Re: Licenses for DebConf6
On Fri, 11 Nov 2005 15:26:58 +1000, Anthony Towns <aj@azure.humbug.org.au> said:
> On Thu, Nov 10, 2005 at 07:49:36PM -0500, Glenn Maynard wrote:
>> FYI, a possible response might be: "we care about freeness, but we
>> pick our battle, and our battle is Debian main". I care about
>> starving children, but I don't donate the majority of every check
>> to feed them: there are lots of good causes, and the fact that
>> everybody has to pick and choose their causes doesn't mean people
>> "don't care enough". (That said, I don't agree with that response:
>> it should be no big deal for people to freely license their papers,
>> so they can be packaged later in Debian. This isn't a big,
>> difficult fight.)
> Why fight at all? If having a free license is so obviously correct,
> why force people to do it? If some people are uncomfortable with it,
> why fight that?
Because sometimes one feels the need to fight for what is
right? Even if people feel far more comfortable with just sweeping
stuff under the carpet, and not brought out in the open?
While I am undecided how much I am willing to fight for DFSG
freeness, and not sending people the message that Debian only fights
for DFSG freeness when it is other peoepls free documentation, and
blithely accepts whatever goes when it comes to their own
convenience, I must voice my objection to this line of argument (why
make waves? the misguided folks will come to see the crrect argument
and do the right thing after all [Hello, Kansas Board of
Education]).
> My blog's licensed under the CC No-derivs/non-commerical license for
> much the same reasons as most of RMS's writings aren't DFSG-free;
> but that's fine -- I'm not trying to get them to become the basis of
> a developer community or similar, and that's why I'm not bothered by
> not having comments on my blog, either.
And, thankfully, they do not come with the imprimatur of the
Debian project, as Debconf seems to.
> I'd prefer something like this:
> During and after the conference various materials will be made
> available to attendees and the general public; submission of a
> paper thus indicates permission to:
> * distribute verbatim copies and translations of the paper,
> slides and other materials provided by the presenter
> * distribute audio and video recordings of the presentation
> Presenters are encouraged to provide a specific license (preferably
> DFSG-free) under which the materials and presentation can be
> redistributed.
If Debian lends it names to a compilation of papers
distributed by it, such as it may be construed as the compilation
product of the Debian project, or in any way part of Debian, we are
constrained to have that compilation be free.
If, of course, Debconf is a independent entity, not related to
Debian, then I have no opinion, apart from isn't this off-topic here
on this mailing list?
manoj
--
The truth about a man lies first and foremost in what he hides. Andre
Malraux
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
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