Re: thoughts on potential outcomes for non-free ballot
On 2004-01-23 18:01:54 +0000 Raul Miller <moth@debian.org> wrote:
[a license which makes the software useless to our users]
So what?
Please explain why you think that licence makes the software useless
to our users. I think nearly all aspects of it have appeared in some
licence for a non-free package individually. I have combined them to
make a pathological case and edited the wording. Possibly I have
over-edited it.
You claimed that my proposal would have us stop distributing something
we currently distribute. I asked you what.
Are you sure? I claimed "This tries to change our current practice in
some ways, such as claiming non-free meets some DFSG" in
http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2004/debian-vote-200401/msg01563.html
but in reply you claimed that there are no such packages at present.
Even if that is true, that isn't the same thing.
I'm complaining because what you're proposing is absurd.
I am not proposing an absurdity, as I have presented you with an
example of it. On the other hand, you cannot present a logical
argument that your proposal does not change current practice, because
that claim is absurd.
I don't know why you've jumped from claims about existing practice
>> to
only current instances of existing practice.
Because instances which have never happened do not exist.
You may not generalise like that.
Why? "Existing" refers to that which exists.
Poor wording. I should have written "current practice", as in the
earlier claim. Highlighting that error is pedantry IMO.
It's like rolling a normal die three times and concluding that it
will
never show a 6. Just because you have no observation of it does not
mean it is impossible.
Given that we have more than three packages we distribute, it's a bit
different from drawing a conclusion from three rolls of a die.
Only in scale.
In fact, it's not like rolling a die at all. People act from
motivations
and goals, not from pure randomness.
It's not simple randomness, no, and I made no reference to that aspect
of dice-rolling. You simply cannot claim that a change which prevents
something possible under current practice is not a change of current
practice. That does not depend on "pure randomness".
There's some joke about going to Scotland for the first time and
seeing one black sheep from a train, then concluding that all sheep in
Scotland are black! All you can conclude for sure is that there is at
least one sheep in Scotland with the parts you saw being black. You
can make guesses based on the available evidence, but they can be
disproved by a counter-example. I am trying to construct a
counter-example, which you refuse to discuss properly.
From your above examples, you're asking I not infringe on some rights
of
someone to use Debian to distribute "for pay" software. And now
you're
asking me to believe that in doing so you're defending existing
practice.
The example only requires payment in some circumstances, but still
breaks that DFSG. We already have software in non-free which is only
free for some limited range of tasks. mpg123 is probably the best
known example, but there might be other better ones. There are a range
of discrimination clauses available. I tried to make my example
discriminate against commerce and people who are not debian
developers. If you prefer, I can rewrite it so that people only have
to pay if they are either a member of a certain ethnic group, or are
commercial.
Please explain why existing practice forbids licences which do not
meet any
DFSG.
If you honestly believe that distributing software which our users
must
pay for is existing practice, I don't even know where to begin.
I think we already have this, but it might not always be as obvious as
my example. If I distributed mpg123 as part of a radio station music
player system, I would have to obtain a new copyright licence. If I
just used it to make such a system for my own commercial use, I would
have to do that.
And what is this "substantial change"?
Make non-free into part of the debian distribution.
The social contract only makes the promise about the Debian >>>
GNU/Linux distribution. It doesn't make that promise about
auxillary distributions.
You're suggesting that the contrib and non-free sections of our >
archive
exist because of an oversight in the social contract?
Stop putting words in my mouth. I suggest that not making a similar
claim
about "auxiliary distributions" may be an oversight.
If I've misunderstood you, I've misunderstood you so badly that I
don't
have the slightest clue as to what you're talking about.
It really is not a difficult concept: if you are only trying to
clarify this, if the social contract statement about non-free not
being part of the distribution is incomplete, it should be completed
and not removed. To remove it means that you reduce that separation,
IMO.
--
MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know.
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