some new way to have sex, and it is such a great
> thing
> that it makes people more happy and healthier, and the world in general
> a
> better place if people would knew about it, he probably would compelled
> to
> have the freedom to tell everyone about it ;)
Actually, the way I heard it (from .oggs at gnu.org), it was that if it
was about a secret between you (the listener) and your boyfriend, he
would keep it secret if it was soap-opera stuff like who made the other
one angry and stuff like that, but he would be obliged to tell the public
if it was something that could greatly benefit humanity, like some
marvelous sex technique.
> > Huh? Don't they have like, an elected board or some kind of
> democracy?
>
> *laugh* Not as far as I know.
That's a shame. No one person should be the ruler of another.
> > Agreed. What I'm unsure of is whether that definition is detailed
> > enough to work consistently as guidelines for debian-legal.
>
> Well, I was forgetting that it doesn't include that explanatory stuff.
> But then, nothing you can write, and if it has 600 pages, will ever be
> enough for debian-legal (and it would be insane to try). Maybe our
> opinion
> differs here, but I hold it with Thomas (applying human sense).
No, I think we actually do agree - because I do think that the DFSG are
*not* enough. What I've been quarreling a little with you is that the
Four Freedoms, left unexplained, aren't enough either.
> All interesting issues are not covered by
> it,
> and have always been subject to interpretation by us. And I don't
> think
> that is a bad thing (OTOH, I wouldn't mind to get some of the worse
> gaps
> fixed).
I do think it's a bad thing and I do think they need revision or
guidelines, to fix the worst gaps. Maybe a FAQ will be sufficient. I
agree with Thomas in that it needn't be terribly formal.
Reply to: