On 8/1/05, Michael Poole <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > All rambling and ad hominem attacks aside, DFSG analysis is not at all > about risk; it is about determining whether or not the license imposes > non-free restrictions or requirements on licensees. Argument from > authority will not change that, particularly since it is unclear that > anyone has -- or will ever have -- relevant experience in law or > fiduciary duty you specified.
One man's rambling is another man's grounding in real-world law. As for "ad hominem attacks", I did say that "not all debian-legal participants deserve to be tarred with that brush" -- so it's only an attack on _you_ if you think that "ideologues with brazen contempt for real-world law" fits _you_. (The "self-selected" and "no fiduciary relationship" bits are, I think, uncontroversial -- does anyone here feel like asserting that they are legally liable for the consequences of decisions influenced by d-l discussions?) I did have a couple of conspicuous individuals in mind, and you were not one of them; if you can't think of anyone around here whom the shoe fits a lot better than it fits you, my apologies. In any case, if you want to say that risk management is outside "DFSG analysis" (whatever that is), that's fine; but then you shouldn't be equating "DFSG-free" with "OK, ftpmasters, let it into the archive". A formalist attitude towards the DFSG, in which every objection to an upload has to map into one of its clauses, would probably even strike Justice Clarence Thomas as taking strict constructionism a little too far. Call citations to the actual law in one jurisdiction or another "argument from authority" if you like, but if that kind of authority isn't relevant to debian-legal then I hope that debian-legal isn't very relevant to Debian. Cheers, - Michael
