Ian Jackson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Jeremy Hankins writes ("Non-DD's in debian-legal"):
>> I'm not sure I understand this part, though. Do you think that folks >> like myself, who are not DD's, should not participate in the discussions >> on d-l? > > Actually, I think they should not participate, in general. I've given this a fair amount of thought. You make some good points, and some of them strike quite close to home for myself, so I clearly have to give them some weight. But I don't think you've got the whole picture here. > The arguments that are had on debian-legal about what is an acceptable > licence, and what principles these decisions should be based on, are > often very political. Political decisions in Debian should be taken > by DD's. This is the point that bothers me the most. It's certainly true that licensing decisions are in part political. But it's also the case that they are in part technical. Not in the sense of having to do with technology and computers, but in the sense of hinging upon particular details and specialized knowledge. It is quite possible to get a licensing issue empirically wrong, after all. This came up with the recent GR on the GFDL. There was a bit of discussion on d-l about how to interpret it: was it amending the DFSG, or specifying an interpretation for the GFDL? If it was the first, exactly what was the amendment, and why didn't it say it was amending anything? If it was the latter wasn't it a bit like legislating pi or outlawing the tides: an attempt to fix by legislative fiat something which we have no control over in the first place. In the end I think this was (sort of) resolved by interpreting the GFDL GR as specifying an interpretation, but only for the purposes of the DFSG. (Of course, as a political issue being discussed on d-l, this proves your point.) I'm not trying to re-raise the whole GFDL debate. But I do think it was an example of where Debian could go wrong by treating licensing issues as political issues. In the end, there's a real world out there with real judges and real courts, and we can't act as if they don't exist. It's certainly true that licensing issues are intensely political. And it's probably impossible to disentangle the politics from the technical (factual) issues. And Debian, as an organization, has a right to say that internal politics are internal, and not something for outsiders like myself to be party to. If that's the case, though, political lists should really be taken private, or posting limited to members, or whatever. Personally, I think that one of Debian's strengths is its openness, and willingness to have discussions in front of and with outsiders. Though naturally, I say that as an outsider. > Arguments about licences are phrased as if the questions are all > clear-cut and right-or-wrong, but actually usually they're matters of > interpretation where weight of numbers on one side or another ends up > often carrying the day. (`Am I really the only person who thinks this > is completely mad?' `No, but all the rest of them are too busy writing > software.') If they're busy writing software they're probably not up to speed on the technical/factual issues. So it's a fair question to ask whether their opinion is relevant. In the end that's a variation of "the lurkers support me." This is one of the most common accusations leveled against d-l: that the membership of d-l is skewed and not representative of Debian as a whole. If that's true there's not much d-l can do about it, of course, and the whole process of license evaluation should perhaps be rethought. The simplest solution, though, is for those who think d-l skewed to start participating. > The situation with non-DD's pontificating about what is and is not an > acceptable Free licence is mitigated somewhat by the fact that > debian-legal is only a talking shop and doesn't actually decide, but > as we've just seen, people (both people from debian-legal and > elsewhere) do seem to think that debian-legal is or ought to be where > these decisions are taken. I think what's concerning to most (it concerns me) is that people seem to be _avoiding_ d-l, presumably because they see it as invalid or corrupted by weirdos. That's indicative of a serious problem, because it means licensing issues aren't being discussed _at all_. As saddened as I would be if d-l went private, if doing so is the only way to solve that problem it's probably a good idea. > Discussions about licensing are different from most other kinds of > activity in Debian precisely because they're political and have a very > low barrier to entry. Picking up the slack in licence approval (if > indeed there is any slack) is not at all like picking up the slack in > maintenance of a particular package. To maintain a package you need a > clear technical head, a certain minimum time commitment, and the > results (good or bad) are clearly visible. Whereas anyone can blow > off hot air on a mailing list. You're partly correct, I think. Certainly in my own case, I've considered at various times becoming a DD, but decided I simply don't have the time to commit to the process. And it's true that on d-l I can go on a six-month hiatus without worrying about package bugs going unfixed & the like. On the other hand, if you're going to pick apart a license, you do need to spend some time getting up to speed. You do need to know something of what you're talking about, and a minimum time commitment. How that compares to your average package, I can't say. > But dismantling the or undermining the tie between political > decisionmaking in Debian to formal membership is not the answer. Political decision making is, of course, attached to membership in the form of voting rights. The question of whether political discussion should be as well is a question of a trade-off with openness. -- Jeremy Hankins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> PGP fingerprint: 748F 4D16 538E 75D6 8333 9E10 D212 B5ED 37D0 0A03 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]