[I am not subscribed to -newmaint.] On Mon, Aug 09, 2004 at 02:15:37PM +0200, Nico Golde wrote: > Hello Brian, > > * Brian Nelson <pyro@debian.org> [2004-08-09 12:58]: > > It can be really tough to test NM's who are not native English speakers > > about licensing issues. Legal text is very different from colloquial > > English, and non-native speakers are often completely overwhelmed. > > Hell, even native speakers have difficulty understanding licenses like > > the graphviz license. > > oh thats what i like to say too. read my emails :) I certainly agree. The thrust of my comments was to make sure NMs understand that licensing issues are often difficult, and that if one isn't prepared to wrestle with them oneself, one needs to place more trust in one's peers who do. I am dismayed and exasperated by the recent trend of bashing the debian-legal list collectively, particularly when it comes from people who don't participate in its discussions. Maybe there is some sort of "Real Hackers Don't Need Debian-Legal" elitism going on; maybe it's just good old-fashioned fear of what one doesn't understand. At any rate, I'm not saying we need to make the P&P process turn our NMs into legal experts. I *am* saying we need to educate them that legal issues, even in Free Software, are sufficiently complex that expertise is actually required. Armchair quarterbacking from a position of ignorance is antisocial and corrosive to our organization. -- G. Branden Robinson | Never attribute to human stupidity Debian GNU/Linux | that which can be adequately branden@debian.org | explained by GNU Libtool. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Scott James Remnant
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