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"AJT" => Anthony Towns <[email protected]> "CMC" => C.M. Connelly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> AJT> I imagine that the declaration of independence has little AJT> legal force, unlike the constitution. True, although the spirit of the Declaration certainly informs debates about the intentions of the Founders. AJT> In contrast, the social contract and the DFSG do affect AJT> our day to day workings, and are of more than historical AJT> interest. The Debian Manifesto seems a better analogy, AJT> to my mind. I wasn't aware of the Debian Manifesto (it doesn't seem to be on debian.org), but the Manifesto (I found it elsewhere) is much closer to the kind of document the Declaration of Independence is. My point was that if the section on non-free software in the Social Contract was tweaked to remove specifics about how Debian will support non-free software, the Social Contract could qualify for untouchable manifesto status. Whether that would be desirable is an open question. CMC> The U.S. Constitution contains rules that CMC> allow it to be *amended* (*not* modified, notice), AJT> From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]: AJT> Amend \A*mend"\ (&?;), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Amended; p. pr. & vb. AJT> To change or modify in any way for the better [...] You'd like the definition in the current ``standard'' (Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary) even better: 1: to put right; esp : to make emendations in (as a text) (Your definition is now number 2.) In any case, what I was thinking of was that the U.S. Constitution is not amended in the same way that U.S. law is -- laws are generally changed by deleting, adding, and changing words; the Constitution is changed by adding new ``amendments'' that redefine or invalidate parts of the original text or previous amendments without changing that text. Thus the seventeenth amendment redefines the rules in the original Constitution for electing senators to allow the governor of a state to appoint a replacement if a senator dies or resigns; and the eighteenth amendment (the Volstead Act) prohibits ``the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes'', whereas the twenty-first amendment repeals the eighteenth amendment. I don't know the specific reason that the U.S. Constitution is only amended by addition (it's not required by Article V, which covers the procedures for making amendments), but it is certainly true that that method preserves the historical integrity of the Constitution by keeping the original language and all changes to it in the document. Since Debian doesn't modify its constitution in that way, instead taking the approach used for laws in the U.S., my comments are beside the point. CMC +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ Behind the counter a boy with a shaven head stared vacantly into space, a dozen spikes of microsoft protruding from the socket behind his ear. +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ C.M. Connelly [EMAIL PROTECTED] SHC, DS +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.4 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Processed by Mailcrypt 3.5.5 and GNU Privacy Guard <http://www.gnupg.org/> iD8DBQE6C0iBzrFKeh3cmQ0RApLWAJsEU32YotjfakaVrBanU/8j7t5d0QCgw6Tw 5AdELsAI9Lrr4Z3BVXpn9x4= =tH+2 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
