Re: Anti-TPM clauses

[Ben Finney <bignose+hates-spam@benfinney.id.au>]

Olive <olive001@tele2allin.be> writes:

> Ben Finney wrote:
> > By what criterion do you decide that something is "indeed
> > DFSG-free"?  If such a criterion existed, I'm sure we'd love to
> > know about it. It would make our lives on this list much simpler.
> 
> For the GFDL; I consider a GR-vote as a valid criterion.

A strange qualification. Presumably, then, you would *not* consider a
GR vote a valid criterion for deciding DFSG-freeness of works under
other license terms?

> The DFSG is subject to interpretation and it is not possible to decide
> all cases definitively by just reading the terms.

Indeed, which is the rationale for this forum: to attempt to gain
consensus on the DFSG-freeness of a work. from many people examining
the specific work and its terms, as an aid to deciding what to
do. Sometimes the ftpmasters act against the consensus of this
list.

In neither case is the DFSG-freeness of the work affected. That's
something that, after the work is released, can only be *discovered*,
not constructed.

> [...]
> At the same time, we also consider that works licensed under the GNU
> Free Documentation License that include no invariant sections do fully
> meet the requirements of the Debian Free Software Guidelines.
> [...]
> 
> This text leaves no doubt for me GFDL (without invariant section) it
> has been declared to follow the DFSG; this is indeed what the vote
> says.

Yes. It's a vote saying *what Debian will do*. It is not an absolute
declaration of truth about GFDL works. The former is necessary in
order that action may be taken, but it doesn't change the truth of the
latter, which may still await discovery.

-- 
 \         "My mother was like a sister to me, only we didn't have sex |
  `\                                  quite so often."  -- Emo Philips |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney