Josh Triplett wrote: > Matthew Garrett wrote: > >>Josh Triplett <josh.trip@verizon.net> wrote: >> >>>"The opinions of debian-legal" consist of the opinions of all those >>>developers and non-developers who participate on this list. This is not >>>a closed list. If the opinions of some developers diverge from the >>>opinions on debian-legal, then those developers should start >>>participating on debian-legal and expressing their opinions. >> >>Yes, in an ideal world that would be the case. In the world we live in, >>people have been intimidated away from participating in debian-legal >>because of the debating style and perceived extremism of certain >>participants. Refusal to acknowledge that is likely to end up leading to >>debian-legal having no influence whatsoever. > > That is unfortunate. As far as I know, the only "debating style" on > debian-legal is "be prepared to debate logically, and not just assert". > I certainly acknowledge that various members of debian-legal hold > extreme positions on various issues, but I tend to believe that the > collective consensus is more moderate, albeit biased by self-selection > towards those who care about legalistic issues. Actually, upon further consideration, I suspect the primary reason that debian-legal can be perceived as unapproachable is the "case law" approach, which means that decisions that occurred in on debian-legal some time in the past are often dug up and referenced, and therefore new participants have a steep learning curve to catch up with all the "common knowlege, discussed a million times" issues. The DFSG FAQ does partially address this issue for the most widely-referenced issues, but slightly less common issues often receive a "go read the archives" response, which is sometimes harsher than necessary. - Josh Triplett
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