Re: CC-based proposal (was FDL: no news?)
On 7/6/2004, "tom" <montrellune@teatre.com> wrote:
>My doubt is: dfsg should cover the 4 freedom of fsf. How does CC respect the availability of source code?
>I mean FDL does something like that with the provision of a copy in an open format when you distribute a certenly amount of copies.
>Can we consider dfsg-free a song which can be playd just in MSplayer, or a text readable just whit adobe reader?
>
IANAL, but here's my 2 cents (I'm expressing my own opinion here, and
I'm not discussing law issues):
First, let me try to define what I'm calling "non-software": "Any
_creation_ which original source is not: << plain (human readable) text,
intended to be processed by a compiler to be turned into machine
readable code >>, is not software to me". This is certainly not a
perfect definition, but IANAL.
Now, the whole idea of applying the same "freeness criteria" to what I
call non-software content, looks like a complete nonsense to me, and I
feel and fear this will lead us (the Debian project) to massive havoc.
Given the time spent in shilly-shally about this, and the serious
outcomes arising, given the various examples of problematic issues, not
to say "dead-ends" (let's add one more: what about an argentic
photography that would be scanned for documentation illustration
purpose, what's its "source code", or whatever? The negative? The
positive inprint? the first digital form? In what format then?...), it
looks to me that:
1) We're spinning around.
2) We're forgetting section 4 of the SC: "Our priorities are our users
and free software". It seems to me that some of the DDs i've seen
posting lately have turned that into "Our priorities are free
software".
Well, if we forget our users that way, depriving them of what they need
and want, of facilities others provide them with (documentation is one
of them, I'd go flamish and mention some firmware as well); I, as a
user, would probably turn back and find what I need elsewhere than in
Debian. And I'm pretty confident I'm not an "exception", in such a
behaviour as a user.
Now the question is: do we want to provide some kind of elitist
distribution, aimed at a very small subset of "free-fundamentalist"
developers, or do we want to provide a user friendly and broad
distribution?
To me (again, it's my sole opinion), it is quite obvious that you don't
need to have gone through a 10-year philosophical course to tell that
the former do not require much compromise, looks quite manichean
("everything is white or black, 1 or 0"), and is quite easy to
achieve, whereas the latter DO require compromise and mitigation, and
"shades of grey".
I do not intend to flame or sound pedantic in here, I just want to make
sure we, as a project, do not forget who we are "working" for, and
what it takes to satisfy our *priorities*.
HTH,
Thibaut VARENE
PS: nothing I've said here is private.
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