On Thu, Sep 18, 2003 at 02:15:50PM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: > On Thu, 18 Sep 2003, Florian Weimer wrote: > > Anthony DeRobertis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > >> And we very clearly treat everything in Debian as software (see the > >> first clause of the Social Contract). > > > > Not quite. Texts of licenses and logos typically fail DFSG tests. > > The text of licenses (and copyrights) under which a package is > licensed should be the only things in Debian that do not meet the > DFSG, at least as far as I'm concerned.
Yes, I was thinking about this the other night. Would it be useful to enumerate this as an exception? And, should it also be an exception for license/copyright texts that are not attached to a work? I'm thinking of the license texts in common-licenses. > > Lots of graphics (and probably some audio material, too) come in a > > form that can be considered "source code" (because it's not the > > preferred form of doing modifications, e.g. a flattened image vs. a > > layered one). > > If it's the only form available, then suddenly it's the prefered form > for modification. However, in cases like this, maintainers and > upstream authors should really attempt to keep the prefered form for > modification around. In cases where it hasn't been done, we should > work with upstream authors to make sure it happens in the future. Sure. I feel more relaxed about artistic works which aren't programs. For example, a graphic image's prefered form for modification may not even be software; it may be a physical medium such as a 'grafiti wall'. > > > And what about research papers? Do you want to ban them, too, even > > if they are directly relevant to one of Debian's packages and help to > > understand how the software works? > > Again, in cases where appropriate, we should have access to the > prefered form of modification for those research papers. If not, they > should merely be referenced so they can be retrieved. Research papers are easily software. Yes, I'm traditionalist. Software is anything that can be treated as a sequence of bits in a computer. Documentation is software. Ham sandwiches aren't. :)