Re: better licence for fosdem, debconf, .., videos...

[MJ Ray <mjr@phonecoop.coop>]

Francesco Poli <frx@firenze.linux.it>
> Could you please phrase what you would consider an accurate (non
> misleading) credit?

"kernel-image-2.6.8-2-386.deb by the Debian kernel team and others"

> Start from a troublesome license and patch it hard so that it is
> `forced' to meet the DFSG?

I don't regard CC-by-2.5-Sco as requiring hard patching.

> I would rather suggest: start from a clearly DFSG-free license and do
> nothing else.

So would I, but what do you do when that fails?

> I mean: there are bugs that have already been marked as "done" because
> of GR-2006-001.
> This sounds like "This bug is not a bug".

I agree. I've seen one in your bug log and it was a shame.

> This is what disappoints me more: I'm losing my belief that the Debian
> project is willing to actually fix the important bugs that are
> reported...  :-(((

I suspect it's more that there aren't enough skilled hackers to fix
them all fast.

> I have so far spent a non-negligible amount of time in analysing
> licenses, detecting issues and reporting bugs, trying to do my little
> part to help enhancing Debian: I'm not sure I will go on likewise in the
> future, with a GR that basically said "You wasted your time: we won't
> consider those bugs as actual bugs to be fixed" and the risk that other
> serious issues are magically considered non-issues by GR, just because
> the project feels unconfortable with them (or for whatever other
> unexplained reason)...

The magic GR non-issue wand is as bogus as the holy trademark of Antioch
and will probably be shown as such soon. Enough people are confused that
this seems very probable to come back around again.

I don't know what to say to encourage continuing with bug hunting.
Maybe try to find more obvious bugs (the ftpmaster email to d-d-a
suggests there's probably plenty out there) and just offer a thorough
analysis if the maintainer wants it, rather than doing it all on
the first report (which means wasted effort if you find an MIA/inert
maintainer). Personally, I'd also be interested in a quick "what I'm
looking at now" newsletters/blog.

> > The
> > position statement issued was vague at best, contradictory at worst,
> > and has caused ripples which I think will provoke another vote.
> 
> I don't count on another vote to happen. The majority expressed their
> opinion: I doubt many people would vote differently in another round.

I think the next vote will probably be "uh, WTF did 2006-1 mean?"
because a vague text was approved. I think this process will end
with everyone knowing where we stand, even if it's no longer
with debian. It's just a question of how long it takes.

-- 
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/
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