Re: A possible approach in "solving" the FDL problem
On Wednesday, Aug 13, 2003, at 13:51 US/Eastern, Fedor Zuev wrote:
Of course, you can claim that the very special definition of
"software"
As an aside, I'd like to note that several reputable dictionaries agree
with the definition of software being the part of the computer that is
not hardware. So it's not my very own special definition; quite the
opposite, its a common usage of the word.
But all this does not help you to restrict other peoples to
not use this defintion outside the scope of DFSG.
That's correct. I can't. I can't stop anyone from using a word however
they please. I can stop people from saying "inflammable" to mean
"flammable" either. That's one of those things about living in a
(semi-)free society: People are allowed to speak as they chose.
And it is very
probable that people will use this definftion in any context, even
very harmful.
Then those contexts need to be more careful either in defining terms
they use or in selecting better terms. Software was originally defined
in opposition to hardware; anyone who wrote their copyright laws
assuming another usage without defining it is the real problem here.
So, you encourage, intentionaly or not, the harmful
for users interpretation of copyright. This harm (_real_ harm,
there are plenty of cases when propietary content vendors use the
'everything digital is software' argument)
And I doubt that has anything to do with Debian.
You can not ignore the existence of a laws even if you will
try twice as hard.
If we were ignoring laws, we could just declare "Copyright is dead.
Governments are obsolete. Technology conquers all. Subscribe to Wired!"
and disband -legal.
No matter how -legal (and most of the computing community, for that
matter) defines "software", in any sane country, its your actions that
will land you in jail, not the DFSG.
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