On Sat, May 22, 2004 at 10:57:30PM -0400, Walter Landry wrote: > I'm not going to follow arguments that are clearly erroneous. If you > would like to pursue an analysis that supposes that the Release > Manager was acting within his purview, go ahead. But I don't see how > it can be supported either by historical record or logic.
I'll address your last sentence, since it seems to be at least as erroneous as the release manager's prior release policy. Here's the relevant announcement: http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2004/04/msg00074.html Here's the prior text of the first clause of the social contract: 1. Debian Will Remain 100% Free Software We promise to keep the Debian GNU/Linux Distribution entirely free software. As there are many definitions of free software, we include the guidelines we use to determine if software is "free" below. We will support our users who develop and run non-free software on Debian, but we will never make the system depend on an item of non-free software. It's clear to me that the release manager was drawing a distinction between "software" and "copyrighted works distributable in digital form". Under the new social contract, he believes this distinction is disallowed, because our free software guidelines are declared to be the standard for judgment for all works in the debian system. In other words, before the release of the new social contract, there was ambiguity as to which definition of "software" was intended in the DFSG -- the release manager picked the most typical definition, and this was supported in his opinion by historical practice. With the release of the new social contract, it's clear to him that this is not the correct interpretation. That people are not arguing the opposite reinforces that belief. Note that he also believes himself to have been in error -- he has stated as much. The specific error was that he did not involve interested parties from the rest of the project in the formation of his release policy. In other words -- the problem from his point of view is not that his policy was implausible, but that it was made in isolation. [Thus, his insistance, in discussions based on the premise that future release policies will be made in by him, that future release policy decisions have been delegated to the technical committee.] [[I'm assuming that my statements about AJ, above, are reasonably close to accurate -- I'm sure he'll correct me within a few days if I've said anything too outrageously incorrect.]] Thanks, -- Raul -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
