Re: Questions about legal theory behind (L)GPL
> On Thu, Jan 20, 2005 at 01:47:46PM -0500, Raul Miller wrote:
> > Anyways, freedom is a very broad issue, but the freedoms Debian is
> > concerned about are rather specific kinds of freedom (especially those
> > that allow us to distribute debian on multiple platforms, and those that
> > allow us to fix bugs and security problems).
On Thu, Jan 20, 2005 at 02:08:54PM -0500, Glenn Maynard wrote:
> ... and that allow users to make whatever modifications they want (even
> those that have nothing to do with bugs or security), and to redistribute
> those modifications without onerous restrictions.
Sure, because in the general case, whether something is a bug or not
depends on what people want.
For that matter, whether or not someone is a part of Debian, or not,
also depends on what people want. Most major corporations are a part
of Debian, in some sense or another -- the free software community which
Debian is a part of (and depends on) is extremely extensive.
> Your "especially" is true in that it's what Debian needs to exist as
> a Linux distribution (this applies to all distributions, regardless
> of social contracts), but the SC places equal importance on guaranteeing
> users freedoms beyond bugfixing--so I disagree with "especially".
But there are some freedoms which Debian (or at least the Social Contract)
doesn't express any particular views on. For example: the freedom to
carry weapons.
I'm thinking your objection is basically centered around the issue of
"what is Debian" (or "what Debian isn't").
I agree that I was tacitly assuming that I was writing for people who knew
what debian is (a volunteer free-software group which helps coordinate
-- and relies heavily on -- support from people who are not explicitly
members of the group).
Thanks,
--
Raul
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