Sunnanvind Fenderson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > Or, we could point out that it's the Debian Free *Software* > > Guidelines, not the Debian free-everything-in-the-world guidelines. I
> Isn't that exactly what this is? No, this goes way way beyond that... > I do think your informal guidelines are clear enough. But Branden's > are cooler, they look more arcane... but then again, yours are more > taoistically elegant. Oh, choices, choices. I think Branden's (despite his plea at the end) will end up getting interpreted as narrow legal rules, and we will see people (perhaps with pseudonymous initials JG) saying noise like "this meets the letter of the rule, why are you complaining". The danger with rules that attempt to cover every case is that they invariably will not, and you therefore end up tying your hands and doing the wrong thing in the corner case--or--you just go ahead and break the rule. So my proposed alternative is deliberately structured to convey to other developers the rough consensus that we have achieved here, without trying to go beyond that and give a rigid definition. That way, cooperative developers *will* be able to figure out what's allowed and what's not. And, as a practical matter, they will ask debian-legal just like they always have. Thomas
