Re: Request for GR: clarifying the license text licensing / freeness issue
On Thu, 19 Apr 2007, Ben Finney wrote:
> This doesn't address the concern that motivated this discussion:
> that the license texts which have restrictions on modification are
> non-free works by the DFSG, yet are being distributed in Debian
> against the Social Contract.
License texts which are being distributed in their capacity as a
license under which a work in Debian is distributed cannot be modified
necessarily. I don't believe anyone is seriously arguing differently,
save as a method of defending non-modifiability elsewhere.
This was raised in 2004 on this list (and presumably earlier as
well.)[1]
I don't believe we need an amendment to the Social Contract to
specifically state this as the case, but a correctly worded one which
specifically amended the social contract and/or the DFSG appropriately
may be worth some thought.
Unfortunatly, the currently proposed amendment does not disambiguate
between license texts in their capacity as a license under which a
work is distribute and random text which is labelled as a license.
Don Armstrong
1: http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2004/01/msg01307.html
--
All bad precedents began as justifiable measures.
-- Gaius Julius Caesar in "The Conspiracy of Catiline" by Sallust
http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu
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