Re: GUADEC report
On 2004-07-12 04:32:30 +0100 David Nusinow <david_nusinow@verizon.net>
wrote:
The acrimony stimulated by the questioning of the mozilla license
this late in
the sarge release process is no small matter.
It probably doesn't matter too much. debian-legal and
licensing@mozilla both seem not to move particularly quickly on things
of this seriousness. That's probably quite right. Lots of deep
thinking helps this. I think part of the acrimony was caused by a
draft summary 2 days after the first thread many of us say; then that
being reported in DWN.
Anyway, the current mozilla-firefox package seems to have far more
immediate bugs which stop it getting into unstable. Presumably this
means that there will be an old version in sarge, if that's fixed very
soon. I've tried to solve 254522 (with a *very* steep learning curve
to play with a non-debianised build for comparison) but I can't find a
way. Maybe one of these moz-experts who flames us over the licence
will help, or maybe they don't really care about mozilla as much as
kicking debian-legal?
I know there are other packages under MPL, but if:
1. someone can explain why choice of venue can be DFSG-free;
2. we get the necessary agreement from upstreams about:
a. our changelogs being acceptable notice of LEGAL change;
b. our archives being suitable archival of modifications;
c. general waiver of choice of venue (depending on 1);
then I don't see any other problems to resolve. (I might have
forgotten something, as I am only human.) The MPL is a fugly licence,
though, IMO.
Rest assured that I definitely don't want MPL stuff removed if it is
intended as free software and I hope we can work together to solve any
problems, *once* we know reasonably surely what problems exist.
this sort of wrangling is done based on tests (Chinese Dissident,
etc) which
few are aware of makes the situation worse.
I'd like to see the tests explained, but few seem to be aware of any
specific legalities of free software, even those who ought to know.
(For example, the licence author's "copyright" page containing only
trademark details, which I noticed earlier today.) debian-legal needs
to "inreach" better because I have worries about NM, as you may know.
--
MJR/slef My Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"Matthew Garrett is quite the good sort of fellow, despite what
my liver is sure to say about him in [...] 40 years" -- branden
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