Chad's comments (was Re: For M.J. Ray 1 of 3 -- changes from current social contract)
On Thu, Jan 22, 2004 at 09:23:42AM -0600, Chad Walstrom wrote:
> 1. BE SUCCINCT. Remove extraneous prepositional phrases and color
> words.
> 2. KEEP YOUR GOALS IN MIND and WRITE WHAT YOU MEAN. Understand what
> you're trying to say. Don't get caught up in length explainations
> (Rule 1). Write EXACTLY and ONLY what you mean.
I prefer "make it as simple as possible, but no simpler".
> IMHO, the SC is already an unnecessarily verbose document. Most of the
> changes Raul introduces are grammatically expensive. I am not going to
> nit pick every change, rather I'll concentrate on the first few to
> illustrate my point.
You may be right, I'm going to have to think about this.
I wish you'd spoken up sooner. Oh well.
> On Thu, Jan 22, 2004 at 01:10:32AM -0500, Raul Miller wrote:
> > Third sentence -- added free software to this statement of support.
> > I think this is important as a part of keeping non-free software
> > in perspective.
> >
> > Old: We will support our users who develop and run non-free
> > software on Debian, but we will never make the system depend on
> > an item of non-free software.
> >
> > New: We will also support our users who develop and run other
> > software on Debian -- free or non-free -- but we will never make
> > the system depend on non-free software.
>
> The use of "other software" is vague, forcing the reader to search the
> rest of the sentance to figure out what you mean.
"other software" refers to both "software not distributed by Debian for
whatever reason" and "software which does not satisfy all of the debian
free software guidelines". Spelling that out would make the sentence
considerably longer.
However, if what I'm saying isn't clear, maybe I do need to be more
verbose.
> The original version was much clearer in its intent, but to be fair,
> it's repetitve nature lacks grace.
In my opinion, the original version was also inadequate. We should be
concerned not only with non-free software but with free software.
> IMHO, you can not "depend on" something, rather you can "depend upon"
> something. Yes, I know there are examples of both, and I did prefix
> the last statement with IMHO.
Ok, I'll leave this as a personal opinion.
> New: We will support our users who develop and run non-free
> software on Debian, but we will never make the system depend
> upon such works.
>
> Personally, I like this better. Another alternative is to expand the
> phrase "other software".
This leaves out our support for free software which for whatever reason
we do not package.
> New: We will also support our users who develop and run software
> that is not distributed as part of Debian. However, we will
> never make the system depend upon such works.
>
> We've already stated that we only distribute software that meets DFSG
> requirements. There's no reason to be repetitive. It's not DFSG
> compliant, we don't distribute it. The last sentance, IMHO, isn't
> needed, since it's explicitly stated in the first part of the SC.
I disagree that the restatement of ideas is unimportant.
I think that the restatements are important to avoid problems with
misunderstandings. If the same concept is expressed in several different
ways, that makes it much harder for someone to claim some alternative
meaning was intended.
> > Section 5.
> > Sentence 1 -- added a statement that not all of our users depend
> > on non-free software. This is a part of keeping the non-free
> > distribution in perspective.
> >
> > Old: We acknowledge that some of our users require the use
> > of programs that don't conform to the Debian Free Software
> > Guidelines.
> >
> > New: We acknowledge that some, but not all, of our users require
> > the use of software which does not conform to the Debian Free
> > Software Guidelines.
>
> "but not all" is extraneous fluff.
In my opinion, it emphasizes the idea that we expect main to fill the
needs of many users. This is important because of the current controversy
over non-free.
I was very tempted to say "but not most", instead of "but not all",
but I didn't have a basis for saying that.
> "which" is often misused; replace with "that".
But sometimes it's better to use "which" than "that".
In this case, I'm using it to weaken the emphasis on non-free.
If you think that's improper, please spell out your reasoning.
> We can be less verbose and say the same thing. Remove
> "the use of".
If I remove "the use of" the meaning of the sentence changes. Most likely
we would be talking about users having software -- presumably installed
on their own machines -- rather than using software.
> New: We acknowledge that some of our users require software that
> do not conform with the DFSG.
But it's not the software they require, it's what the software does for
them that they require.
--
Raul
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