On Tue, 2006-01-24 at 00:02 +0100, Andreas Barth wrote: > * Fabian Fagerholm (fabbe@debian.org) [060123 22:44]: > > This General Resolution partly reverts an earlier decision by the > > Release Management team, taken under delegation in accordance with the > > Debian Constitution, to remove all works licensed under the GNU FDL from > > the main section of the Debian archive. > > Sorry, but what do you want to change? If you want to revert a > delegates' decision, you need to specify which. "... an earlier decision by the Release Management team, ..., to remove all works licensed under the GNU FDL from the main section of the Debian archive." There is no other sensible way of referring to the decision in question. It is also not the main point of the GR proposal text. It is a consequence of the main point, which is that GNU FDL without Invariant Sections, is DFSG-free. (Which in turn may or may not be an opinion that I share.) > First of all, I doubt that the release team did any decision on that, as > a decision means there is more than one option. According to the > constitution reading of the release team, there is however only one > option. If you disagree with the constitution reading, feel free to > apply to the secretary as per 7.1.3 of the constitution and/or make a GR > to change the constitution. In several previous messages to this list, the Secretary has indicated in different ways that he does not see this as a clear-cut issue. In fact, in one message [0] he included a hypothetical option similar to this GR proposal. The difference is that this proposal says nothing about public statements, which is another issue. The reason is clarity. Deciding on multiple things at once causes confusion. > Also, there are two "decisions" that you could refer to: There is the > "decision" that documents in main needs to adhere to the DFSG (see > http://release.debian.org/etch_rc_policy.txt). If you think this is > wrong, please make a statement like "The decision in ... that all in > main and contrib must meet the DFSG is reverted for documents (licensed > under the GFDL)". > > Or you could refer to the "decision" that the GFDL is considered as > non-DFSG-free. Than please say this. As far as I can see, the editorial amendments to the Social Contract by GR 2004-003 [1] clarified that the DFSG indeed applies to all components of the Debian system. After that, GR 2004-004 [2] decided to temporarily suspend GR 2004-003 until after Sarge was released. Given these two decisions, the RM team has published the release policy for etch [3] and a document giving details about removal of non-free documentation [4]. As you say, the release policy for etch is indeed no decision with regard to non-free documentation, it's a direct and logical consequence of GRs 2004-003 and 2004-004. The missing part of the puzzle is the answer to the question "does the GNU FDL meet the DFSG?" -- the second decision listed in your message. The RM team has made that decision for themselves in [4], which is possible since they have that power by delegation. The point of this GR proposal is to find out whether that decision has the support of the Debian Developers and thus by the project at large. I imagine it would be very reassuring for the RM team if a GR showed such support. On the other hand, if the opposite is shown, then the responsibility lies with the Developers, not the individuals of the RM team. Also, this does not affect the Project's ability to issue statements about the problematic nature of the GFDL. [0] http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2006/01/msg00173.html [1] http://www.debian.org/vote/2004/vote_003 [2] http://www.debian.org/vote/2004/vote_004 [3] http://release.debian.org/etch_rc_policy.txt [4] http://release.debian.org/removing-non-free-documentation > Or there could be any other meaning of your text. I'm not convinced of that. :) Cheers, -- Fabian Fagerholm <fabbe@debian.org>
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part