Re: Proposed vote on issue of the day: trademarks and free software
Gunnar Wolf <gwolf@gwolf.org> writes:
> We, Debian, are often seen as among the groups that most takes care of
> the Free Software-definig freedoms. Many people will base their stand on
> a Free Software-ish project according to what we say. It is not the
> first time this happens. And it won't be the first time that Debian's
> probably-extremist positions cause (or help in causing) a change for
> good in another project's policies.
I don't entirely disagree with this, but I think it's the most effective
when it's firmly based on a specific thing that Debian can or cannot do.
For example, the original trademark dispute with Mozilla that caused us to
rename Firefox to Iceweasel was, I think, correctly handled on the Debian
side and might have been a useful place to issue a project statement
explaining why we considered Mozilla's stance unacceptable. (History is
proving the Firefox maintainers correct.)
What I'm concerned about is jumping in where we're not directly involved
and can't therefore argue easily based on specific problems that we're
seeing as part of putting together a distribution, particularly if we may
not have all the facts.
I don't like uninvolved parties making political statements outside of the
arena of free software either, so I suppose I'm arguing from a general
personal belief. Doubtless other people disagree. For example, I find
more supportive of local associations issuing statements about things that
aren't directly relevant to them extremely annoying and would tend to stop
supporting associations that did that, and MJ from his response obviously
disagrees. I'm not sure that I'm likely to change anyone's mind at that
level of belief and that sort of disagreement probably comes down to
voting and seeing which attitude about when such statements are
appropriate is more popular.
I'm much more comfortable if we can issue a statement grounded in our own
experiences and expertise and directly related to Debian's core mission,
rather than a general political statement about free software. (And to
reiterate, the second proposed wording is closer to that than the first.)
> Debian _does_ have a head and documented procedures. So, Wouter is
> proposing going through such a procedure. He is not stating it
> officially in the name of us all!
Oh, sure, yes. I'm certainly not accusing Wouter of that.
>> 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. I
>> think it's rather unfair for you to imply that I have my head in the
>> sand simply because I would prefer to have the organizations to which I
>> belong that specialize in that sort of thing doing that work rather
>> than having Debian do it (poorly, since it's not what Debian is good
>> at).
> ...Try not to take it as a personal offense. We are also very good on
> erupting flamewars when they are not needed! :)
Good point.
I overreacted to Wouter's phrasing and apologize to Wouter and to the rest
of the mailing list. I should have read past that to the intended
argument.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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