Re: RFD: amendment of Debian Social Contract

[Nathanael Nerode <neroden@twcny.rr.com>]

Comments on proposed wording follow, generally not intended to change 
Branden's meanings, but to clarify.

>[PROPOSED DRAFT FOR AMENDMENT; NOT OFFICIAL]
>  1. Debian Will Remain 100% Free
>
>     We promise to preserve your right to freely use, modify, and
>     distribute Debian operating system distributions.  We include the
In the words of www.debian.org, "Debian GNU/Linux provides more than a pure 
OS:..."

I think enshrining the words "operating system" here is not a good idea, and 
could actually lead to more vagueness about what must be free.

Perhaps "Debian distributions", or "Debian system distributions"?
Perhaps "Debian system distributions, such as the Debian GNU/Linux 
distribution"?

Also, this commits to preserving the right to the distribution as a whole, 
while the old wording is in some ways clearer about committing to the rights 
for each individual work.  Although the subsequent line about the DFSG helps 
somewhat.
"We promise to preserve your right to freely use, modify, and distribute Debian system distributions, and every work in them"?
"We promise to preserve your right to freely use, modify, and distribute every work in the Debian system distributions"?

Possible clarification related to the 'pine' issues:
"We promise to preserve your right to freely use, modify, and distribute 
(including your right to use and distribute modifications)..."?

(... to clause 2)
>  2. We Will Give Back to the Free Software Community
>
>     When we write new components of the Debian system, we will license
>     them as freely in a manner consistent with the Debian Free Software
Grammatical error.  Should be "We will license them freely..."

>     Guidelines.  We will make the best system we can, so that free
>     software and other works will be widely distributed and used.  We will
"free programs and other works"?
"free programs and other free works"?
"free software and other free works"?
>     communicate bug fixes, improvements, user requests, etc. to the
>     "upstream" authors of software and other works included in our system.
"programs and other works"?

(... to clause 4)
>     will provide an integrated system of high-quality works of software
>     and other materials with no legal restrictions that would prevent
"programs and other works"?

>     these uses of our operating system distributions.
"our system distributions"?

--Nathanael