Re: REVISED PROPOSAL regarding DFSG 3 and 4, licenses, and modifiable text

[tb@becket.net (Thomas Bushnell, BSG)]

I think I would be willing to sign on to Branden's latest proposal (as
referred to in the headers of this message), with two provisos.  (I
would also be willing to sign on to Anthony's debian-doc proposal, if
the FSF agrees that it satisfies the licenses on its manuals.)

First, I would like to replace the 32K limit with a 0.1% of total
documentation size limit, which I think allows exactly the same
current manuals as Branden's proposal.

Second, I would like an additional paragraph with a sense roughly like
the following (I'm not wedded to the exact wording).  (If my first
suggestion is taken, then of course that part would change here too.)

  "The 32KB limit is a guideline for Debian developers and the FTP
  upload queue managers.  It is necessarily somewhat arbitrary, and
  important cases may fall slightly outside its strict bounds; in such
  cases the Debian Project Leader may approve the inclusion of the
  package in Debian after the case and issues involved have been
  discussed on debian-legal."


REASONS FOR THE ABOVE:

I prefer a proportional limit for two reasons.  First, a fixed limit
invites the abuse of splitting a big invariant thing into a bunch of
packages.  Second, a proportional limit guarantees that we get some
real fully-free documentation along with the invariant text.

I am not wedded to the exact details of the exception-granting process
I outline; it seems reasonable and I would expect that it basically
never get invoked.  But I think it addresses the need I feel for such
a process, and does so in a way that at the same time respects the
need for a fairly clear limit, and still allows for some fuzziness
around the gray boundary if an important case close to it should
actually come up.

Thomas