Re: Desert island test
2008/2/28, Sean Kellogg [EMAIL PROTECTED]: An actual cite to the DFSG, but it is from before my time... of course, there is no explanation of how a licenses in which any changes must be sent to some specific place violates: 1. Free redistribution. 1. Free Redistribution: The license of a Debian component may not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software [...] You are restricting people who lack the ability to send the changes back, put in a web page, or just being in a desert island. If you happened to have a plane accident (ref: Lost) and end up in a desert place unconnected to the rest of the world, and happened to have a computer and a Debian DVD there, you wouldn't be allowed -according to the license- to modify it or distribute it among the rest of the people in that place. That also applies to the dissident test, if you're in a country (dictatorship or so) where distributing some software is severely punished for some reason, you wouldn't be able to comply with those license terms (you couldn't set up a web page and put the program online), and thus you couldn't give a copy of it to your neighbor next door. You're restricting some people from selling or giving away the software. I hope it's clearer now. Miry -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
inaccurate upstream copyright notice
Dear legal aware folks, I have recently adopted [1]gimp-gap. While reviewing it, I noticed that the copyright notice written on almost every file is inaccurate. It reads THE GIMP -- an image manipulation program Copyright (C) 1995 Spencer Kimball and Peter Mattis. etc.: standard GPL notice follows Everything in there looks wrong: - the software is gimp-gap, a plug-in for GIMP, not GIMP itself; - the changelog spans 2002—2008; - the authors are not those listed above. I sent a e-mail to one of the authors raising my concerns and asking him to clarify the copyright, in particular the copyright holder (is their intent to yield their copyright to the orignal GIMP authors?) He answered basically that the license itself is clearly stated (which is true), and that since it is GPL, the copyright is unimportant and I shouldn't care. Now, should I? If yes, could you give me a couple of arguments I could use to convince the authors to do something about it? [1] http://packages.debian.org/sid/gimp-gap Best regards, Thibaut. PGP.sig Description: Ceci est une signature électronique PGP
Re: Questions about liblouis
Marco d'Itri [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 02:29:05PM -0800, Eitan Isaacson wrote: 3. The translation tables that are read at run-time are considered part of this code and are under the terms of the GPL. Any changes to these tables and any additional tables that are created for use by this code must be made publicly available. This fails the desert island test, and so the package is non-free. The desert island test is just something which was invented a few years ago by some debian-legal@ posters and is not part of the DFSG. It seems it's first posted as a test of whether something meets DFSG 1-3 by Thomas Bushnell, BSG on 2002-01-01T22:39Z. It's interesting to see the complete lack of controversy then, but that's hardly conclusive. According to some people, debian-legal was controlled by Evil in 2002 (before my time on any debian lists AFAICR, so I don't know). Ultimately, is hacking on a desert island (or other inaccessible place) a field of endeavour we mustn't discriminate against? I believe so. Anyway, this sentence just says that these tables are licensed under the terms of the GPL, which makes them obviously free. Please read the licence properly. There are two sentences there. The second one says publicly available which is at best an unclear lawyerbomb and at worst GPL-incompatible. Also, it covers any additional tables which may contaminate other software (DFSG 9). Hope that helps, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Desert island test (was: Questions about liblouis)
Sean Kellogg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And not grounded in the specific language of the DFSG but rather a shared aspiration of what the document ought to say. I have never seen an attempt to tie the three tests to specific points and thus it is impossible to debate and discuss the test themselves... it has become assumed knowledge. I posted one elsewhere in this thread. Someone else can search the archives for the other two. It's not hard, but I don't remember their names. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Desert island test (was: Questions about liblouis)
Le mercredi 27 février 2008 à 18:13 -0800, Sean Kellogg a écrit : And not grounded in the specific language of the DFSG but rather a shared aspiration of what the document ought to say. I have never seen an attempt to tie the three tests to specific points and thus it is impossible to debate and discuss the test themselves... it has become assumed knowledge. The tests are not meant to be extra guidelines, nor reformulations specific guidelines, nor assumed knowledge. As the name says, they are tests: extreme situations in which you can test how the DFSG (all of them) apply to a piece of software in a specific case. -- .''`. : :' : We are debian.org. Lower your prices, surrender your code. `. `' We will add your hardware and software distinctiveness to `-our own. Resistance is futile. signature.asc Description: Ceci est une partie de message numériquement signée
Re: Desert island test
On Friday 29 February 2008 02:21:51 am Miriam Ruiz wrote: 2008/2/28, Sean Kellogg [EMAIL PROTECTED]: An actual cite to the DFSG, but it is from before my time... of course, there is no explanation of how a licenses in which any changes must be sent to some specific place violates: 1. Free redistribution. 1. Free Redistribution: The license of a Debian component may not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software [...] You are restricting people who lack the ability to send the changes back, put in a web page, or just being in a desert island. If you happened to have a plane accident (ref: Lost) and end up in a desert place unconnected to the rest of the world, and happened to have a computer and a Debian DVD there, you wouldn't be allowed -according to the license- to modify it or distribute it among the rest of the people in that place. That also applies to the dissident test, if you're in a country (dictatorship or so) where distributing some software is severely punished for some reason, you wouldn't be able to comply with those license terms (you couldn't set up a web page and put the program online), and thus you couldn't give a copy of it to your neighbor next door. You're restricting some people from selling or giving away the software. Well, I'm not 100% convinced I'm up for a fight about the tests themselves, but I'll parry this particular argument and we'll see where it takes us. The provision that I must post changes does not restrict ones ability to sell or give away the software, it simply imposes a constraint. This constraint is in no way different than the constrain imposed by the GPL that source code must accompany the binary. Allow me to propose my own convenient test, which I refer to as the Bloody Murderer Test: While walking down the street, you are accosted by a a deranged lunatic hell-bent on the destruction of the Free Software Foundation with particular emphasis on undermining the GPL. He tells you that if you distribute any code licensed under the GPL with the corresponding source code, he will hunt you down and kill you in cold blood. If we follow the logic of the Desert Island test (or the even more fun Dissident test), we plainly see that the GPL fails the Bloody Murderer Test. Or, we can say, the license isn't what is dictating the distributability (probably not an actual word...), but rather, it is the individuals situation that is doing the dictating. I, for one, don't believe debian should be in the business of ensuring every license covers every possible scenario a debian user might possibly, some day, find themselves in. -Sean -- Sean Kellogg e: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Desert island test (was: Questions about liblouis)
On Friday 29 February 2008 05:29:19 am Josselin Mouette wrote: Le mercredi 27 février 2008 à 18:13 -0800, Sean Kellogg a écrit : And not grounded in the specific language of the DFSG but rather a shared aspiration of what the document ought to say. I have never seen an attempt to tie the three tests to specific points and thus it is impossible to debate and discuss the test themselves... it has become assumed knowledge. The tests are not meant to be extra guidelines, nor reformulations specific guidelines, nor assumed knowledge. As the name says, they are tests: extreme situations in which you can test how the DFSG (all of them) apply to a piece of software in a specific case. There is a saying in the legal profession... bad facts lead to bad decisions. As a developer, this was hard for me to swallow. Any judicial decision should be able to handle any set of facts and universality should rain supreme. But the more case law I read the more I understood. When a ruling is first handed down for a novel issue it sets the baseline by which all subsequent cases will be judged. If the baseline is established for the worst case scenario, you get a decision that is so hardline, so reactionary, that the decision is simply unfair for those whose facts aren't as egregious. We see this all the time with U.S. Supreme Court cases... an issue organization will select the most sympathetic plaintiffs from a group of potential plaintiffs and use their situation as the means to persue a judicial remedy. As an example, you don't fight for p2p rights using Pirate Bay as your plaintiff, you use Project Gutenberg. The problem is the tests try to give us a judicial decision using the worst possible facts and then say: this is the baseline by which all subsequent decisions must be made. I, for one, am thankful the world beyond debian has rejected reactionary rule making of that nature. I don't have a lot of hope for debian though, as it's an organization made up of developers... insert obligatory quote about hammers and nails here. But, everynow and then, I figure it's worth making a little noise. -Sean -- Sean Kellogg e: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Desert island test
On Friday 29 February 2008 12:39:58 am Ben Finney wrote: Sean Kellogg [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The response implies that -legal is the final arbiter... which gives the impression that -legal arbitrates (which it doesn't), that it is final (which it isn't), and best of all, that it is always right (debatable?). I can only say in response that I get *none* of those impressions when I read the same text. Even with your explication above in mind, I can't see those impressions on a second reading of the same text. I really don't know where you're getting that from. I appriciate your attempt to see my perspective. Do you at least see why the answer no is, at best, incomplete? -- Sean Kellogg e: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Desert island test
On Friday 29 February 2008 12:21:58 pm Mike Hommey wrote: On Fri, Feb 29, 2008 at 12:09:33PM -0800, Sean Kellogg wrote: On Friday 29 February 2008 02:21:51 am Miriam Ruiz wrote: 2008/2/28, Sean Kellogg [EMAIL PROTECTED]: An actual cite to the DFSG, but it is from before my time... of course, there is no explanation of how a licenses in which any changes must be sent to some specific place violates: 1. Free redistribution. 1. Free Redistribution: The license of a Debian component may not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software [...] You are restricting people who lack the ability to send the changes back, put in a web page, or just being in a desert island. If you happened to have a plane accident (ref: Lost) and end up in a desert place unconnected to the rest of the world, and happened to have a computer and a Debian DVD there, you wouldn't be allowed -according to the license- to modify it or distribute it among the rest of the people in that place. That also applies to the dissident test, if you're in a country (dictatorship or so) where distributing some software is severely punished for some reason, you wouldn't be able to comply with those license terms (you couldn't set up a web page and put the program online), and thus you couldn't give a copy of it to your neighbor next door. You're restricting some people from selling or giving away the software. Well, I'm not 100% convinced I'm up for a fight about the tests themselves, but I'll parry this particular argument and we'll see where it takes us. The provision that I must post changes does not restrict ones ability to sell or give away the software, it simply imposes a constraint. This constraint is in no way different than the constrain imposed by the GPL that source code must accompany the binary. Allow me to propose my own convenient test, which I refer to as the Bloody Murderer Test: While walking down the street, you are accosted by a a deranged lunatic hell-bent on the destruction of the Free Software Foundation with particular emphasis on undermining the GPL. He tells you that if you distribute any code licensed under the GPL with the corresponding source code, he will hunt you down and kill you in cold blood. If we follow the logic of the Desert Island test (or the even more fun Dissident test), we plainly see that the GPL fails the Bloody Murderer Test. Or, we can say, the license isn't what is dictating the distributability (probably not an actual word...), but rather, it is the individuals situation that is doing the dictating. I, for one, don't believe debian should be in the business of ensuring every license covers every possible scenario a debian user might possibly, some day, find themselves in. You're taking it in the wrong order. The GPL doesn't forbid you to distribute the code because of the bloody murderer. The dissident and the desert island tests are about restrictions *inside* the license, related to some situations. Here, you just expose a situation. Huh? The restriction in the Desert Island test is if you make changes you must contribute them back... in the Bloody Murderer Test the restriction is if you distribute you must also provide source. The restrictions are the same: if I take step A I must also take step B. For the purposes of logical analysis, the test are indistinguishable: 1) a step A requires step B relationship 2) an assumption that step A is entirely voluntary 3) an external situation that makes step B impossible -Sean -- Sean Kellogg c: 831.818.6940e: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Desert island test
On Fri, Feb 29, 2008 at 12:09:33PM -0800, Sean Kellogg wrote: On Friday 29 February 2008 02:21:51 am Miriam Ruiz wrote: 2008/2/28, Sean Kellogg [EMAIL PROTECTED]: An actual cite to the DFSG, but it is from before my time... of course, there is no explanation of how a licenses in which any changes must be sent to some specific place violates: 1. Free redistribution. 1. Free Redistribution: The license of a Debian component may not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software [...] You are restricting people who lack the ability to send the changes back, put in a web page, or just being in a desert island. If you happened to have a plane accident (ref: Lost) and end up in a desert place unconnected to the rest of the world, and happened to have a computer and a Debian DVD there, you wouldn't be allowed -according to the license- to modify it or distribute it among the rest of the people in that place. That also applies to the dissident test, if you're in a country (dictatorship or so) where distributing some software is severely punished for some reason, you wouldn't be able to comply with those license terms (you couldn't set up a web page and put the program online), and thus you couldn't give a copy of it to your neighbor next door. You're restricting some people from selling or giving away the software. Well, I'm not 100% convinced I'm up for a fight about the tests themselves, but I'll parry this particular argument and we'll see where it takes us. The provision that I must post changes does not restrict ones ability to sell or give away the software, it simply imposes a constraint. This constraint is in no way different than the constrain imposed by the GPL that source code must accompany the binary. Allow me to propose my own convenient test, which I refer to as the Bloody Murderer Test: While walking down the street, you are accosted by a a deranged lunatic hell-bent on the destruction of the Free Software Foundation with particular emphasis on undermining the GPL. He tells you that if you distribute any code licensed under the GPL with the corresponding source code, he will hunt you down and kill you in cold blood. If we follow the logic of the Desert Island test (or the even more fun Dissident test), we plainly see that the GPL fails the Bloody Murderer Test. Or, we can say, the license isn't what is dictating the distributability (probably not an actual word...), but rather, it is the individuals situation that is doing the dictating. I, for one, don't believe debian should be in the business of ensuring every license covers every possible scenario a debian user might possibly, some day, find themselves in. You're taking it in the wrong order. The GPL doesn't forbid you to distribute the code because of the bloody murderer. The dissident and the desert island tests are about restrictions *inside* the license, related to some situations. Here, you just expose a situation. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: inaccurate upstream copyright notice
On Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:08:28 +0100 Thibaut Paumard wrote: [...] He answered basically that the license itself is clearly stated (which is true), and that since it is GPL, the copyright is unimportant and I shouldn't care. Now, should I? If yes, could you give me a couple of arguments I could use to convince the authors to do something about it? One argument could be that the GPL itself requires that appropriate copyright notices accompany the work. See GPLv2, Section 1, which grants you the permission to copy and distribute (verbatim) copies of the source code | provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy | an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; I hope this helps. My standardized disclaimers: IANAL, TINLA, IANADD, TINASOTODP. -- http://frx.netsons.org/progs/scripts/refresh-pubring.html New! Version 0.6 available! What? See for yourself! . Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgp9nGPH4vTOp.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Desert island test
On Fri, Feb 29, 2008 at 12:09:33PM -0800, Sean Kellogg wrote: The provision that I must post changes does not restrict ones ability to sell or give away the software, it simply imposes a constraint. This constraint is in no way different than the constrain imposed by the GPL that source code must accompany the binary. Allow me to propose my own convenient test, which I refer to as the Bloody Murderer Test: What are the definitions you're using here to distinguish between a restriction and a constraint? I'm inclined to regard the GPL's requirement for source redistribution as a restriction, as well. Qualitatively, the only line I can draw between the GPL requirement, and other requirements that are considered non-free (all the way down the spectrum), is that the GPL's requirement is a minimal, necessary evil for encouraging the growth of Free Software. Well, that and the fact that the GPL is explicitly named free in the DFSG. I don't think we should start claiming that the GPL is non-free, but unfortunately I don't see much of a bright line separating the GPL from licenses with further restrictions. Yet historically, folks in Debian were agreed that the GPL was a free license, and postcardware licenses were not. While walking down the street, you are accosted by a a deranged lunatic hell-bent on the destruction of the Free Software Foundation with particular emphasis on undermining the GPL. He tells you that if you distribute any code licensed under the GPL with the corresponding source code, he will hunt you down and kill you in cold blood. If we follow the logic of the Desert Island test (or the even more fun Dissident test), we plainly see that the GPL fails the Bloody Murderer Test. Or, we can say, the license isn't what is dictating the distributability (probably not an actual word...), but rather, it is the individuals situation that is doing the dictating. I, for one, don't believe debian should be in the business of ensuring every license covers every possible scenario a debian user might possibly, some day, find themselves in. The dissident and desert island tests are proxies for real circumstances that affect millions or billions of people in the world. Those of us who work on Debian (predominantly affluent and living in North America, Europe, or the Pacific Rim) may all have wireless antennas in our skulls, but high-speed Internet access is far from ubiquitous. There are plenty of parts of Africa and Asia where LANs are possible, but Internet access is non-existent. Requirements to host changes on a public webserver, or to send them to a central location, are insurmountable obstacles in these circumstances; people should not have to choose between license compliance and being able to modify the code in Debian for their needs as a consequence of where they were born. Anyway, applying the same reasoning as was used in the Dissident test, the GPL still passes the Bloody Murderer test because the GPL doesn't require that you disclose to Brett Glass^W^W the lunatic that you're distributing code under that license. I don't think Debian is responsible for making sure that a license permits the user to exercise his rights in the face of insane local authorities; but I do think we're responsible for ensuring that licenses we bless as free aren't discriminatory based on geography, income, status of diplomatic relations with the United States, etc. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. Ubuntu Developerhttp://www.debian.org/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Desert island test
Sean Kellogg [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Friday 29 February 2008 12:39:58 am Ben Finney wrote: I appriciate your attempt to see my perspective. Do you at least see why the answer no is, at best, incomplete? In short, no. The answer given is a complete and correct answer to the question posed. The situation you present, of working with the Debian project to get a DD to raise a GR and have a majority of DDs vote a particular way, doesn't seem to fit the meaning of compel Debian to [do something] at all. That would be like arguing that, by working with my country's legislature and convincing the required people to do the required things, of which all of them have freedom of action to refuse, that I can compel the country to accept my law. So, the question Is there any way I can compel Debian to accept my license as free? remains answerable with No. -- \“If it ain't bust don't fix it is a very sound principle and | `\ remains so despite the fact that I have slavishly ignored it | _o__) all my life.” —Douglas Adams | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Desert island test
On Thu, 28 Feb 2008 23:42:06 -0800 Sean Kellogg wrote: On Thursday 28 February 2008 04:09:34 pm Francesco Poli wrote: [...] So to conclude, I think it is actually true that there's no way for someone to *compel* Debian to accept a given license as free. The question being asked is Is there any way for me to compel Debian to accept that my license is free? and the answer is convince a DD to propose a GR, get it seconded, and convince the sufficient number of DDs to support your proposal. But that is *not* a way to compel Debian to accept the license as free. It's a way to *persuade* Debian (to be more precise: the Debian Project) to accept the license as free. I trust you will see how this is strikingly different from no. The page makes it sound as if -legal is the final arbiter, which is simply untrue. Debian-legal is not the final arbiter, but I don't see how the page could imply it is... The fact that the questioner cannot vote (assuming they are not a DD, which is not implied by the question) does not deny the existence of an avenue to compel, it simply means it requires the assistance of others to do so, which is the case with pretty much every activity I engage in every moment of every day. Look, I cannot stress it more than this: if you *convince* the majority of the members of an organization that the organization should do something, you are *not* *compelling* the organization to do that thing; you're just *persuading* the organization to do it... I cannot compel my neighbor to stop throwing his trash into my yard, but if I go to a judge and get an order for a police officer to do something about it, I very much doubt my neighbor is going to quibble over who, exactly, is doing the compelling. But there's no law that compels Debian to accept a license as free, so you cannot go to a judge and get an order for a police officer. It's up to the Debian Project to decide if it accepts a license as free. If you go through the GR method, you are not compelling Debian, you're persuading it. In your example, the GR method corresponds to going to your neighbor and suggest that he/she proposes a vote among his/her family members to decide if they want to stop throwing trash into your yard or else go on doing so. You don't have vote right, but you obviously can try and persuade your neighbor's family members to vote for stop throwing. You're not compelling anyone, you're trying to persuade them! You can even try to get vote right... by becoming a family member of your neighbor: you can go through the NM, ooops, NB (= New Boyfriend) process and finally get married with your neighbor's daughter. At that point you could get vote right, but you still have to persuade your (new) relatives to vote for stop throwing: again, it's persuasion, not compelling! Have I to repeat my usual disclaimers? IANAL, TINLA, IANADD, TINASOTODP. -- http://frx.netsons.org/progs/scripts/refresh-pubring.html New! Version 0.6 available! What? See for yourself! . Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgpCJ4tiZ2je8.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Desert island test
On Fri, 29 Feb 2008, Mike Hommey wrote: You're taking it in the wrong order. The GPL doesn't forbid you to distribute the code because of the bloody murderer. The dissident and the desert island tests are about restrictions *inside* the license, related to some situations. Here, you just expose a situation. The GPL prohibits you from distributing the program unless you do something (distributing code) that the bloody murderer keeps you from doing. The mandatory changes license prohibits you from distributing the program unless you do something (send the changes back) that being stuck on an island keeps you from doing. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: inaccurate upstream copyright notice
Thibaut Paumard [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: He answered basically that the license itself is clearly stated (which is true), and that since it is GPL, the copyright is unimportant and I shouldn't care. The copyright statement, if clearly false, AFAICT means that the license statement is null, leaving the recipient with no license at all. A copyright statement is only effective if it's a statement by the copyright holder. The best way to show that is to have the license statement directly accompany a correct copyright statement in the standard format, including Copyright, years copyright began in that work, and the correct name of the copyright holder. -- \ I went to the museum where they had all the heads and arms | `\ from the statues that are in all the other museums. -- Steven | _o__) Wright | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Desert island test
On Friday 29 February 2008 01:25:43 pm Francesco Poli wrote: On Thu, 28 Feb 2008 23:42:06 -0800 Sean Kellogg wrote: On Thursday 28 February 2008 04:09:34 pm Francesco Poli wrote: [...] So to conclude, I think it is actually true that there's no way for someone to *compel* Debian to accept a given license as free. The question being asked is Is there any way for me to compel Debian to accept that my license is free? and the answer is convince a DD to propose a GR, get it seconded, and convince the sufficient number of DDs to support your proposal. But that is *not* a way to compel Debian to accept the license as free. It's a way to *persuade* Debian (to be more precise: the Debian Project) to accept the license as free. Fair enough. I trust you will see how this is strikingly different from no. The page makes it sound as if -legal is the final arbiter, which is simply untrue. Debian-legal is not the final arbiter, but I don't see how the page could imply it is... Quote: People on debian-legal don't seem to agree though. There is no conversation about how the opinion of -legal (if one can even say there is such a thing) is just one voice in the process. There is no conversation about the ftp-masters or about the GR process. It presents -legal as your only chance and if you miss out there, tough luck. The fact that the questioner cannot vote (assuming they are not a DD, which is not implied by the question) does not deny the existence of an avenue to compel, it simply means it requires the assistance of others to do so, which is the case with pretty much every activity I engage in every moment of every day. Look, I cannot stress it more than this: if you *convince* the majority of the members of an organization that the organization should do something, you are *not* *compelling* the organization to do that thing; you're just *persuading* the organization to do it... I cannot compel my neighbor to stop throwing his trash into my yard, but if I go to a judge and get an order for a police officer to do something about it, I very much doubt my neighbor is going to quibble over who, exactly, is doing the compelling. But there's no law that compels Debian to accept a license as free, so you cannot go to a judge and get an order for a police officer. It's up to the Debian Project to decide if it accepts a license as free. If you go through the GR method, you are not compelling Debian, you're persuading it. In your example, the GR method corresponds to going to your neighbor and suggest that he/she proposes a vote among his/her family members to decide if they want to stop throwing trash into your yard or else go on doing so. You don't have vote right, but you obviously can try and persuade your neighbor's family members to vote for stop throwing. You're not compelling anyone, you're trying to persuade them! You can even try to get vote right... by becoming a family member of your neighbor: you can go through the NM, ooops, NB (= New Boyfriend) process and finally get married with your neighbor's daughter. At that point you could get vote right, but you still have to persuade your (new) relatives to vote for stop throwing: again, it's persuasion, not compelling! Thanks for playing along with my annology :) But seriously... the GR compels Debian (faceless organization that it is) to do something it is not doing of it's own accord and is, in a way, overturning -legal. But my crticism of the page remains... there is simply no discussion of alternatives and I for one don't accept that by using the word compel instead of convince the author gets away with not mention other avenues. -Sean -- Sean Kellogg e: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Desert island test
On Friday 29 February 2008 01:51:05 pm Ben Finney wrote: Sean Kellogg [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Friday 29 February 2008 12:39:58 am Ben Finney wrote: I appriciate your attempt to see my perspective. Do you at least see why the answer no is, at best, incomplete? In short, no. The answer given is a complete and correct answer to the question posed. The situation you present, of working with the Debian project to get a DD to raise a GR and have a majority of DDs vote a particular way, doesn't seem to fit the meaning of compel Debian to [do something] at all. That would be like arguing that, by working with my country's legislature and convincing the required people to do the required things, of which all of them have freedom of action to refuse, that I can compel the country to accept my law. So, the question Is there any way I can compel Debian to accept my license as free? remains answerable with No. I honestly don't know how to respond in a way that doesn't get me an identical response back. So, how about I just say, it's a great FAQ that is totally open and transparent and there are not a single ligament critique that could ever be leveled at it. -- Sean Kellogg e: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: inaccurate upstream copyright notice
* Thibaut Paumard: He answered basically that the license itself is clearly stated (which is true), and that since it is GPL, the copyright is unimportant and I shouldn't care. I think this isn't that far from the truth, the GPL isn't usually interpreted in a way that requires proper attribution. The actual license test seems to say otherwise, but existing developer practice and the existence of the Chinese Dissident test (which the attribution requirement in the GPL fails, depending on what you means in that context) clearly favors licensing statements over a clean copyright record. This raises some interesting philosophical questions such as, Can a computer program considered Free Software even if its copyright status cannot be established in court? Irrespective of the license, lack of proper attribution can be a violation of moral rights, as far as they apply to software, but when the original author committed, it is hard to see how to make any claims based on that (venire contra factum proprium, as it's called in German). -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
