Re: NEW ocaml licence proposal by upstream, will be part of the 3.08.1 release going into sarge.

[Matthew Garrett <mgarrett@chiark.greenend.org.uk>]

Brian Thomas Sniffen <bts@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> Matthew Garrett <mgarrett@chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes:
>> I've been mostly ignoring Sven. I don't find this argument terribly
>> interesting.
> 
> OK, so you're ignoring the maintainer of the package in question, you
> don't think people who view the DFSG as a compromise of freedom and
> practicality should be listened to, and you want answers to have
> strong ties to the DFSG *and* to be philosophically grounded without
> reference to the DFSG.

I've been ignoring Sven because I find his style of argument difficult
to work with. I think the argument that the QPL allows patches to be
produced under different licenses is uninteresting - even if it were the
case, the ability for people to submit patches under licenses that are
not suitable for inclusion in the code is not inherently a license bug.

I'm not quite sure why you think I "don't think people who view the DFSG
as a compromise of freedom and practicality should be listened to". I
view the DFSG as a compromise of freedom and practicality. I believe
that the practicalities it embodies are as important as the freedoms it
embodies. In the past, people have expressed unwillingness to listen to
people who don't believe in the enumerated freedoms. I have the same
viewpoint when it comes to people who don't believe in the
practicalities.

And yes, I want answers to have strong ties to the DFSG *and* to be
philosophically grounded without reference to the DFSG. The DFSG
represents the position that the majority of developers have had to
agree to, and as a consequence an inability to tie an argument about
freedom to them suggests that there's a good chance the opinions of
other developers will differ. On the other hand, they don't exist in a
vacuum - we believe in the freedoms that the DFSG requires because we
think they are the necessary freedoms, not because of slavish adherance
to what's written on a webpage. If we can justify something with
reference to the DFSG but not philosophically, that suggests that the
DFSG is badly worded.

Fundamentally, the DFSG are only important because they draw a line.
People should be able to understand why the line is there independently.

> I think that works out to you not listening to anybody else and nobody
> having any reason to listen to you.  Are you sure you want to keep a
> position this inflexible?  I'm not even sure why you're posting in
> this thread, or subscribed to this list, given what you've said
> recently.

I'm here and posting to this list because I believe in Debian and I
believe in the importance of both the freedoms and the practicalities
embodied in the DFSG. I want to see those protected from both the people
that would seek to introduce software that would remove those freedoms
*and* the people that would seek to remove the practicalities that allow
Debian to function. And I will not stand by and allow either of those
sets of people to imply that they represent Debian's viewpoint.

-- 
Matthew Garrett | mjg59-chiark.mail.debian.legal@srcf.ucam.org