On Wed, Nov 27, 2002 at 04:23:51PM -0500, Jim Penny wrote: > > I see no problem with this license as far as it goes, but it doesn't go > > far enough. > > > > There is no permission granted to make modifications (and distribute > > modified versions). (DFSG 3) > > So, according to Branden, international standards are supposed to allow > debian the right to modify them and to distribute the modified versions. No, international standards can say whatever they want, and bear whatever license the standards organization wants, within the law. Debian has its Free Software Guidelines and we do not, in theory, apply them differently based on who the licensor is. Incidentally, allowing "Debian the right to modify them and to distribute the modified versions" would also be insufficient; perhaps you haven't read the DFSG lately. 8. License Must Not Be Specific to Debian The rights attached to the program must not depend on the program's being part of a Debian system. If the program is extracted from Debian and used or distributed without Debian but otherwise within the terms of the program's license, all parties to whom the program is redistributed should have the same rights as those that are granted in conjunction with the Debian system. > Absent said permission, which is hardly ever going to be given, they > must be considered non-free. (This is, of course, logically forthright.) Well, yes. That is what the words of the DFSG mean. > Moreover, according to the non-free removal proponents, we should not > even distribute the un-modified copies of these files. I cannot speak for all proponents of the proposed GR, but yes, that's my understanding. > Yet, unicode is supposed to be the canonical character encoding scheme > for debian. I don't see that in the current version of the Policy manual, but it wouldn't surprise me if we were to standardize on Unicode, since it seems to be the best-of-breed in the character set department. > Does this mean every unicode text editor belongs in contrib (depends on > something non-free)? Many (perhaps all) RFCs are non-free as well; does that mean that compliant implementations must go into contrib or non-free? > What an interesting anecdote! I do not grasp what place emotionalism has in a simple, coolheaded discussion of licensing. If you are upset with the ramifications of the DFSG, you can always propose a General Resolution to amend its terms, or repeal it entirely, perhaps in favor of something more pragmatic. Incidentally, is there a reason you did not respect the Mail-Followup-To header? -- G. Branden Robinson | I have a truly elegant proof of the Debian GNU/Linux | above, but it is too long to fit branden@debian.org | into this .signature file. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |
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