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Re: Proposed vote on issue of the day: trademarks and free software



MJ Ray <mjr@phonecoop.coop> writes:

> Arguing that the debian project is necessarily only packaging and
> distributing software and mustn't ever do anything else seems rather
> narrow.

That's not what I'm arguing.  I'm arguing that we should not take
positions on general political matters around free software that don't
affect us.  This is for a variety of reasons:

* lack of competence (other organizations are better at this, I think)
* lack of standing (why should someone care about our opinion?)
* dilution of effort in the project
* dilution of authority (less likely people will listen when we're affected)
* lack of insight (we may not be privy to relevant information)

In this particular case, given our previous stance on the trademark issue,
I think we have standing, but I think the other ones applied (including
lack of insight; it seems clear now that not all information about what
was going on was public).

> Vote against if you don't like the position; argue against if you want
> to influence the position; please don't simply argue it's off-topic
> because the growing attempts to use non-copyright restrictions clearly
> affect free software and so are on-topic.

This comes across as you asking me to not argue my position because the
argument annoys you.  I'm not going to change my position to something
else just because it would be more convenient to you.  :)  If you don't
want me to argue that it's off-topic, convince me it's on-topic.  You
haven't yet.  Otherwise, out-argue me among the people listening and then
out-vote me.  That's how the process works.

>> [...] The individual members of Debian are quite capable of joining
>> multiple organizations, including ones who specialize in making
>> statements about free software as a concept and tackling issues such as
>> this one.  [...]
>
> Care to name some?

The FSF is an obvious example.

> Getting SPI to make a statement against software patents seemed to get
> someone arguing at the last minute that SPI shouldn't do such "activism"
> - even though SPI has a long-standing position against swpat!

I would support, in the abstract, the Debian Project making a statement
about software patents because software patents *do* affect us.  I can
point to concrete examples of useful software which we've had trouble
packaging or distributing because of software patents.  Ideally such a
statement would focus on those specifics, since that's our area of
expertise and the place where we can add useful new information.

The second proposed resolution is somewhat better in that it's making a
general statement about an issue that may affect us in the future rather
than specific statement about Mozilla in particular.  I don't think it's
really necessary at this point for us to say anything further, though.  If
we did, I'd rather we say something that focuses specifically on how this
issue affects the Debian project and distribution, rather than a general
political statement (but since I don't think it's necessary to say
anything, I'm not willing to draft text).

> The debian project has a process for making statements.  If people don't
> like that, there's a way to remove or limit the power in future.

I don't want to remove the ability to make statements in particular, only
to argue that the original proposed statement isn't a good idea.

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


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