On Thu, Jan 22, 2004 at 11:21:32PM -0500, Raul Miller wrote:
> > > It's very simple: GFDL licensed documentation does not satisfy all
> > > requirements of the DFSG.
> > That's nice. Why do you think that means it would get dropped from main,
> > merely because the non-free section will disappear?
> Because the requirement for main is that it satisfy all of our free
> software guidelines. As I understand it, GFDL does not properly satisfy
> guideline #3.
It's a requirement that all the programs in main satisfy the requirements
of the DFSG. At present it's not a requirement that the text of copyright
licenses, or documentation satisfy the requirements of the DFSG.
Andrew's proposal does nothing to affect this at all.
> > > > Personally, I think that's harmful: independent issues should be voted
> > > > on separately; and afaics the editorial changes and the substantive
> > > > changes are independent.
> > > What defines independence?
> > The decision you make on one doesn't affect the decision you make on
> > the other.
> Taken literally, that means what's written in the proposal is by
> definition not independent.
Taken pedantically, perhaps. The independent questions are "what does
the social contract need to say about non-free", and "how should the
social contract be written".
You can answer all aspects of the second question without knowing the
answer to the first, except one: "how should the social contract address
the issue of non-free".
> > > > At the moment the substantive options that have been discussed are:
> > > > [ ] Drop non-free
> > > > [ ] Limit non-free to partially-DFSG-free software
> > > > < > Keep non-free as is (unproposed)
> > > > while there are a whole raft of possible editorial changes.
> > > Even on that axis, there's more involved than that.
> > Really? I haven't seen any of it. Would you care to expound?
> The descriptive text in the social contract which defines our relationship
> with non-free software.
That sentence no verb.
What about it? You're changing the text, but what are you doing that'll
actually change how we behave?
> > > > At the moment, it's very easy to lose the substantive changes
> > > > you're proposing amidst the copious editorial changes you're also
> > > > proposing. That's bad -- we don't want to make substantive changes
> > > > by accident.
> > > I'm quite happy to provide any needed documentation on my proposed
> > > changes.
> > Providing *more* text makes it *easier* to lost the important details.
> > If you're really making more substantive changes than the one above, this
> > has already happened.
> The problem which I think needs to be addressed is that people can
> mis-interpret the social contract to think that it's saying we shouldn't
> distribute non-free.
It's easy to point anyone who thinks that to point five of the social
contract.
I don't think that changing the wording of the social contract will cause
anyone who thinks we shouldn't distribute non-free to change their mind.
> > A lot of your changes are trying to clarify the description of our goals.
> Yes, exactly.
> > Andrew's proposal is to *change* our goals.
> Yes.
> > Those are different issues.
> They're not independent issues.
Yes, they are. They're as independent as saying "Let's change
our goals." and "Let's describe our goals in French insteasd of
English". Certainly you can't do the latter if you don't know what our
goals are; but that does not make the underlying issues dependant.
>> Whether or not we want to clarify or clean up the social contract is an issue
>> that's entirely separate to whether or not we want to drop non-free.
> I think that the reason people want to drop non-free is at least in part
> because of the way the social contract expresses our goals.
Again, I think you're wrong. Can you point to anyone who has argued
for dropping non-free, but will say "Let's keep non-free" if the social
contract is reworded? Can you point to anyone who'd vote:
[ 1 ] Keep non-free, make minor edits to social contract to clean
up apparent contradiction, with no substantive changes?
[ 2 ] Drop non-free, drop non-free from social contract
[ 3 ] Keep non-free, keep social contract as is
if given the choice to do other editorial changes later?
> Anyways, there's nothing stopping you from proposing "goals only"
> amendments.
As I've already said to Branden and Andrew; I think it's better to discuss
why we want to do things, what we should do and how we do it, before
actually doing anything. I'm well aware that I can propose amendments.
> If you're truly only describing goals, not changes to any
> foundation documents, your proposals would be free of a significant
> hurdle which both my proposal and Andrew's proposal must face (the 3:1
> supermajority requirement).
>
> Note also that I'm not claiming that you're wrong for believing that
> a "Goals Only" proposal is a good thing. If you have a clear vision
> of what that proposal should be, I highly recommend you write it up.
> I might even vote for it.
Andrew's current proposal is *exactly* what a "goals only" proposal
should look like. It states what he wants to happen, and the minimum
number of changes to other things that need to be approved for it to
happen in a consistent manner.
(Well, perfect but for the usual provisos about not dealing with contrib
at all)
> However, *I* don't have a clear vision of what that should be -- the
> problem I see is one of ambiguous language in the social contract.
> And that's the problem I'm trying to address.
That's fine; Andrew's trying to address it too. Conflating it with the
debate about whether our goals themselves should change isn't sensible
though.
> That you don't even
> recognize this as a problem doesn't really convince me that I should
> cease my approach.
I think it's a problem -- important documents should be simple to read,
and shouldn't seem to contradict themselves when analysed.
But I simply don't think it's a factor in the question of whether we
want to keep non-free or not.
(If it _is_ a factor, then, like Andrew has, we should make the minimum
number of changes to remedy whatever that problem is)
Cheers,
aj
--
Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred.
Linux.conf.au 2004 -- Because we could.
http://conf.linux.org.au/ -- Jan 12-17, 2004
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