On 3/13/06, Glenn Maynard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Mon, Mar 13, 2006 at 10:34:16PM -0500, Raul Miller wrote: > > On 3/13/06, Glenn Maynard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Debian has labelled a license with serious, onerous practical problems > > > free. ... > > I see two issues mentioned in other messages, the DRM issue (the > > "technical measures" clause), and the Opaque issue. > > > > Are those what you are talking about? Or are there other problems? > > Those are the big, simple ones.
But how are they serious? For the DRM issue to be significant, we'd have to have reason to believe that a judge would not be familiar with the legal meaning of the phrase "technical measures" in the context of copyright law. Other meanings of "technical measures" would lead to ludicrous conclusions (for example: once we've started giving someone a copy we must keep spamming copies, never being allowed to stop). And the Opaque issue only applies when the transparent copies are not distributed. It's simple enough to include the transparent copies in any .deb, and it's simple enough to file an RC bug report against any package with GFDL'd content which doesn't include the transparent copies. I can understand the calling these issues, but they need not be any more serious than any of a variety of other issues which Debian deals with on a regular basis. As for the other issues you call out, I don't think this GR really says much about them: Where these elements are invariant, the GR doesn't say anything about GFDL licensed documents which contain them. Where they're not invariant, the restrictions imposed are not any more obnoxious than practical restrictions on software for non-legal reasons, or practical restrictions on patch clause dfsg software. > The "identify you as the publisher" bit seems to fail the Dissident > test; at least on a natural reading (perhaps not a legal one), that > seems to prohibit using an alias. "equally prominent and visible" seems > to prohibit stylization; preventing me from publishing a modified > version with a cool stylized title page seems like a patent violation > of DFSG#3 to me. (I have no idea what the *purpose* of that restriction > is--it's not like the title can't be changed; on the contrary, 4a mandates > changing it.) It's never been clear to me that the Dissident test is a accurate reflection of the DFSG. I can think of many ways for a dissident to work around such problems (except for dissidents who more slavishly follow their government's suggestions than most non-dissidents -- but I don't think that's a serious issue). > The degree of some of these problems is debatable (none of this is new), > but in sum, I can't honestly call this "free". What bothers me almost > as much is that I havn't seen cohesive responses to these or other problems. > I can deal with rational disagreement: "this is why we don't think this > restriction is a problem"--but we don't seem to have that. Instead, we've > been handed down the result, and we're expected to use IK or something to > force-fit the DFSG to reach the desired outcome. Maybe none of this is new, but aside from the Opaque and DRM issues, none of the proposals or supporting material on vote.debian.org indicate that any of these issues are to be taken seriously. -- Raul