On 2003-09-12 17:43:49 +0100 Fedor Zuev <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Since Robinson, Nerode and other free beer zealots does not
show, AFAIK, any clear-cut principles of freedom (and Robinson
explicitly declines that DFSG is a sufficient definition), any
attempt of FSF to make compromise with them will be pure waste of
time.
I'm curious: I have been on this list since early this year and have
read a significant proportion of the last two years of archived
messages, but I have not yet got the impression that the people you
name are "free beer zealots". Rather, they seem to be "freedom
zealots" if anything. Do you have any evidence to support your
description?
I thought DFSG was widely regarded as a toolbox of checks to perform.
The explanatory wording on the social contract page (that is, the
additional description rather than the actual terms) confuses matters
a little. Any group using the DFSG unchanged as a definition of free
software will surely encounter numerous problems.
For many of us, the principals are the FSF's "Free Software
Definition". That is a better *definition* (although it suffers from
a verbatim-reproduction-only copyright licence and an apparent retcon
about what is "software") but it is not a set of tests. We would need
to design tests based upon it. Recreate the DFSG? I suspect it would
look like the DFSG, but I could be wrong.
For comparison, it would be interesting to know exactly what tests FSF
perform when classifying licences. I do not think that info is
published anywhere at present. Past statements have been along the
lines of "sb meditates upon it and then decides".
--
MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know.
http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ gopher://g.towers.org.uk/ [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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