Re: Desert island test
On Friday 29 February 2008 01:25:43 pm Francesco Poli wrote:
> On Thu, 28 Feb 2008 23:42:06 -0800 Sean Kellogg wrote:
> > On Thursday 28 February 2008 04:09:34 pm Francesco Poli wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> > > So to conclude, I think it is actually true that there's no way for
> > > someone to *compel* Debian to accept a given license as "free".
> >
> > The question being asked is "Is there any way for me to compel Debian to
> > accept that my license is free?" and the answer is "convince a DD to
> > propose a GR, get it seconded, and convince the sufficient number of DDs
> > to support your proposal."
>
> But that is *not* a way to compel Debian to accept the license as
> "free". It's a way to *persuade* Debian (to be more precise: the Debian
> Project) to accept the license as "free".
Fair enough.
> > I trust you will see how this is strikingly different
> > from "no". The page makes it sound as if -legal is the final arbiter,
> > which is simply untrue.
>
> Debian-legal is not the final arbiter, but I don't see how the page
> could imply it is...
Quote: "People on debian-legal don't seem to agree though." There is no
conversation about how the opinion of -legal (if one can even say there is
such a thing) is just one voice in the process. There is no conversation
about the ftp-masters or about the GR process. It presents -legal as your
only chance and if you miss out there, tough luck.
> > The fact that the questioner cannot vote (assuming they are not a DD,
> > which is not implied by the question) does not deny the existence of an
> > avenue to compel, it simply means it requires the assistance of others to
> > do so, which is the case with pretty much every activity I engage in
> > every moment of every day.
>
> Look, I cannot stress it more than this: if you *convince* the majority
> of the members of an organization that the organization should do
> something, you are *not* *compelling* the organization to do that
> thing; you're just *persuading* the organization to do it...
>
> > I cannot compel my neighbor to stop throwing his trash into my yard, but
> > if I go to a judge and get an order for a police officer to do something
> > about it, I very much doubt my neighbor is going to quibble over who,
> > exactly, is doing the "compelling."
>
> But there's no law that compels Debian to accept a license as "free",
> so you cannot go to a judge and get an order for a police officer. It's
> up to the Debian Project to decide if it accepts a license as "free".
>
> If you go through the GR method, you are not compelling Debian, you're
> persuading it. In your example, the GR method corresponds to going to
> your neighbor and suggest that he/she proposes a vote among his/her
> family members to decide if they want to stop throwing trash into your
> yard or else go on doing so. You don't have vote right, but you
> obviously can try and persuade your neighbor's family members to vote
> for "stop throwing". You're not compelling anyone, you're trying to
> persuade them!
> You can even try to get vote right... by becoming a family member of
> your neighbor: you can go through the NM, ooops, NB (= New Boyfriend)
> process and finally get married with your neighbor's daughter. At that
> point you could get vote right, but you still have to persuade your
> (new) relatives to vote for "stop throwing": again, it's persuasion,
> not compelling!
Thanks for playing along with my annology :)
But seriously... the GR compels Debian (faceless organization that it is) to
do something it is not doing of it's own accord and is, in a way,
overturning -legal.
But my crticism of the page remains... there is simply no discussion of
alternatives and I for one don't accept that by using the word "compel"
instead of "convince" the author gets away with not mention other avenues.
-Sean
--
Sean Kellogg
e: skellogg@gmail.com
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