Re: TeX Licenses & teTeX (Was: Re: forwarded message from Jeff Licquia)
Branden Robinson writes:
> On Fri, Aug 02, 2002 at 10:54:37AM +0200, Frank Mittelbach wrote:
> > However I think it would be a poor solution to argue legally that you
> > are able to ignore Don's explicit wishes simply because he is a
> > Computer Scientist rather than a lawyer and was unable to write it up
> > in legal lingua without potential loopholes
>
> Please don't troll. No one is arguing that the author's explicit
I don't troll
> requests can be evaded on a technicality. Copyright law in Berne
> Convention countries sees to it that we cannot. Where there is doubt,
> "all rights reserved" is generally the controlling status.
>
> It is disappointing that you conceive of the Debian Project as
> attempting to parse and lawyer its way into taking advantage of a
> licensor when we've spent the past few weeks demonstrating just how
> unambiguous we require a license to be before we regard it as
> DFSG-compliant. We are not in the habit of putting words into the
> mouths of copyright holders; where there is doubt or confusion, we
> make conservative assumptions about the author's intent until and unless
> that intent can be clarified, and in the meantime we assume that a
> license is not DFSG-compliant.
I don't conceive anything of the Debian Project as a whole. I raised my
concern about some people arguing in this direction (it happens more than once
in the various threads).
> Your presumption is not warranted by any evidence.
it unfortunately is.
> I'm a difficult
> person to offend, but you've managed to do it with this careless and
> spiteful characterization of the Debian Project.
sorry if you are offended. Again I haven't make any characterization of the
Debian Project (spiteful or otherwise) I expressed my concern that arguing
only legally would be a poor path (something which you seem to second, and
what you think doesn't happen).
It did however happen, several times by individuals and that was all I was
referring to. Perhaps you missed those posts which wouldn't be surprising
given the number of posts on the whole subject. For example
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2002/debian-legal-200207/msg00318.html
Where Thomas said:
> What Don Knuth says is really quite irrelevant. If he's given
> permission to use the name (which tripman sure looks like), then it's
> that permission that matters, even if he later regrets his
> carelessness.
This type of argument chain showed up several times during the discussions and
I wanted to express my feeling that it would not be a good position to put up.
I had no intention to imply that this is my understanding of the general
policy of the Debian Project and I don't really think that I did.
So please check also with ourself if "troll", "careless", "spiteful" are the
right words in the circumstances.
regards
frank
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