GR idea related to ongoing licensing discussions

[Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>]

I should say up front that this is quite possibly a horrible idea.
However, it occurred to me last night and I can't find any obvious flaws,
so I thought I'd toss it out and see how people react.

I am *not* proposing a GR yet.  I'm more interested to see what people
think about the idea.

One of the things that's bothered me for a while about licensing
discussions in Debian is that there's a variety of generally accepted lore
that is being used to vet licenses (even by ftpmasters, I believe, or at
least their decisions are consistent with it), but which is not clearly
stated in the DFSG.  Some people feel these principles clearly derive from
what the DFSG says.  Some people don't.  Every time they come up, they
tend to start another argument.  I find the ambiguous state both confusing
and unnecessary.

So, how about we settle this once and for all?  The DFSG is not an
orthogonal basis for a vector space.  The world won't end if we add a new
point to it that some folks feel is redundant with what it already says.
If there's a principle that we're generally applying for licenses, let's
just add it to the DFSG so that it's present in clear and unambiguous
language and everyone knows what the project's position as a whole is.

For example, for the "desert island test" and part of the "dissident
test", what about a GR with the following two ballot options:

    The DFSG are hereby amended to add the following additional guideline:

    10. No Required Contribution of Changes

        The rights attached to the program must not depend on the user
        sending their modifications to any third party to whom they have
        not distributed the program.

and:

    It is the position of the Debian Project that the DFSG does not
    prohibit a license from requiring local modifications be contributed
    back to the license holder or be made publicly available.
    Accordingly, software shall not be ineligible for the main archive
    solely due to such a license term.

Similarly, for the rest of the "dissident test," what about a GR with the
following two ballot options:

    The DFSG are hereby amended to add the following additional guideline:

    11. No Required Identity Disclosure

        The license must not require a person modifying the program to
        disclose their name or other identifying personal information.

and:

    It is the position of the Debian Project that the DFSG does not
    prohibit a license from requiring that modifications be identified
    with the modifier's name or other reasonable, public information.
    Accordingly, software shall not be ineligible for the main archive
    solely due to such a license term.

I start with those two because they're the least controversial and have
been part of license analysis for long enough that they're in various FAQs
and in the Wikipedia article on the DFSG, but neither are explicitly
stated in the existing guidelines and there's always some low-level
controversy over whether the existing terms really do imply them.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org)               <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>