Re: GR: Editorial amendments to the social contract
On Mon, Mar 29, 2004 at 01:21:33AM -0500, Nathanael Nerode wrote:
> > * There are people in Debian.
> Fine, there are a bunch of silly interpretations as well. The context
> indicates that "Debian" means "the Debian system" or "the Debian
> distribution". You could interpret it as meaning "the Debian Project", but
> that would be silly, because it would make the whole Social Contract make
> no sense whatsoever. (Are you software? Are you free software?)
Thank you for acknowledging this.
Note that you did not say "The Debian System". Instead, you said
"Everything in Debian", with no qualifiers on "Debian".
Note that just because you consider interpretations silly doesn't mean
that other people will agree with you. We just had a GR where people
voting one way thought people voting a different way were using a silly
interpretation of that exact phrase.
> (1) (Debian) ((will remain) (100% (Free Software)))
> This means that "100%" of Debian "will remain" Software, and that that
> software will be "Free".
...
> (2) (Debian) ((will remain) ((100% Free) Software)))
> This means that Debian "will remain" software, and that that software will
> be "100% Free".
...
> (I suppose there might be some subtle difference between interpretations 1
> and 2 -- in particular, interpretation 2 might theoretically allow for
> Debian to be "software" but not "100% software"; maybe only 99% software.
> It doesn't affect things materially.)
To me, that difference calls for the presence of an "or", in sentences
which talk about 'Everything in Debian'.
Since the paragraph following the "100% Free" subtitle concerns itself
with the issues of "how free is free" rather than "how much software is
'Everything in Debian'", I think the distinction is material in this
context.
--
Raul
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