On Sun, 2002-04-07 at 22:40, Joseph Carter wrote: > > This should have been dealt with sooner. But the past three times the FDL > has been discussed on this list, no concensus was reached. The only thing > we can be certain of is that there are enough problems with it to prevent > any consensus. > > Call me a pessimist if you like, but I suspect that we'll get no different > results this time. Nobody wants to bear the fallout of a conclusion > against the FDL, and no attempt to revise the DFSG has ever succeeded.
I don't know. Call me an optimist, but I seem to be hearing a rough consensus. What we as a project need to do, I think, is clarify this distinction between "software" and "non-software" somehow. Once that's done, I think that everyone seems to be agreed that "free non-software" can have some licensing limitations that are unacceptable for "free software", and that the GFDL is a "free non-software license". Indeed, the problem seems to be rooted in the question "is there anything besides software?" more than in the question "what is software and what isn't". > I expect the issue will eventually be dropped (again) without resolution > and either Debian will continue to cover its ears and hum real loud, > unless someone is foolish enough to believe that they can gather a > supermajority of the project to modify the DFSG. I think we're guaranteed to not resolve it this time around; solving this would be too much of a distraction from woody. I think, though, that this should be the first order of business around, say, May 7 or so. (See? I really am an optimist. :-) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]