> > Kenneth's CMP proposal was simple and at first glance did not include > #3,#5, and #7. Many people had already ack'd it. So why the new > proposal with more items? Kenneth's 3 points are common to Nagarjuna's 7 points and we have an agreement on that.
Nagarjuna's Item 5, software patents/legal issues. On the patent issue, it is not just not the prerogative of only FSF. Many of us here do not belong to FSF and have been working on this. The current interpretations of the patent office is a direct threat to the Gnu/Linux and the larger Free and Open Source community. Legal issues are not only patents, they pertain to copyrights currently also under review. Amendments are being proposed by the industry bodies to our existing copyright law. We should have a position on attempts to expand copyright, and try incorporate specific provisions regarding public domain and commons. As Pranesh has pointed out, public domain is a tricky point under current copyright law. We also have a Competition law, which we might use. IF we agree that we should also take up legal issues -- both offensive (change of copyright law to help public domain, commons, etc) or defensive -- fighting against brining software under patents, campaigning or resisting monopoly. If the wording is the issue, we can phrase it as: "Resisting all forms of legal threats to free and open source software; campaigning and co-ordinating efforts for expanding the public domain/commons both in law and in practice." Item 7 Nagarjuna is not clear to me. It could mean for example that all hardware sold in India should have drivers for Gnu/Linux. This certainly a campaign point. Or it could mean what JTD has interpreted. Interestingly, JTD has in the other thread on the CMP argued hardware patents, and for even design's to be under an appropriate GPL equivalent license. RSM however said that this is not possible with patents, when this was proposed in a seminar. This is an interesting position, but perhaps can be discussed further before making it a part of CMP. > > >> preferably with an argument saying why the three are sufficient and >> the others are not required. > > TBH, if you want your points to be included in the manifesto and want > folks to ack it then the responsibility of providing an argument why > it is sufficiently required is yours. Folks dont need to say why not. > Also i have read through the patent debates and arguments on this list > earlier so am not interested rehashing the patent or GPL issue which > is best handled by FSF, not fosscomm imho. I completely agree that If we want the patents or any other issue to be included, we have to give arguments: it is our responsibility, even if it means rehashing earlier positions! Conversely, if you disagree with it, we have say why, even rehashing old arguments. Prabir _______________________________________________ network mailing list [email protected] http://lists.fosscom.in/listinfo.cgi/network-fosscom.in
