Re: could you safely rewrite the DFSG requirement?
Sven <luther@dpt-info.u-strasbg.fr> writes:
> Maybe, but it is not what is written. Also i guess if you ask all
> debian developpers about this, not 100% of them will agree with you
> on what they read there.
What is written is that free distribution of aggregations must be
permitted. Aggregation with one page, with one tiny little
insignificant addition *is* aggregation, and *is* what is written.
That's all I'm saying. I want to be sure that O'Reilly explicitly
understandings this.
> Also, i suppose you were already a debian developper when the DFSG was first
> written, to say that it was interpreted such from day one, if yes, why was it
> not written clearly ?
I was around and payed close attention to the process, but I was not a
Debian Developer. Why don't you ask the people who wrote it?
> "altough the DFSG seems to say otherwise, we won't accept this licence,
> because we don't consider it as free".
The DFSG does not say otherwise. The license (as written) requires
that aggregations be DFSG free; the DFSG requires that free
distribution be permitted for all aggregations, including those such
as (for example) Sun OS.
> This would have been understandable, but this is not what did
> happen, there were various different reasons for rejection given,
> and a polemic about what is considered an aggregation, the absurd
> proposal of aggregating an no content one liner and other such
> things.
The point is that the DFSG requires that free distribution as part of
an aggregation be permitted. It does not allow *any* restriction of
this, and thus, even a "no content one liner" aggregation is an
aggregation, and free distribution of this must be permitted,
according to the DFSG.
I don't know whether O'Reilly understands this or not.
> The correct way to solve this is to change the DFSG to say what we
> want it to say, and not to resort to obscure interpretations to have
> it mean what we want it to mean.
Unlike you, apparently, I'm quite content with what it does say.
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