Re: Knuth statement on renaming cm files and Licence violation.
tb@becket.net (Thomas Bushnell, BSG) wrote on 04.09.02 in <[🔎] 87y9ahgjlr.fsf@becket.becket.net>:
> Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu> writes:
>
> > The arguments that have been presented that say that requiring file
> > renaming is an infringment on the freedoms guaranteed by the DFSG are
> > certainly reasonable ones and I can find much in them to agree with, but
> > the DFSG really *aren't* clear on this point, and a ruling on the subject
> > does not just obviously fall out of what's already there.
>
> DFSG says that you have to permit modification. (By patches or
> directly.) That is violated by a rule like "if you modify this, you
> must chant the kama sutra" or "if you modify this, you cannot name the
> output file foo.bar".
It is not actually clear to me that this is violated by any of the example
rules.
> The reason the latter is crucial is because it
> is an *operational* matter for the software, changing such things as
> APIs is exactly why we want the right to modify files.
And we usually get upset if a library changes its API without changing its
soname or versioning its symbols. *Because* this is an operational matter.
> > (As an aside, once Debian reaches some sort of general conclusion on this,
> > it would be really nice to add that to either the DFSG or some supporting
> > material, since this has come up repeatedly for years and this exact
> > argument happens every time.)
>
> Eww, no. The current method is actually better. It takes time and
> patience, but the result is an ever-growing cadre of people who have
> thought it out and talked about it, and so much more deeply understand
> it than if they just read it in some document.
This is insane.
MfG Kai
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