Re: GFDL freedoms
Matthew Garret wrote:
> Thibaut VARENE <varenet@esiee.fr> wrote:
>
> > This has a name: ideology. Rarely (if not never) can it be
actually
> > implemented in real life.
>
> What is free software if not an ideology? We make the main/non-free
> distinction because we (generalising madly) believe that our users
> should have certain freedoms. Arguing whether that line should exist
or
> not is ideology. Arguing about precisely where it should be drawn
> doesn't affect that.
You have the regrettable habit of deleting surrounding context of my
replies. What I said had nothing to do with what you mention here. I
was commenting this:
> We want freedom for everyone we provide software to, not just most
> people we provide software to. That /is/ a fundamental part of
Debian
> and free software.
And all i said is that the course of action that tend to "want freedom
for everyone we provide software to" it at best utopist, at worst
silly (and I'm not even playing dumb considering corner-case
interpretations of that sentence, such as "we want to free everyone we
provide software to", go tell them in <put here any country you
consider as non-free, so to speak>).
The issue is that you say one thing in one sentence and something
contradictory in the next. You emphasise on "everyone" and now you
talk about "certain freedoms". Does that mean that though you wouldn't
agree on reducing the audience-set of the freedoms you plan to give,
you would agree on reducing the scope of these freedoms?
Looks like rhetorics while it's not. I'm trying to point you at the
self-conceit of your goal, if you don't accept the idea of compromise.
And truth told doing that in English ain't an easy task, for as
somebody pointed out, it's utterly difficult to formulate a sentence
in English that wouldn't be interpreted in a 1000 different ways
(there's a reason why French is an official language at UN and why
there have been issues in the past on differing meanings between the
.en and .fr text of a resolution, but that's another story and i'm
just illustrating my point in an ironical way).
For those who don't know, I'm not a native English speaker, makes it
even more tricky.
> > You're also forgetting that some people your providing software to
> > aren't allowed to *use* the freedom you give them. But that's
another
> > story, which leads us to the eternal discussion of "should we
align
> > our policy to the least common denominator?", with a forseeable
effect
> > of letting us with nothing to provide to anyone :P
>
> Where local laws make it impossible to provide certain freedoms,
that's
> an issue the people subject to those laws should address. We can
support
> those efforts, but there's nothing else we can do about it.
>
> > Consensus (as you seem to be a proponent of that idea) is not
about
> > satisfying everyone.
>
> When we *can* satisfy everyone, we should do.
Sure. Prove me we can in the case we're debatting.
> > This problem only occurs under certain interpretations of the text
of
> > the license. As I see it, if I, as a user, download a copy of
GFDL'd
> > material and store it on an encrypted/DRM media for my personal
use,
> > I'd be having a good laugh if somebody told me I'm not allowed to,
> > since I'm not re-distributing anything.
>
> No. Making a copy on an encrypted filesystem is clearly against the
> license - however, in several jurisdictions it's probably fair use,
and
> the FSF would be unlikely to sue anyone over it. *Distributing* a
copy
> on an encrypted filesystem is both against the letter and the spirit
of
> the license. I think that's a freeness issue.
I see no problem with that. What's the point of distribution on an
encrypted media, though?
If I write a license that says "you shall not redistribute this
material on toilet paper", it'll be deemed non-free? Ain't that plain
stupid, when you can redistribute it in every other (and more
practical) ways?
Can you point me at some reasonable case where someone might *only* be
able to use encrypted media for redistribution of documentation?
> > As a side note, if one wants to be anal about the legal aspects, I
> > think that every modern law system has the notion of "being
mandated
> > (as in "having a right") to sue/complain" whatsoever (i don't know
how
> > this is called in english, but YKWIM). Given that, it seems to me
that
> > your PSP example is none of our concerns so far. If Sony wants
GFDL
> > doc to be distributable on PSP, *they* can arrange with FSF. Let's
not
> > add imaginary additional issues to those we already have.
>
> This isn't about giving us rights. It's about giving our users
rights.
Are we the world police? Should we make sure our users have every
current and possibly forseeable rights they might ever pretend to? Who
are we to define what rights they need/want? Shouldn't we ask them
what they want then?
> We refuse to distribute all sorts of things even though we could do,
> because not all of our users would have the right to perform
reasonable
> acts with that material. The DFSG ensure that our users know which
That's what I call favorizing the minority over the majority. This is
where it gets cocky when you screw the majority of people because of
said minority's requirements. And it's a loss and a failure to our SC,
since we *deprive* some of our users of the right to use something as
they could.
More to the point, this is bigotery over compromise, ideology over
intelligence.
> rights they have upon receiving a package from main. Those rights
should
> not require further negotiation with the copyright holder.
Maybe if we hadn't been so anal in our reading of the DFSG (or
Licenses), our users would still know what rights to expect from a
package they got from main and yet be able to keep GCC's
documentation.
Another issue we have is that we are interpreting these texts (in
particular Licenses) according to our views, yet we debate about a
legal issue, right? Has there been any legal evidence that what we
fear could be brought to court? Now if this is a philosophical debate,
I'm out of it, it's rather pointless.
> > It's also possible for reasonable people to show a little common
sense
> > and not try to make everybody's life a nightmare because they
found
> > that under some crack-smoking reading of the License text, it is
> > restraining their almighty freedom. Consensus and good will, this
is
> > what it is about.
>
> Ok, let's just simplify this to the basic issue:
>
> I believe that for software to be free, it must be possible to
> distribute it in DRM-encumbered formats, providing an unencumbered
> version is also available. Do you disagree? If so, why?
Of course I don't. This looks plainly sensible to me. And it would
(but that's only my opinion) probably be sensible to any tribunal, if
somebody wanted to sue someone for distributing GFDL'd (in its present
form) content on encumbered format, whilst said content is also
available "clean" elsewhere. Yet again, IANAL, these are just plain
guesses. We need a lawyer to tell us.
Still, I expect that the next hickup will come from some people
arguing on "provided an unemcumbered version is also available":
"Where?", "in what form?" etc...
eg: In my previous example, what then could have been wrong in me
telling the guy that knocks at the door: "go get it on the web"? What
then could be wrong in distributing Wikipedia on PSP given it's
available on the web as well?
This is why we need to also use our common-sense, and not be autistic,
spending time debatting on non-issues.
Side question: do you agree that the world isn't Manichean and that
the answer to our issue can't be "black or white"?
T-Bone
PS: I support willy's position and will help him to the best of my
abilities in his attempt to provide a DFDG draft.
> > PS: i'm not subscribed to d-project
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