Matthew Garrett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Brian Thomas Sniffen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> Matthew Garrett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >>> You don't appear to be arguing against the idea that debian-legal is >>> extreme compared to the rest of the project. >> >> I'm arguing that what you perceive as extremism is simply the presence >> of knowledge -- sure, the debian-legal regulars have opinions about >> licenses. The X Strike Force probably has opinions about windowing >> systems and weird architectures. That doesn't make XSF or D-L >> extremists, though. To characterize anyone with knowledge and the >> reasoned opinions that spring from it as an extremist is unwise; to >> dismiss them because of this extremism is to restrict yourself to the >> opinions of the unwise. > > So you believe that if we taught all developers about intricate > licensing issues, the number who would be of the opinion that DFSG 4 is > a mistake and that the GPL is only free because of DFSG 10 would > increase significantly?
Probably, though I think that, taken proportionally, you'd see a much larger increase in the former than the latter. That may be because I think that DFSG 4 doesn't allow surprising modifications, which are fundamental to freedom. > I don't wish to characterise people with knowledge and reasoned opinions > as extremists. I do wish to characterise people who believe that several > things that Debian accepts as free should be non-free as extremists. If > there is overlap between the two, that doesn't mean that I'm calling > them extremists because of their knowledge. Debian accepts several pieces of QPL'd software as free. I don't think the QPL is a free software license. Does that fact alone make me an extremist? Is anyone with a position on the GFDL an extremist, then, or just the losers? That really could have gone either way. -Brian -- Brian Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
