Re: Using the Debian open use logo to distinguish DFSG-compatible licenses
Evan Prodromou <evan@debian.org>
> [...] http://evan.prodromou.name/CC_Licence_Distinctions
I think some of that is shooting at shadows, some is hyperbole
and some is contentious: for example, the "minor techincal
issues" with the CC licences *have* been exploited by licensors
to render works under those licences break the DFSG. I hope
that most of those exploits were unintentional and will be lost
in the "wash" of CC 3.0's release, but I doubt all were.
The biggest problem with the CC so-called-generic licences are
the extreme verbosity and complexity of them because they are
written for US law. A true generic licence would be in plain
and simple language, much nearer the Scotland iCommons licences
than the current generic.
Anyway, to your questions:
> My question is: at what point would it be acceptable for a third-party
> organization to state that a license is "DFSG-compatible"? At what point
At the point when a work under solely that licence is accepted
into the distribution (the main archive) and it's not a bug.
> would it be acceptable to use the Debian trademarks (name and/or open
> use logo) to underline that fact?
At the point a licence is available permitting it.
Routes for approving that would seem to be:
1. by GR
2. by DPL requesting SPI to issue such a licence
3. by the forthcoming(?) spi-trademark licence permitting it
Isn't it confusing to use the trademark for licences rather
than software itself? After all, a licence being "DFSG-compatible"
doesn't mean something will go into debian, just that it might
be possible, if the licensor doesn't stop it somehow else.
I'd prefer to promote "this is in debian" and "this could go
well with debian" marks for software itself, more than licences.
After all, most of us see licensing as a necessary evil at best.
Is it possible to decide a marking set which could do both?
> But I think there's some value for people deciding on a license in
> knowing which licenses clearly prevent a work from being included in
> Debian and which do not.
One possible list (requires updating/correcting) is at
http://www.debian.org/legal/licenses/
> So: if there's a public statement by Debian or
> debian-legal on a license (like http://people.debian.org/~evan/ccsummary
> is now), would it be misleading for an organization to point to that
> statement? Especially if it was clear that the review and approval was
> not an endorsement of the organization or their goals?
No, it wouldn't be misleading. However, "debian-legal is
advisory. The actual decision-makers are the ftpmasters and the
package maintainers. However, if one cannot convince most of the
generally liberal debian-legal contributors, it's probably not
clear that the software follows the DFSG." [from URL above]
debian-legal does not make statements: some of its contributors
may support a statement, but I think there's one who opposes
keeping almost anything copyable out of main.
Hope that helps,
--
MJR/slef
Laux nur mia opinio: vidu http://people.debian.org/~mjr/
Bv sekvu http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct
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