On Sun, Sep 14, 2003 at 02:01:40PM -0700, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
> Andrew Suffield <asuffield@debian.org> writes:
>
> > The goal of this part of the GFDL is to force their (non-free) dogma
> > to be distributed along with their manuals (for various reasons of
> > their own, which are no concern of ours). Value judgements on the
> > content do not belong on debian-legal.
>
> It's like you are *trying* to misunderstand me.
>
> The goal I am speaking of is the goal is to make sure that everyone
> who gets free software understands the rights they have and the
> importance of free software.
That's one of those reasons whice are of no concern of ours. It's also
irrelevant. There are other reasons which led to "We must force the
permanent inclusion of our dogma in all our manuals", and none of
those are relevant either - none of them result in the FDL. The FSF
has chosen invariant sections as a goal in its own right.
> I believe this is a goal that Debian
> also shares.
I'm not sure why you think that. Debian's goals are enumerated here:
http://www.debian.org/social_contract
I don't see anything there which approximates:
"to make sure that everyone who gets free software understands the
rights they have and the importance of free software."
Debian has always been technically oriented, not politically.
> > > Debian also
> > > does an awful lot to try and make sure too.
> >
> > I haven't noticed any such attempts.
>
> Really? Go look at the web page.
I looked, and within 20 seconds I had found the exact opposite of the
stated goal of the FSF.
http://www.debian.org/intro/free
"Note: In February 1998 a group moved to replace the term "Free
Software" with "Open Source Software". As will become clear in the
discussion below, they both refer to essentially the same thing."
RMS has recently said[0], on this list, that one of the reasons for
the invariant sections in GNU manuals is because those evil "Open
Source" people are deliberately trying to confuse "Free" with "Open
Source". I guess he was including the Debian website authors in that.
Aside from this one page, I found nothing (in a few minutes browsing)
under www.debian.org that dealt with the subject of what and why free
software is. Hardly an "awful lot".
> Look at /etc/motd on a Debian installation, which says:
> "The programs included with the Debian GNU/Linux system are free software;
> the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the
> individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright."
>
> This is an attempt to make sure that the people who get the system
> understand their rights and the importance of free software.
*How* is it an attempt to do that? Seems to me, it's an attempt to
meet our obligations of distributing the licenses in a suitably
prominent fashion.
I certainly can't see anything in that paragraph, or in
/usr/share/doc/*/copyright, which deals with "the importance of free
software".
[0] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/debian-legal-200309/msg00593.html
(and the surrounding thread for context)
--
.''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield
: :' : http://www.debian.org/ |
`. `' |
`- -><- |
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