Getting upstream to listen (was Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
Sorry it took so long to reply. Frederik Schueler wrote: So among them, one driver is activated, which I just deactivated in SVN. Glad to hear they're all deactivated. You do know that the source is actually supposed to be DFSG-free as well? We will prune these drivers again from the lenny release kernel if there has not been found a different solution until then. Excellent. So, I may repeat ANOTHER time so maybe NOW you get the point: help having the vendors re-release the drivers as GPL with sources, or have the drivers removed upstream if they are dead and should not be distributed anymore, I've tried twice to get upstream to remove the dead dgrs, without success -- the first time, they agreed it was a good idea but didn't do it; the second time they just didn't reply. :-/ I had difficulty submitting it in perfect patch form (the firmware-file-removal is a huge, huge hunk which mailing lists don't like); perhaps someone who has a public git repo and could say pull from here would have more success? I don't have the time or stamina to nag upstream repeatedly right now (though when my schedule clears in a few years, if it's still there I'll try again). Perhaps they might actually listen to you if *you* requested the removal of dgrs? Since they aren't listening to me. -- Nathanael Nerode [EMAIL PROTECTED] A thousand reasons. http://www.thousandreasons.org/ Lies, theft, war, kidnapping, torture, rape, murder... Get me out of this fascist nightmare! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
GFDL fixed? [Was: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom]
Nathanael Nerode said: Non-free material is being included in main for the benefit of *precisely zero* users. Speaking of non-free material which benefits precisely many users, I've been wanting to ask if there has been any further movement in the fix to the GFDL. Currently bash info docs are removed from Debian because of the original flawed GFDL. It's been two years since we last heard that correspondence with the FSF over the GFDL was constructive, and we could soon expect a revised version that would likely meet the DFSG. What is the current state of the GFDL fixes? Drew -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
Raphael Hertzog writes (Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom): I also argued (on IRC) about the fact that removing some non-free parts of upstream source tarballs (like RFC) is not really worth it if we make sure that it doesn't end up in binary packages. I agree with Raphael on this but I didn't think it worth arguing about. I think it's a perfectly valid opinion but I know that it's not the predominant opinion within Debian. Given that I'm not affected by such a case and given that others are happy with the status-quo, I don't see the point to start a discussion about this. Quite so. (I'm replying just to make Raphael and perhaps others feel a bit less isolated.) Ian. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Thu, Sep 13, 2007 at 09:51:09AM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Thu, Sep 13, 2007 at 11:28:25AM -0300, Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote: Which we have always allowed in software, even. It falls under the publish it with another name. the requirement to publish in a specific manner is an additional restriction. Granted there are software licenses like that, but are they DFSG free ? Integrity of The Author's Source Code The license may restrict source-code from being distributed in modified form only if the license allows the distribution of patch files with the source code for the purpose of modifying the program at build time. The license must explicitly permit distribution of software built from modified source code. The license may require derived works to carry a different name or version number from the original software. (This is a compromise. The Debian Project encourages all authors to not restrict any files, source or binary, from being modified.) Russ, Thanks, but I'm thinking more of the kinds of license that says you *have* to publish your changes and in a specific venue. seems like a close comparison with what has been said here about RFCs. Seems to me that by the time I can't share my patch with my friend directly, but *only* post it to the vendor, it is not free software, and it sounds like this is the situation with RFCs. Regards, Paddy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Thanks, but I'm thinking more of the kinds of license that says you *have* to publish your changes and in a specific venue. seems like a close comparison with what has been said here about RFCs. Ah, yes, that's normally not considered DFSG-free, I believe. I had thought this part of the thread was about a hypothetical license that would allow reuse of RFC material provided that the result was not called an RFC, which I believe would be DFSG-free. Seems to me that by the time I can't share my patch with my friend directly, but *only* post it to the vendor, it is not free software, and it sounds like this is the situation with RFCs. Yup. The IETF process is certainly more open than most vendors, but they don't publish all submitted I-Ds and using RFC material requires that you work through the process so far as I can tell. -- Russ Allbery ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
Le mercredi 12 septembre 2007 à 16:45 +, John Kelly a écrit : Your sentence is self contradictory. For all practical intents and purposes, mirrored everywhere equals free. May I suggest you go back to basics? http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of free as in free speech, not as in free beer. (Happily I generally use a language where we have two different words for these different concepts.) -- .''`. Josselin Mouette/\./\ : :' : [EMAIL PROTECTED] `. `'[EMAIL PROTECTED] `- Debian GNU/Linux -- The power of freedom signature.asc Description: Ceci est une partie de message numériquement signée
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
Le mercredi 12 septembre 2007 à 22:03 +0200, Marco d'Itri a écrit : You may be aware that some people believe that the changes of GR-2004-003 were just editorial... I wonder where you learned English, but the wording Debian Will Remain 100% Free Software doesn't leave any ambiguity to me. Maybe you thought it was 100% of software in Debian will remain free, but unfortunately this is not how the social contract used to be worded. -- .''`. Josselin Mouette/\./\ : :' : [EMAIL PROTECTED] `. `'[EMAIL PROTECTED] `- Debian GNU/Linux -- The power of freedom signature.asc Description: Ceci est une partie de message numériquement signée
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
Le mercredi 12 septembre 2007 à 16:51 +0200, Romain Beauxis a écrit : It often start with GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE and it' clearly written: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed. Shouldn't we garantee the right for our users to modify LICENCEs ?? This common belief that the GPL text itself is non-free is unfounded. Can I modify the GPL and make a modified license? You can use the GPL terms (possibly modified) in another license provided that you call your license by another name and do not include the GPL preamble, and provided you modify the instructions-for-use at the end enough to make it clearly different in wording and not mention GNU (though the actual procedure you describe may be similar). http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#ModifyGPL -- .''`. Josselin Mouette/\./\ : :' : [EMAIL PROTECTED] `. `'[EMAIL PROTECTED] `- Debian GNU/Linux -- The power of freedom signature.asc Description: Ceci est une partie de message numériquement signée
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
Le mercredi 12 septembre 2007 à 18:59 +, John Kelly a écrit : If you stop removing RFCs from Debian, you'll still be a crowd of wackos, but at least it won't be so immediately obvious to the casual passerby. If you know of an occasional passerby who takes the time to extract the contents of Debian source packages to see whether the RFCs are here or not, please let us know. We are always looking for new potential contributors. -- .''`. Josselin Mouette/\./\ : :' : [EMAIL PROTECTED] `. `'[EMAIL PROTECTED] `- Debian GNU/Linux -- The power of freedom signature.asc Description: Ceci est une partie de message numériquement signée
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 09/13/07 02:45, Josselin Mouette wrote: Le mercredi 12 septembre 2007 à 16:51 +0200, Romain Beauxis a écrit : It often start with GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE and it' clearly written: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed. Shouldn't we garantee the right for our users to modify LICENCEs ?? This common belief that the GPL text itself is non-free is unfounded. Can I modify the GPL and make a modified license? You can use the GPL terms (possibly modified) in another license provided that you call your license by another name and do not include the GPL preamble, and provided you modify the instructions-for-use at the end enough to make it clearly different in wording and not mention GNU (though the actual procedure you describe may be similar). http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#ModifyGPL Paraphrasing Luk Claes: besides we as Debian only want our users the freedom to be able to if they wanted it, to willy-nilly modify the GPL text. Quoting Mirim Ruiz: What about ... changing the format or structure for clarifying, or even fixing typos? - -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good! -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFG6QBFS9HxQb37XmcRAmEkAJ9goi6FU3cRl/xzL32YrhBHltI3lwCgv/9i 8CHcbj26DjNXXB350O9h5cE= =6HV0 -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Wed, 2007-09-12 at 20:45 +0200, Roland Mas wrote: John Kelly, 2007-09-12 18:33:12 + : Again, if Debian's highly esteemed social contract is for the benefit of users, then why not let users vote? We do, actually. Those users who do show interest in influencing the course of Debian by concrete actions rather than by mailing-list trolling are entitled to vote. Others aren't. What counts as concrete actions? How do we know the difference? The criterion is known as the NM process. It's open to all. NM. Does this mean only packaging counts as concrete actions? If packaging is the only 'concrete action' accepted, the idea that users get a say *is* a joke. karl. Roland. -- Roland Mas Death *was* hereditary. You got it from your ancestors. -- in Hogfather (Terry Pratchett) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Wed, 2007-09-12 at 18:50 +, John Kelly wrote: On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 20:45:07 +0200, Roland Mas [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: John Kelly, 2007-09-12 18:33:12 + : Again, if Debian's highly esteemed social contract is for the benefit of users, then why not let users vote? We do, actually. Those users who do show interest in influencing the course of Debian by concrete actions rather than by mailing-list trolling are entitled to vote. Others aren't. How do we know the difference? The criterion is known as the NM process. It's open to all. If only maintainers qualify as users then your social contract is a farce. If only maintainers count as 'users' then the idea users vote is a farce. it doesnt make the whole social contract a farce. kk -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Sep 13, 2007, at 11:33 AM, Karl Goetz wrote: On Wed, 2007-09-12 at 20:45 +0200, Roland Mas wrote: John Kelly, 2007-09-12 18:33:12 + : Again, if Debian's highly esteemed social contract is for the benefit of users, then why not let users vote? We do, actually. Those users who do show interest in influencing the course of Debian by concrete actions rather than by mailing-list trolling are entitled to vote. Others aren't. What counts as concrete actions? Here are some: packaging, documenting, filing bugs, fixing bugs. How do we know the difference? The criterion is known as the NM process. It's open to all. NM. Does this mean only packaging counts as concrete actions? If packaging is the only 'concrete action' accepted, the idea that users get a say *is* a joke. karl. So fixing a bug is a joke? No, of course not. There are so many ways to have a say in debian and change the code in debian directly that it renders your statement a non-sequitur. Jeremiah -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
OT: modifying licenses (Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom)
Ron Johnson wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 09/13/07 02:45, Josselin Mouette wrote: Le mercredi 12 septembre 2007 à 16:51 +0200, Romain Beauxis a écrit : It often start with GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE and it' clearly written: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed. Shouldn't we garantee the right for our users to modify LICENCEs ?? This common belief that the GPL text itself is non-free is unfounded. Can I modify the GPL and make a modified license? You can use the GPL terms (possibly modified) in another license provided that you call your license by another name and do not include the GPL preamble, and provided you modify the instructions-for-use at the end enough to make it clearly different in wording and not mention GNU (though the actual procedure you describe may be similar). http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#ModifyGPL Paraphrasing Luk Claes: besides we as Debian only want our users the freedom to be able to if they wanted it, to willy-nilly modify the GPL text. Quoting Mirim Ruiz: What about ... changing the format or structure for clarifying, or even fixing typos? Please, stop this nonsense. The thread was about the kernel which has issues with non-(DFSG)free firmware and a subthread about non-(DFSG)free RFCs. If you want to discuss about clarifications of the DFSG concerning lincenses, please do it on -curiosa (or on -policy if you want to change anything). Cheers Luk -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
Hi John, John Kelly wrote: [...] For all practical intents and purposes, mirrored everywhere equals free. No. I strongly disagree. Or would you consider music and/or videos available in uncounted P2P nodes (thus mirrored everywhere) free too? I don't. Micha -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
Hi, John Kelly wrote: If only maintainers qualify as users then your social contract is a farce. The social contract is a voluntary agreement. You are free to accept it, but don't expect to get counted (as in being a DD) in votes if you don't. DDs are bound to the Social Contract. If they don't agree with it they can change it following Debian's constitution[1] -- or leave the project (loosing voting rights). But as every DD initially agreed to the Social Contract there is obviously little probability to succeed without having really good and strong arguments. 1. http://www.debian.org/devel/constitution So, please stop trolling. If you want a different Social Contract start your own project or follow Debian's constitution. It's your very own freedom to do so. The Debian project does not oblige its users to be Debian Developer. Micha -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Wed, 12 Sep 2007, John Kelly wrote: On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 08:41:29 + (UTC), Sune Vuorela [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 2007-09-12, John Kelly [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Distribution of this memo is unlimited. With RFCs available to anyone with a web browser, it's absurd to say they're non-free, and a waste of time removing them from Debian. eh? whattabout modification? and distribution of modified versions? This is where it gets absurd. They're RFCs. They're not code. If you want to modify an RFC, you have to write your own and submit it, see? Which we have always allowed in software, even. It falls under the publish it with another name. -- One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond where the shadows lie. -- The Silicon Valley Tarot Henrique Holschuh -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Wed, 12 Sep 2007, Josselin Mouette wrote: RFC 1725 is (quoting the text) primarily a minor revision to RFC 1460, which in turn is (again quoting the text) primarily a minor revision to [RFC1225], which itself in turn is based on ideas from RFCs 918, 937, and 1081. You can draft derived versions, but you can't distribute them until they are accepted as new RFCs. This is a serious limitation in free software The moment something enters the IETF process, it does so as a draft, and it is indeed distributable. Heck, it is *impossible* to creates RFCs without drafts first. And these drafts are public, by requirement of the IETF and RFC process. -- One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond where the shadows lie. -- The Silicon Valley Tarot Henrique Holschuh -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Thu, Sep 13, 2007 at 11:28:25AM -0300, Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote: On Wed, 12 Sep 2007, John Kelly wrote: On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 08:41:29 + (UTC), Sune Vuorela [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 2007-09-12, John Kelly [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Distribution of this memo is unlimited. With RFCs available to anyone with a web browser, it's absurd to say they're non-free, and a waste of time removing them from Debian. eh? whattabout modification? and distribution of modified versions? This is where it gets absurd. They're RFCs. They're not code. If you want to modify an RFC, you have to write your own and submit it, see? Which we have always allowed in software, even. It falls under the publish it with another name. the requirement to publish in a specific manner is an additional restriction. Granted there are software licenses like that, but are they DFSG free ? Regards, Paddy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 18:50:40 +, John Kelly [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 20:45:07 +0200, Roland Mas [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: John Kelly, 2007-09-12 18:33:12 + : Again, if Debian's highly esteemed social contract is for the benefit of users, then why not let users vote? People who do, decide. We do, actually. Those users who do show interest in influencing the course of Debian by concrete actions rather than by mailing-list trolling are entitled to vote. Others aren't. How do we know the difference? The criterion is known as the NM process. It's open to all. If only maintainers qualify as users then your social contract is a farce. Well, this is volunteer work. People who are doing the work, decide how the work gets done. While we do pay attention to the needs of users, the users are not the people in charge; they do not get to decide how things are done (opening a vote to users would essentially mean that by sheer numbers they non-workers would get the right to decide what is done, and direct the volunteers). Indeed, I often pay attention to what is good for users, as opposed to what users want; since users as a block are far less interested in software freedom than is in their best interest (IMNSHO). It also means that when I consider the issue of users as referenced in the social contract, I am thinking of the whole universal set of users; not any individual user (and I often use myself as a proxy user for this universal set). So, it is not about not considering users, or even considering what users want, it is about who decides how I spend my volunteer time, and what, in my opinion, is good for users. Wanting something, and having the thing be good for you, are two very different kettles of fish. manoj -- The most common form of marriage proposal: YOU'RE WHAT!? Manoj Srivastava [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/ 1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Thu, 13 Sep 2007 04:17:57 -0500, Ron Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 09/13/07 02:45, Josselin Mouette wrote: Le mercredi 12 septembre 2007 à 16:51 +0200, Romain Beauxis a écrit : It often start with GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE and it' clearly written: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed. Shouldn't we garantee the right for our users to modify LICENCEs ?? This common belief that the GPL text itself is non-free is unfounded. Can I modify the GPL and make a modified license? You can use the GPL terms (possibly modified) in another license provided that you call your license by another name and do not include the GPL preamble, and provided you modify the instructions-for-use at the end enough to make it clearly different in wording and not mention GNU (though the actual procedure you describe may be similar). http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#ModifyGPL Paraphrasing Luk Claes: besides we as Debian only want our users the freedom to be able to if they wanted it, to willy-nilly modify the GPL text. They can, as long as they publish it under a new name. Quoting Mirim Ruiz: What about ... changing the format or structure for clarifying, or even fixing typos? Sure, as long as you change the name of the result and call it Rons General Public License. There is also a pragmatic distinction: License textsembody the permission under which we can distribute the software; RFC's do not. We can't retroactively change the license terms we distribute the software under; so hacking up a license, under law, would mean we can not distribute the result. That one point of law makes a critical, pragmatic difference; so a Work, and the terms of the licesne which grants us the right to modify and distribute the work, have to be treated differently -- or else we have no distribution. manoj -- If life is merely a joke, the question still remains: for whose amusement? Manoj Srivastava [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/ 1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Thu, 13 Sep 2007 19:03:00 +0930, Karl Goetz [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: On Wed, 2007-09-12 at 20:45 +0200, Roland Mas wrote: How do we know the difference? The criterion is known as the NM process. It's open to all. NM. Does this mean only packaging counts as concrete actions? Not only packagers can go though NM. It is a measure of commitment to the ideals and foundation documents of the project, as much as it is a test of skills and patience. If packaging is the only 'concrete action' accepted, the idea that users get a say *is* a joke. Users do not get a say in deciding how I spend my free time, no. They can let me know what they wish (that is what wishlist bugs are for, no?), and I pay attention to what they want, and what is good for them, but I do not ask how high? when users say Jump! manoj -- Fascinating, a totally parochial attitude. Spock, Metamorphosis, stardate 3219.8 Manoj Srivastava [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/ 1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
[Ron Johnson] If O'Reilly wants to write a book on implementing smtp or dns they must get permission from the IETF? Not if they either (1) do not quote the RFCs at all, beyond what is permitted by fair use, or (2) reprint the RFC verbatim. Those things are permitted, and those are what O'Reilly would probably want. What is not permitted is to create an email exchange protocol, or a hierarchical name record infrastructure protocol, which is similar to SMTP or DNS, and while doing so, use the appropriate RFCs as a starting point for producing your spec. (Note also that your new protocol doesn't even have to be all that similar to SMTP or DNS for the ability to cut and paste RFC text to be potentially useful to you.) I mean, you can do that, but only if you're willing to participate in the IETF standardization process. Which, if you're just some random company producing internal docs for an internal product, you probably don't want. Of course, you are free not to think Debian's required freedoms are actually useful or reasonable. That's nothing new; lots of people don't see why it's useful to require source code for software, either. Fact is, many of us _do_ think these freedoms are valuable, and we don't like the idea of trying to define little special cases, like well, nobody would probably want to cut and paste things from an RFC anyway, like they might from other documents. -- Peter Samuelson | org-tld!p12n!peter | http://p12n.org/
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 09/13/07 10:46, Peter Samuelson wrote: [Ron Johnson] If O'Reilly wants to write a book on implementing smtp or dns they must get permission from the IETF? Not if they either (1) do not quote the RFCs at all, beyond what is permitted by fair use, or (2) reprint the RFC verbatim. Those things are permitted, and those are what O'Reilly would probably want. What is not permitted is to create an email exchange protocol, or a hierarchical name record infrastructure protocol, which is similar to SMTP or DNS, and while doing so, use the appropriate RFCs as a starting point for producing your spec. (Note also that your new protocol doesn't even have to be all that similar to SMTP or DNS for the ability to cut and paste RFC text to be potentially useful to you.) Really? If I decided that I wanted to build a better mousetrap, the first thing I'd do is go read the relevant RFCs. I mean, you can do that, but only if you're willing to participate in the IETF standardization process. Which, if you're just some random company producing internal docs for an internal product, you probably don't want. Of course, you are free not to think Debian's required freedoms are actually useful or reasonable. That's nothing new; lots of people don't see why it's useful to require source code for software, either. Fact is, many of us _do_ think these freedoms are valuable, and we don't like the idea of trying to define little special cases, like well, nobody would probably want to cut and paste things from an RFC anyway, like they might from other documents. While I know that a source file is a document, some of us have more difficulty than others believing or even *agreeing* that traditional documents should be GPL-style libre. (That does not mean that we enthuse over perpetual copyrights or restricting fair use into oblivion.) - -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good! -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFG6WTGS9HxQb37XmcRAqT+AJ9SmC5gXwzyaQPneNpbdnd8q457kACgjKeA 09r98Rx9KpyWmpMW/Put5OE= =IxwI -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 09/13/07 10:01, Manoj Srivastava wrote: On Thu, 13 Sep 2007 04:17:57 -0500, Ron Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 09/13/07 02:45, Josselin Mouette wrote: Le mercredi 12 septembre 2007 à 16:51 +0200, Romain Beauxis a écrit : It often start with GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE and it' clearly written: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed. Shouldn't we garantee the right for our users to modify LICENCEs ?? This common belief that the GPL text itself is non-free is unfounded. Can I modify the GPL and make a modified license? You can use the GPL terms (possibly modified) in another license provided that you call your license by another name and do not include the GPL preamble, and provided you modify the instructions-for-use at the end enough to make it clearly different in wording and not mention GNU (though the actual procedure you describe may be similar). http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#ModifyGPL Paraphrasing Luk Claes: besides we as Debian only want our users the freedom to be able to if they wanted it, to willy-nilly modify the GPL text. They can, as long as they publish it under a new name. Great. We agree. In that case, what's with Luk's desire for the freedom to hack RFC 1725 yet still call it RFC 1725? If I modify /Alice In Wonderland/, should I be able to call it /Alice In Wonderland/? (Might be a bad example, since it's PD.) Quoting Mirim Ruiz: What about ... changing the format or structure for clarifying, or even fixing typos? Sure, as long as you change the name of the result and call it Rons General Public License. There is also a pragmatic distinction: License textsembody the permission under which we can distribute the software; RFC's do not. We can't retroactively change the license terms we distribute the software under; so hacking up a license, under law, would mean we can not distribute the result. That one point of law makes a critical, pragmatic difference; so a Work, and the terms of the licesne which grants us the right to modify and distribute the work, have to be treated differently -- or else we have no distribution. - -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good! -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFG6WZDS9HxQb37XmcRAsDbAKDHDdC3uZ15On39xvEO+NTjKKgF0ACfUOKR TV49hK9S3RPAhef78vxr4Zw= =kxOy -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
Ron Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Great. We agree. In that case, what's with Luk's desire for the freedom to hack RFC 1725 yet still call it RFC 1725? Why is this a relevant question? You can't hack RFC 1725 if you rename it or not. If you could modify RFCs as long as you rename them, I expect a lot of DDs would consider them to be DFSG-free under the same clause that's used for TeX, as much as that clause isn't our favorite thing in the world. But you can't, so what's the point in discussing the hypothetical? -- Russ Allbery ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Thu, Sep 13, 2007 at 11:28:25AM -0300, Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote: Which we have always allowed in software, even. It falls under the publish it with another name. the requirement to publish in a specific manner is an additional restriction. Granted there are software licenses like that, but are they DFSG free ? Integrity of The Author's Source Code The license may restrict source-code from being distributed in modified form only if the license allows the distribution of patch files with the source code for the purpose of modifying the program at build time. The license must explicitly permit distribution of software built from modified source code. The license may require derived works to carry a different name or version number from the original software. (This is a compromise. The Debian Project encourages all authors to not restrict any files, source or binary, from being modified.) -- Russ Allbery ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Thu, 13 Sep 2007 19:03:00 +0930, Karl Goetz [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: On Wed, 2007-09-12 at 20:45 +0200, Roland Mas wrote: How do we know the difference? The criterion is known as the NM process. It's open to all. NM. Does this mean only packaging counts as concrete actions? Not only packagers can go though NM. It is a measure of commitment to the ideals and foundation documents of the project, as much as it is a test of skills and patience. So this means NM includes other then packaging? I'm for that. If packaging is the only 'concrete action' accepted, the idea that users get a say *is* a joke. Users do not get a say in deciding how I spend my free time, no. I spend most of my spare time working as a volunteer (sadly debian gets very little of that attention), but it does mean i understand what your saying. They can let me know what they wish (that is what wishlist bugs are for, no?), and I pay attention to what they want, and what is good for them, but I do not ask how high? when users say Jump! The question (as i saw it) was more aobut who can vote - i dont expect you to leave the ground when a user says 'jump'. but if the only user whos allowed to say jump is a DD, then therse a problem. karl manoj -- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Fri, 14 Sep 2007 02:36:28 +0930 [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Not only packagers can go though NM. It is a measure of commitment to the ideals and foundation documents of the project, as much as it is a test of skills and patience. So this means NM includes other then packaging? I'm for that. Yes, the NM site is clear on that - translators, documentation writing, there's lots to do without needing to do packaging. They can let me know what they wish (that is what wishlist bugs are for, no?), and I pay attention to what they want, and what is good for them, but I do not ask how high? when users say Jump! The question (as i saw it) was more aobut who can vote Only Debian Developers. - i dont expect you to leave the ground when a user says 'jump'. but if the only user whos allowed to say jump is a DD, then therse a problem. Users have ways of requesting that things get done in Debian - the BTS, the mailing lists and IRC but users cannot dictate how those things are actually achieved. If the DD agrees, fine - if not, the DD makes the call. Only other DD's can stipulate *how* things actually get done and not just because only DD's can actually change Policy. There's no problem with that. Users can ask but DD's are not obliged to act on the suggestion in the way that the user requests. A suggestion from a fellow DD carries more weight but even then, unless there is a stipulation in Policy, a suggestion from a DD is still a suggestion. Equally, DD's who appear to ignore users would eventually find that other DD's find a solution to the problem(s) raised by the user(s) via an NMU, co-maintenance, etc. -- Neil Williams = http://www.data-freedom.org/ http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/ pgpyjru6t0Ss8.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Thu, 13 Sep 2007 18:27:15 +0100, Neil Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: On Fri, 14 Sep 2007 02:36:28 +0930 [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: - i dont expect you to leave the ground when a user says 'jump'. but if the only user whos allowed to say jump is a DD, then therse a problem. Users have ways of requesting that things get done in Debian - the BTS, the mailing lists and IRC but users cannot dictate how those things are actually achieved. If the DD agrees, fine - if not, the DD makes the call. Only other DD's can stipulate *how* things actually get done and not just because only DD's can actually change Policy. There's no problem with that. Users can ask but DD's are not obliged to act on the suggestion in the way that the user requests. A suggestion from a fellow DD carries more weight but even then, unless there is a stipulation in Policy, a suggestion from a DD is still a suggestion. Equally, DD's who appear to ignore users would eventually find that other DD's find a solution to the problem(s) raised by the user(s) via an NMU, co-maintenance, etc. If I may ad a rider to this: consider what kinds of things we vote upon: we try not to vote on technical issues, since voting is a poor means of making technical decisions. Most votes are about governance issues for Debian, or on internal policies and procedures; and this is not really something people outside the organization get to have a say in. Most countries do not give franchise to just anyone, unless a certain degree of commitment, and affirmation of belonging happen first. Consider the votes held in the last couple of year: 1 General Resolution: Why the GNU Free Documentation License is not suitable for Debian main 2 Debian Project Leader Elections 2006 3 Constitutional Amendment General Resolution: Handling assets for the project 4 General Resolution: Position statement clarifying DFSG #2 5 General Resolution: Recall the project leader 6 General Resolution: Re-affirm support to the Debian Project Leader 7 General Resolution: Handling source-less firmware in the Linux kernel 8 Debian Project Leader Elections 2007 9 General Resolution: Altering package upload rules 10 General Resolution: Endorse the concept of Debian Maintainers Votes #2 and #8 are about electing the project leader; the titular head of the project, and one who can make decisions which may impact every developer; the public face of the project, etc. I am not sure very many people would see the benefit of letting users say who leads the project. Votes #5 and #6 also belong to the category of the project leader. Votes #3 changes a foundation document in Debian; I think that people who have not affirmed their commitment to Debian ought not to get a say anyway. Vote #1, #4, and #7 are about clarifying bits of a foundation document (the DFSG), and related issues. Again, not something that the end user needs to have a say in. Vote #9 and #10 are about internal procedures of the Debian project, I am not sure I see the argument for opening the decision process to the wide world. manoj in a meeting, bored -- Try to have as good a life as you can under the circumstances. Manoj Srivastava [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/ 1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
[Ron Johnson] If I decided that I wanted to build a better mousetrap, the first thing I'd do is go read the relevant RFCs. Right, and the second thing you'd do is start hammering out a spec for your improved protocol. Doing this by cutting and pasting bits from the existing RFC just might be a lot more convenient than rewriting your whole protocol spec from scratch. While I know that a source file is a document, some of us have more difficulty than others believing or even *agreeing* that traditional documents should be GPL-style libre. We're pretty much at an impasse, then, so I don't think I'll reply after this message. I, and many Debian folks, don't quite understand the essential difference, between functional source code and non-functional documents[*], that make the DFSG freedoms only important for the one and not the other. I mean, if I might want to freely make derivative works of software, well, maybe I want to freely make derivative works of spec documents too. For many of the same reasons, in fact. [*] And, in fact, RFC documents are more functional than most other documents. A few even include example source code. -- Peter Samuelson | org-tld!p12n!peter | http://p12n.org/ signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 00:39:05 -0400, Nathanael Nerode [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Non-free material is being included in main for the benefit of *precisely zero* users. There's no two ways about this: this is a Social Contract violation. I guess the Social Contract really is a joke. I don't know why new applicants are supposed to agree to it. Old members apparently violate it at will for years with no consequences. It doesn't make me respect Debian very much. Developers you have, are better than developers you don't have. The ones you have, make Debian what it is. If reality doesn't match the theory, change the theory, not the reality. An obsession with freedom that insists on removing RFCs from source tarballs, is absurd. Why not change the contract. -- Internet service http://www.isp2dial.com/
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
Nathanael Nerode wrote: drivers/media/video/dabfirmware.h ... drivers/net/tokenring/3c359_microcode.h In other words, *all* of the above drivers. Wrong! Those are not the *drivers* they are the source code header files needed to link to them. Colin -- Colin Tuckley | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | PGP/GnuPG Key Id +44(0)1903 236872 | +44(0)7799 143369 | 0x1B3045CE Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here? That depends a good deal on where you want to get to, said the Cat - Lewis Carrol -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Wed, Sep 12, 2007 at 08:10:17 +0100, Colin Tuckley wrote: Nathanael Nerode wrote: drivers/media/video/dabfirmware.h ... drivers/net/tokenring/3c359_microcode.h In other words, *all* of the above drivers. Wrong! Those are not the *drivers* they are the source code header files needed to link to them. No they're not. You could just look at the files, you know... Cheers, Julien -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
2007/9/12, John Kelly [EMAIL PROTECTED]: An obsession with freedom that insists on removing RFCs from source tarballs, is absurd. Why not change the contract. You're not talking seriously, are you? Miry -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Wed, 12 Sep 2007, Miriam Ruiz wrote: 2007/9/12, John Kelly [EMAIL PROTECTED]: An obsession with freedom that insists on removing RFCs from source tarballs, is absurd. Why not change the contract. You're not talking seriously, are you? Why not? Is it difficult to acknowledge that not all people think the same? Have you noticed that none of the GR end up with 100% on one side and 0% on the other? I also argued (on IRC) about the fact that removing some non-free parts of upstream source tarballs (like RFC) is not really worth it if we make sure that it doesn't end up in binary packages. I think it's a perfectly valid opinion but I know that it's not the predominant opinion within Debian. Given that I'm not affected by such a case and given that others are happy with the status-quo, I don't see the point to start a discussion about this. Cheers, -- Raphaël Hertzog Premier livre français sur Debian GNU/Linux : http://www.ouaza.com/livre/admin-debian/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
2007/9/12, Raphael Hertzog [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Wed, 12 Sep 2007, Miriam Ruiz wrote: 2007/9/12, John Kelly [EMAIL PROTECTED]: An obsession with freedom that insists on removing RFCs from source tarballs, is absurd. Why not change the contract. You're not talking seriously, are you? Why not? Is it difficult to acknowledge that not all people think the same? Have you noticed that none of the GR end up with 100% on one side and 0% on the other? So, what exact change in the social contract are you proposing? I'm a bit lost about this, then. Miry -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
Coming back to looking at Debian after being preoccupied by family business, I see that the kernel team is not even seriously trying to separate out any non-free material. There have been severe regressions from sarge and no attempt is being made to fix them. Why don't you start to send patches then. Seems you have enough free time to look after such issues. Fixing Kernels to work on more (sometimes even important machines, like buildds) is a much more important job than to get rid of oh so non-free firmware. -- Bernd Zeimetz [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bzed.de/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
[ Reply-to set to debian-project, debian-devel is not the place for such a discussion if people really want to have it ] On Wed, 12 Sep 2007, Miriam Ruiz wrote: 2007/9/12, Raphael Hertzog [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Wed, 12 Sep 2007, Miriam Ruiz wrote: 2007/9/12, John Kelly [EMAIL PROTECTED]: An obsession with freedom that insists on removing RFCs from source tarballs, is absurd. Why not change the contract. You're not talking seriously, are you? Why not? Is it difficult to acknowledge that not all people think the same? Have you noticed that none of the GR end up with 100% on one side and 0% on the other? So, what exact change in the social contract are you proposing? I'm a bit lost about this, then. I'm not proposing anything... I said that IMO it's not worth discussing it. I just wanted you to acknowledge that some people can legitimately have other opinions and that your question was somewhat ignoring that fact. Now, just for reference, the (lively) discussion on IRC didn't manage to find any good wording for defining the scope of what's acceptable and not. I was trying to define a subset of the DFSG that had to apply to content that was distributed in the source package and that was not distributed as part of the binary packages ... provided that those limitations were documented in debian/copyright. The goal was to avoid the tarball repacking that we're doing to strip off RFC and GFDL manuals with invariant sections. That's all. Cheers, -- Raphaël Hertzog Premier livre français sur Debian GNU/Linux : http://www.ouaza.com/livre/admin-debian/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 09:56:20 +0200, Miriam Ruiz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 2007/9/12, Raphael Hertzog [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Wed, 12 Sep 2007, Miriam Ruiz wrote: 2007/9/12, John Kelly [EMAIL PROTECTED]: An obsession with freedom that insists on removing RFCs from source tarballs, is absurd. Why not change the contract. You're not talking seriously, are you? Why not? Is it difficult to acknowledge that not all people think the same? Have you noticed that none of the GR end up with 100% on one side and 0% on the other? So, what exact change in the social contract are you proposing? From a random RFC: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2060.txt Distribution of this memo is unlimited. With RFCs available to anyone with a web browser, it's absurd to say they're non-free, and a waste of time removing them from Debian. If people need that spelled out in a contract, then spell it out in a way that can't be misconstrued. -- Internet service http://www.isp2dial.com/
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 09/12/07 03:57, Miriam Ruiz wrote: 2007/9/12, John Kelly [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 08:41:29 + (UTC), Sune Vuorela [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 2007-09-12, John Kelly [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Distribution of this memo is unlimited. With RFCs available to anyone with a web browser, it's absurd to say they're non-free, and a waste of time removing them from Debian. eh? whattabout modification? and distribution of modified versions? This is where it gets absurd. They're RFCs. They're not code. If you want to modify an RFC, you have to write your own and submit it, see? Why is it absurd? What about translating it, for example, or including parts of it in other document, or mixing parts of RFCs in a single document, or making a derivative specification out of it, or changing the format or structure for clarifying, or even fixing typos? What about including some parts of an RFC in the help text of an application, .. I can see many situations in which a modification of the RFC text could be important. Except for fixing typos, none of what you seem to propose seems to my humble eyes to be modifying the base document. Give the new document a derived name, indicating the changes. Inside the document, clearly define what changes you've made to the base document. Someone who uses the modified RFC would create a buggy-by-design program and when he realized what some DD had done, boy would he (and his bosses, if relevant) be steamed, his trust in Debian would plunge, he might write a Slashdotted article that ZDNet picks up on, and FLOSS get a big black eye. Bottom line: being able to willy-nilly change protocol specification base documents seems, to me, to be One *Stupid* Idea. - -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good! -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFG568/S9HxQb37XmcRAh1FAJ41yYrS5NB4sppg/0zaYEn80nSo3gCfU55d ZQnfr8UEvltME1cTdqYljHE= =csfM -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
Le mercredi 12 septembre 2007 à 04:19 -0500, Ron Johnson a écrit : Except for fixing typos, none of what you seem to propose seems to my humble eyes to be modifying the base document. Give the new document a derived name, indicating the changes. Inside the document, clearly define what changes you've made to the base document. Sorry, but the license doesn't allow that. Bottom line: being able to willy-nilly change protocol specification base documents seems, to me, to be One *Stupid* Idea. A license requiring modified versions to be clearly marked as such, with a changed name, would definitely be considered free, and still wouldn't encourage such practice. Not being able to draft derived versions of specifications is another plain stupid idea. -- .''`. Josselin Mouette/\./\ : :' : [EMAIL PROTECTED] `. `'[EMAIL PROTECTED] `- Debian GNU/Linux -- The power of freedom signature.asc Description: Ceci est une partie de message numériquement signée
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Wed, Sep 12, 2007 at 09:20:57AM +, John Kelly wrote: On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 10:57:23 +0200, Miriam Ruiz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: They're RFCs. They're not code. If you want to modify an RFC you have to write your own and submit it, see? What about ... making a derivative specification out of it You hit it. They're SPECIFICATIONS. If you want to change a spec, you must WRITE YOUR OWN and submit it. Great, they're specifications, which anybody with a web browser can get. So there's no reason we need to be distributing them, which is fine since they don't meet the DFSG anyway. What about ... You can argue hypothetical cases all day, sorry I have no time for that. What's real is the time wasted removing whole RFCs from Debian in a mindless pursuit of freedom. Why squander time on trivia when there more important things to do. Yes indeed, why *are* you squandering our time on trivia when we have more important things to do? -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
Le mercredi 12 septembre 2007 à 09:20 +, John Kelly a écrit : You can argue hypothetical cases all day, sorry I have no time for that. Still, you seem to have much time to waste for trolling on the Social Contract. -- .''`. Josselin Mouette/\./\ : :' : [EMAIL PROTECTED] `. `'[EMAIL PROTECTED] `- Debian GNU/Linux -- The power of freedom signature.asc Description: Ceci est une partie de message numériquement signée
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Wed, Sep 12, 2007 at 12:39:05AM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote: Non-free material is being included in main for the benefit of *precisely zero* users. There's no two ways about this: this is a Social Contract violation. Kernel has 736[1] open bugs, including ones that corrupt data and make other packages fail to build. All but one affect actual users. Does the Social Contract really mandate that we should fix bugs affecting 0 users before dealing with bugs that actually degrade the user experience? If our priority really is users, we should fix those 735 bugreports first. And from the recent linux-2.6 uploads it seems that indeed kernel team gives priority to users. [1] http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?src=linux-2.6 signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 09/12/07 04:30, Josselin Mouette wrote: Le mercredi 12 septembre 2007 à 04:19 -0500, Ron Johnson a écrit : Except for fixing typos, none of what you seem to propose seems to my humble eyes to be modifying the base document. Give the new document a derived name, indicating the changes. Inside the document, clearly define what changes you've made to the base document. Sorry, but the license doesn't allow that. Which license? I've looked a a few RFCs, and they each seem to have a different (sometimes non-existent) license. All, though, seem to say, Distribution of this memo is unlimited. It would be useful to show John and I some specific examples of RFCs that don't allow any reformatting or translation derivations. Bottom line: being able to willy-nilly change protocol specification base documents seems, to me, to be One *Stupid* Idea. A license requiring modified versions to be clearly marked as such, with a changed name, would definitely be considered free, and still wouldn't encourage such practice. Not being able to draft derived versions of specifications is another plain stupid idea. Since when can't you draft derived versions? RFC 1725 is (quoting the text) primarily a minor revision to RFC 1460, which in turn is (again quoting the text) primarily a minor revision to [RFC1225], which itself in turn is based on ideas from RFCs 918, 937, and 1081. - -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good! -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFG57nIS9HxQb37XmcRAoWNAKChDDGPj43Phjo05v7BI4k5kFgfWQCfUrHN DQzTvuwhyf7Dbponv2CyDhA= =WrRK -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 10:13:38 +0200, Bernd Zeimetz wrote: Why don't you start to send patches then. Seems you have enough free time to look after such issues. Fixing Kernels to work on more (sometimes even important machines, like buildds) is a much more important job than to get rid of oh so non-free firmware. Could someone *please* look at #401482? gdb has been totally useless on i386 for almost a year now, and no one has responded to my bug report that includes a patch for the issue? -- Sam Morris http://robots.org.uk/ PGP key id 1024D/5EA01078 3412 EA18 1277 354B 991B C869 B219 7FDB 5EA0 1078 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
Le mercredi 12 septembre 2007 à 05:04 -0500, Ron Johnson a écrit : Sorry, but the license doesn't allow that. Which license? I've looked a a few RFCs, and they each seem to have a different (sometimes non-existent) license. All, though, seem to say, Distribution of this memo is unlimited. It would be useful to show John and I some specific examples of RFCs that don't allow any reformatting or translation derivations. You've just found them. Without explicit permission, they are not permitted. Not being able to draft derived versions of specifications is another plain stupid idea. Since when can't you draft derived versions? RFC 1725 is (quoting the text) primarily a minor revision to RFC 1460, which in turn is (again quoting the text) primarily a minor revision to [RFC1225], which itself in turn is based on ideas from RFCs 918, 937, and 1081. You can draft derived versions, but you can't distribute them until they are accepted as new RFCs. This is a serious limitation in free software development, where anyone must be able to contribute in very quickly-moving projects. -- .''`. Josselin Mouette/\./\ : :' : [EMAIL PROTECTED] `. `'[EMAIL PROTECTED] `- Debian GNU/Linux -- The power of freedom signature.asc Description: Ceci est une partie de message numériquement signée
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 09/12/07 05:16, Josselin Mouette wrote: Le mercredi 12 septembre 2007 à 05:04 -0500, Ron Johnson a écrit : Sorry, but the license doesn't allow that. Which license? I've looked a a few RFCs, and they each seem to have a different (sometimes non-existent) license. All, though, seem to say, Distribution of this memo is unlimited. It would be useful to show John and I some specific examples of RFCs that don't allow any reformatting or translation derivations. You've just found them. Without explicit permission, they are not permitted. Really? Not in the RFCs I've read. Not being able to draft derived versions of specifications is another plain stupid idea. Since when can't you draft derived versions? RFC 1725 is (quoting the text) primarily a minor revision to RFC 1460, which in turn is (again quoting the text) primarily a minor revision to [RFC1225], which itself in turn is based on ideas from RFCs 918, 937, and 1081. You can draft derived versions, but you can't distribute them until they are accepted as new RFCs. Says who? That just doesn't make sense. RFCs are almost never written by a single person. This is a serious limitation in free software development, where anyone must be able to contribute in very quickly-moving projects. - -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good! -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFG57/0S9HxQb37XmcRAuSZAJoCBLeGe2g69Rn5fNOzWw8BK6qYGwCgyBP8 IJQe1gPdrg2Xxw1CbsiMG0s= =FDZk -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
Le mercredi 12 septembre 2007 à 05:31 -0500, Ron Johnson a écrit : You've just found them. Without explicit permission, they are not permitted. Really? Not in the RFCs I've read. When not specified, copyright law applies. You can draft derived versions, but you can't distribute them until they are accepted as new RFCs. Says who? Says copyright law. -- .''`. Josselin Mouette/\./\ : :' : [EMAIL PROTECTED] `. `'[EMAIL PROTECTED] `- Debian GNU/Linux -- The power of freedom signature.asc Description: Ceci est une partie de message numériquement signée
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
Hi, On Wed, 12.09.2007 at 09:20:57 +, John Kelly [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: that. What's real is the time wasted removing whole RFCs from Debian in a mindless pursuit of freedom. Why squander time on trivia when there more important things to do. well, this one can be easily rectified by including non-free in your apt's sources.list, and is one of the prime examples why keeping non-free is really important. Other than that, they didn't waste much of my time while shuffling this stuff around, so there's imho no need to get excited... Best, --Toni++ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Wed, Sep 12, 2007 at 12:42:56PM +0300, Riku Voipio wrote: On Wed, Sep 12, 2007 at 12:39:05AM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote: Non-free material is being included in main for the benefit of *precisely zero* users. There's no two ways about this: this is a Social Contract violation. Kernel has 736[1] open bugs, including ones that corrupt data and make other packages fail to build. All but one affect actual users. Does the Social Contract really mandate that we should fix bugs affecting 0 users before dealing with bugs that actually degrade the user experience? No, choosing what to spend your time on is every volunteer's option. You get to spend your time ranting about this just like Nathanael gets to spend his time ranting about that. And I get to send a mail saying obvious things. Everyone is happy you see. -- Robert Millan GPLv2 I know my rights; I want my phone call! DRM What use is a phone call, if you are unable to speak? (as seen on /.) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Wed, Sep 12, 2007 at 09:20:57AM +, John Kelly wrote: You can argue hypothetical cases all day, sorry I have no time for that. What's real is the time wasted removing whole RFCs from Debian in a mindless pursuit of freedom. Why squander time on trivia when there more important things to do. Please do not hijack this thread to discuss (or fail to discuss) RFCs in particular when the topic is the kernel. -- Jon Dowland -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Wed, 2007-09-12 at 15:42 +0200, Ondrej Certik wrote: I guess the Social Contract really is a joke. I don't know why new applicants are supposed to agree to it. Old members apparently violate it at will for years with no consequences. It doesn't make me respect Debian very much. I am not a DD (yet), but all my packages were very strictly checked for all non-free stuff that I forgot to delete and the Social Contract is not a joke at all. This is why I am using Debian. Good luck climbing to DD :) Developers you have, are better than developers you don't have. The ones you have, make Debian what it is. If reality doesn't match the theory, change the theory, not the reality. I disagree - this is one of the reasons I am using Debian, because it strictly distinguishes between main and non-free. Agreed. If there are some non-free parts in the kernel, it can go to non-free immediatelly, so that users can use it now, but things in main should be DFSG free and that's how it should be. As I see it, the non-free section is here precisely for those cases, that intuition says the packages should be in Debian, nevertheless, they are not DFSG free. Problem is that there has been non-free content in Linux (eg the kernel) since before Sarge was released (3 years ago?). For both Sarge and etch a GR was passed saying we'll fix it up after this, and its still not fixed. Of course... this is my understanding only... Karl. Ondrej -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
Ron Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On 09/12/07 05:16, Josselin Mouette wrote: Le mercredi 12 septembre 2007 à 05:04 -0500, Ron Johnson a écrit : Which license? I've looked a a few RFCs, and they each seem to have a different (sometimes non-existent) license. All, though, seem to say, Distribution of this memo is unlimited. It would be useful to show John and I some specific examples of RFCs that don't allow any reformatting or translation derivations. You've just found them. Without explicit permission, they are not permitted. Really? Not in the RFCs I've read. This was actually extensively discussed within the IETF and my understanding of their interpretation of the license is closer to what Josselin says, not what you're saying. You can excerpt RFCs into other contexts, but you cannot modify the text or use it as the basis for some other document without violating the license or reaching some other arrangement with the IETF, and that includes translations. You can draft derived versions, but you can't distribute them until they are accepted as new RFCs. Says who? That just doesn't make sense. RFCs are almost never written by a single person. The IETF reserves the right to work on derivative standards based on RFCs to itself. You cannot do so outside the IETF without violating the RFC license. As with the Firefox naming situation, Debian gets a ton of bad press for this because people seem to intuitively expect Debian to be doing something strange without actually investigating. The more you investigate, the more you discover that, actually, the license is just screwed up and Debian is one of the few organizations that doesn't plug its ears and ignore it. -- Russ Allbery ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
Le Wednesday 12 September 2007 14:07:55 Luk Claes, vous avez écrit : Someone who uses the modified RFC would create a buggy-by-design program and when he realized what some DD had done, boy would he (and his bosses, if relevant) be steamed, his trust in Debian would plunge, he might write a Slashdotted article that ZDNet picks up on, and FLOSS get a big black eye. What about adding clarifications, what about summarising parts of the RFC? It's more about the freedom to fix things or to use things than it is to make it buggy... It's also not only about Debian, but in fact more about the freedom of our users to modify RFCs... troll option=Do not respond Yea, I have found tons of non-free part in a lot of packages. It often start with GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE and it' clearly written: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed. Shouldn't we garantee the right for our users to modify LICENCEs ?? /troll Romain
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 09/12/07 09:16, Russ Allbery wrote: Ron Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On 09/12/07 05:16, Josselin Mouette wrote: Le mercredi 12 septembre 2007 à 05:04 -0500, Ron Johnson a écrit : Which license? I've looked a a few RFCs, and they each seem to have a different (sometimes non-existent) license. All, though, seem to say, Distribution of this memo is unlimited. It would be useful to show John and I some specific examples of RFCs that don't allow any reformatting or translation derivations. You've just found them. Without explicit permission, they are not permitted. Really? Not in the RFCs I've read. This was actually extensively discussed within the IETF and my understanding of their interpretation of the license is closer to what Josselin says, not what you're saying. You can excerpt RFCs into other contexts, but you cannot modify the text or use it as the basis for some other document without violating the license or reaching some other arrangement with the IETF, and that includes translations. You can draft derived versions, but you can't distribute them until they are accepted as new RFCs. Says who? That just doesn't make sense. RFCs are almost never written by a single person. The IETF reserves the right to work on derivative standards based on RFCs to itself. You cannot do so outside the IETF without violating the RFC license. So you (or your company) must be a member of the IETF to submit a draft RFC? If so, it seems reasonable. As with the Firefox naming situation, Debian gets a ton of bad press for this because people seem to intuitively expect Debian to be doing something strange without actually investigating. The more you investigate, the more you discover that, actually, the license is just screwed up and Debian is one of the few organizations that doesn't plug its ears and ignore it. - -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good! -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFG5/9WS9HxQb37XmcRAj7qAKCWqS4+fHdYjGX6vIhFEYmlEjpDygCgwPga bwUvwS7sPE7WSpmG1y1uweE= =FqnK -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 08:00:34 -0500, Ron Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Only you are talking about willy-nilly changes... besides we as Debian only want our users the freedom to be able to if they wanted it, to willy-nilly modify the RFC text. I'm shaking my head in stunned disbelief. He says We as Debian, but I wonder if a majority truly agree. IMO, only wackos would willy-nilly modify RFC text. -- Internet service http://www.isp2dial.com/
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 12:42:56 +0300, Riku Voipio [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: On Wed, Sep 12, 2007 at 12:39:05AM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote: Non-free material is being included in main for the benefit of *precisely zero* users. There's no two ways about this: this is a Social Contract violation. Kernel has 736[1] open bugs, including ones that corrupt data and make other packages fail to build. All but one affect actual users. Does the Social Contract really mandate that we should fix bugs affecting 0 users before dealing with bugs that actually degrade the user experience? I think you are framing the question in a biased manner. The inclusion of non-free software often does not directly impair operations or degrade utility for most users -- they often are not concerned about exercising the freedoms that are being curtailed. But we have common cause in promoting free software, we acknowledge that non-free software is harmful, and we relegate it to a a repository that is not part of Debian, but it exists for users who want the functionality and do not care about the freedom aspect. So, in my opinion, getting rid of the non-fee material, and actually conforming to our social contract is indeed worth more than fixing these other bugs -- how many of those are release critical, as this bob-free material issue is? There is also the factor of the social contract being our given word, and people trusting us -- if we can not be expected to even try to keep our word on the social contract, what _can_ we be trusted with? If our priority really is users, we should fix those 735 bugreports first. And from the recent linux-2.6 uploads it seems that indeed kernel team gives priority to users. Actually, given the premise that we are all for liberation of software, and that non-free software harms the users; putting users first means we get rid of things in Debian that are non free. manoj who should not be wasting time reading mailing list posts -- I believe in making the world safe for our children, but not our children's children, because I don't think children should be having sex. Manoj Srivastava [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.golden-gryphon.com/ 1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Wed, Sep 12, 2007 at 03:59:13PM +, John Kelly wrote: On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 08:00:34 -0500, Ron Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Only you are talking about willy-nilly changes... besides we as Debian only want our users the freedom to be able to if they wanted it, to willy-nilly modify the RFC text. I'm shaking my head in stunned disbelief. He says We as Debian, but I wonder if a majority truly agree. IMO, only wackos would willy-nilly modify RFC text. Damn, now I'm a wacko. So I dare say you're an insulting moron. Cheers, -- ·O· Pierre Habouzit ··O[EMAIL PROTECTED] OOOhttp://www.madism.org pgpMMHuVP9t88.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 18:13:53 +0200, Pierre Habouzit [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Only you are talking about willy-nilly changes... besides we as Debian only want our users the freedom to be able to if they wanted it, to willy-nilly modify the RFC text. I'm shaking my head in stunned disbelief. He says We as Debian, but I wonder if a majority truly agree. IMO, only wackos would willy-nilly modify RFC text. Damn, now I'm a wacko. So I dare say you're an insulting moron. If Debian is the distro for wackos, so be it. But I have to wonder if your loud clique could muster a majority in a vote over whether RFCs should be removed from Debian. -- Internet service http://www.isp2dial.com/
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Wed, Sep 12, 2007 at 04:22:51PM +, John Kelly wrote: On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 18:13:53 +0200, Pierre Habouzit [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Only you are talking about willy-nilly changes... besides we as Debian only want our users the freedom to be able to if they wanted it, to willy-nilly modify the RFC text. I'm shaking my head in stunned disbelief. He says We as Debian, but I wonder if a majority truly agree. IMO, only wackos would willy-nilly modify RFC text. Damn, now I'm a wacko. So I dare say you're an insulting moron. If Debian is the distro for wackos, so be it. But I have to wonder if your loud clique could muster a majority in a vote over whether RFCs should be removed from Debian. And (as you proved so many times in the thread) you didn't read what I said. I said I'm a wacko meaning Yes I have modified RFC's in the past in the sense that I wrote document that were protocols derived from actual RFCs, with some extensions and simplifications. I did not took any kind of position on the matter in that thread yet. But to make you happy I will: there is little point in shipping rfc's that are mirrored everywhere on the interwebs, and rfc's are clearly non-free, and do not end up in the final binary package. So there is no point in no stripping them from the source package as it's not near being burden for the maintainers, who after all, are the ones that suffer the most of that decision. Knowing that, you're the one feeding this storm in a teacup, _and_ you are doing it quite loudly. Please stop, or bring this elsewhere. -- ·O· Pierre Habouzit ··O[EMAIL PROTECTED] OOOhttp://www.madism.org pgpTepq9jGALb.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 18:35:18 +0200, Pierre Habouzit [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: there is little point in shipping rfc's that are mirrored everywhere on the interwebs, and rfc's are clearly non-free Your sentence is self contradictory. For all practical intents and purposes, mirrored everywhere equals free. I said I'm a wacko Got it. -- Internet service http://www.isp2dial.com/
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
* Ron Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] [070912 15:04]: These are official protocol specifications. If you want to summarize the RFC, do it in a separate document. Let's consider some use cases: * You want to use some protocol that is mostly the same as some RFC, but with some things changed and some names exchanged to fit what you do. Then you either have to - refer to the RFC and give some complex list of subsitutions. That's nice as additional point, but people wanting to read this would be much more helped if there was an applied text. - rewrite the whole text, hoping you never overlook something and miss some detail of the original you would want to keep. (Well, you could tell that the original with those substitutions has priority, but even then everybody would just read the new text, implement some bugs, and you have to tell people to remove those bugs they inserted because your rewriting of the text had an oversight). * You are wanting to write the documentation for your (or somebody's else) implementation of the RFC. If one is not that firm in english, it's often easiest to just start with the standard description and modify some words here, add some more descriptions there, omit some special cases not applicable, rearrange the sentences a bit and have some nice looking text using notations and phrases people not speaking your language but the one you are writing in can understand. And one gets using the proper standard terms for free. (And before you even start with fair use and citing, please note that not everyone has that privilege and citing often means verbatim in some jurisdictions). Not being allowed those is a restriction harming people (more work) and those they want to help (less useable documents), without any good reason. (apart from It's my preccciooous standard) Only you are talking about willy-nilly changes... besides we as Debian only want our users the freedom to be able to if they wanted it, to willy-nilly modify the RFC text. I'm shaking my head in stunned disbelief. Imagine freedom of speach was only for serious speach, and willy-nilly speach was not protected. Would you be comfortable with that? (If you are still answering yes, consider someone has to decide what is willy-nilly and what not). Note that it still would be perfectly possible to restrict the use of 'RFC' for these modifications... And just to put another reminder: noone is requeasting allowing modifications posing as unmodified official standards. It's about Hochachtungsvoll, Bernhard R. Link -- Never contain programs so few bugs, as when no debugging tools are available! Niklaus Wirth -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
Hello, On Wed, Sep 12, 2007 at 12:39:05AM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote: The most recent linux-source-2.6.22 contains the following files: drivers/media/video/dabfirmware.h # CONFIG_USB_DABUSB is not set drivers/net/drgs_firmware.c # CONFIG_DGRS is not set drivers/usb/misc/emi26_fw.h drivers/usb/misc/emi62_fw_m.h drivers/usb/misc/emi62_fw_s.h # CONFIG_USB_EMI62 is not set # CONFIG_USB_EMI26 is not set drivers/usb/serial/keyspan_mpr_fw.h drivers/usb/serial/keyspan_usa*_fw.h (11 files) # CONFIG_USB_SERIAL_KEYSPAN is not set drivers/net/tokenring/smctr_firmware.h CONFIG_SMCTR=m drivers/net/appletalk/cops_ltdrv.h drivers/net/appletalk/cops_ffdrv.h # CONFIG_COPS is not set drivers/net/tokenring/3c359_microcode.h # CONFIG_3C359 is not set In other words, *all* of the above drivers. It's even worse than that. Look at the information about drgs: So among them, one driver is activated, which I just deactivated in SVN. We will prune these drivers again from the lenny release kernel if there has not been found a different solution until then. So, I may repeat ANOTHER time so maybe NOW you get the point: help having the vendors re-release the drivers as GPL with sources, or have the drivers removed upstream if they are dead and should not be distributed anymore, but stop wasting our time with such upsetting and resource-consuming threads. Regards Frederik Schüler -- ENOSIG signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 09/12/07 11:49, Bernhard R. Link wrote: * Ron Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] [070912 15:04]: These are official protocol specifications. If you want to summarize the RFC, do it in a separate document. Let's consider some use cases: * You want to use some protocol that is mostly the same as some RFC, but with some things changed and some names exchanged to fit what you do. Then you either have to - refer to the RFC and give some complex list of subsitutions. That's nice as additional point, but people wanting to read this would be much more helped if there was an applied text. - rewrite the whole text, hoping you never overlook something and miss some detail of the original you would want to keep. (Well, you could tell that the original with those substitutions has priority, but even then everybody would just read the new text, implement some bugs, and you have to tell people to remove those bugs they inserted because your rewriting of the text had an oversight). * You are wanting to write the documentation for your (or somebody's else) implementation of the RFC. If one is not that firm in english, it's often easiest to just start with the standard description and modify some words here, add some more descriptions there, omit some special cases not applicable, rearrange the sentences a bit and have some nice looking text using notations and phrases people not speaking your language but the one you are writing in can understand. And one gets using the proper standard terms for free. (And before you even start with fair use and citing, please note that not everyone has that privilege and citing often means verbatim in some jurisdictions). If O'Reilly wants to write a book on implementing smtp or dns they must get permission from the IETF? [snip] And just to put another reminder: noone is requeasting allowing modifications posing as unmodified official standards. It's about Did you forget a word? Hochachtungsvoll, Bernhard R. Link - -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good! -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFG6B5ZS9HxQb37XmcRAgEEAJsEEK9diCv6Sx42AR8/3Tmnz9eDZgCg0Lcw pgAWoeY+9sIvCXp1Mb0AnuA= =epEZ -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
Ron Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On 09/12/07 09:16, Russ Allbery wrote: The IETF reserves the right to work on derivative standards based on RFCs to itself. You cannot do so outside the IETF without violating the RFC license. So you (or your company) must be a member of the IETF to submit a draft RFC? There's no such things as a member of the IETF, really. Instead, what it means in practice is that you have to use the IETF process (I-Ds, working groups, etc.) and it doesn't appear that you have any rights to distribute documents derived from RFCs outside of that process. If so, it seems reasonable. Whether it's reasonable or not is a debate that's probably off-topic for here and depends a lot on how you feel that standards development should work. However, it's completely and unambiguously non-free by the DFSG definition of free. We previously had a vote on whether the DFSG should extend to the entire contents of the archive or only to software, and the vote outcome was that it extended to the entire contents of the archive. Unless you're proposing that we vote on it again and have some reason to believe that the outcome would be different this time, it seems pointless to argue about it some more. -- Russ Allbery ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 10:20:44 -0700, Russ Allbery [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: We previously had a vote on whether the DFSG should extend to the entire contents of the archive or only to software, and the vote outcome was that it extended to the entire contents of the archive. Recently, or some time ago? -- Internet service http://www.isp2dial.com/
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Wed, Sep 12, 2007 at 12:39:05AM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote: I'm not sure I can take the Debian kernel team seriously any more. http://wiki.debian.org/KernelFirmwareLicensing states, in part: Debian kernel team identifies the following three types of firmware, currently found in the Linux kernel: 1. Sourceless binary blobs with no license, no explicit permission to redistribute, or an explicit prohibition to redistribute. This category currently includes the dabusb, dgrs, emi62, keyspan, smctr, cops, emi26, and 3c359 drivers. Removal of these drivers will have minimal impact on the users, as they are believed to be unpopular and not likely to be required during the installation. It has been agreed within Debian kernel team, that the firmware in category 1 is not acceptable in Debian. It is the intention of the kernel team to prune the affected drivers from the upstream tarball. The most recent linux-source-2.6.22 contains the following files: drivers/media/video/dabfirmware.h drivers/net/drgs_firmware.c drivers/usb/misc/emi26_fw.h drivers/usb/misc/emi62_fw_m.h drivers/usb/misc/emi62_fw_s.h drivers/usb/serial/keyspan_mpr_fw.h drivers/usb/serial/keyspan_usa*_fw.h (11 files) drivers/net/tokenring/smctr_firmware.h drivers/net/appletalk/cops_ltdrv.h drivers/net/appletalk/cops_ffdrv.h drivers/net/tokenring/3c359_microcode.h In other words, *all* of the above drivers. It's even worse than that. Look at the information about drgs: Hi, ... Given the way i was attacked when this issue came back last year, and the sabotaging of my effort to go in a right direction, and prepare a GR that could be used to build on and approach the hardware manufacturers, how do you expect anything to have changed ? Especially since i was expulsed from debian since then, and in general censored from all lists, and expulsed and shuned by the few remaining active kernel team members. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
Joerg Jaspert wrote: Oh well, the kernel team just lost its trust, which means new uploads of kernel-team packages dont get their old way of fasttracking in NEW, as I now need to check all of their uploads for such cases. I'm not sure I find this helpful. You're not checking for copyright violations or for non-free stuff in all other packages. I see no reason why you should check for Linux just because it passes through NEW at each release for unrelated technical reasons. The only reason that things like linux-2.6.XX pass through NEW is, from my POV, because noone stepped up to fix it so that old source packages don't have to pass through. If you/we have an issue with the way things are being done by the kernel team, it should be resolved with them and possibly with the help of tech-ctte if an agreement can't be made. IMHO, it's not the ftp-master's job to check with each upload if a number of DDs follow the social contract as they should. If there is indeed a problem, we should try to solve this once and forever, shouldn't we? Regards, Faidon -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Wed, Sep 12, 2007 at 02:39:09PM +0200, Joerg Jaspert wrote: On 11140 March 1977, Nathanael Nerode wrote: I'm not sure I can take the Debian kernel team seriously any more. What team? We dont seem to have a team. The most recent linux-source-2.6.22 contains the following files: [...] In other words, *all* of the above drivers. It's even worse than that. Look at the information about drgs: Non-free material is being included in main for the benefit of *precisely zero* users. There's no two ways about this: this is a Social Contract violation. Oh well, the kernel team just lost its trust, which means new uploads of kernel-team packages dont get their old way of fasttracking in NEW, as I now need to check all of their uploads for such cases. Thank you, kernel-team, for that useless amount of extra work. :( Well, what do you expect after the way my implication in the non-free GR last year was duly sabotaged by both Steve Langasek and Manoj ? The position of the kernel team had always more or less been after the disaster of that GR, which the RMs said before the result of the vote they would not respect, to ship the kernel as is upstream, and don't bother anymore to be implicated in the non-free firmware stuff, since we got nil support from the rest of debian about it, outright sabotage, and on top of that, i was blamed for my active participation in that disaster, having to juggle between people like nerode, and people like maks who threatened to leave the kernel team and debian if those firmwares where removed. So, this comes as no surprise to me, and one more reason why you should not have expulsed me, but rather should have given me more support in the work i tried to do for debian. Your lose, Sadly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Wed, Sep 12, 2007 at 03:42:28PM +0200, Ondrej Certik wrote: I guess the Social Contract really is a joke. I don't know why new applicants are supposed to agree to it. Old members apparently violate it at will for years with no consequences. It doesn't make me respect Debian very much. I am not a DD (yet), but all my packages were very strictly checked for all non-free stuff that I forgot to delete and the Social Contract is not a joke at all. This is why I am using Debian. Developers you have, are better than developers you don't have. The ones you have, make Debian what it is. If reality doesn't match the theory, change the theory, not the reality. I disagree - this is one of the reasons I am using Debian, because it strictly distinguishes between main and non-free. If there are some non-free parts in the kernel, it can go to non-free immediatelly, so that users can use it now, but things in main should be DFSG free and that's how it should be. As I see it, the non-free section is here precisely for those cases, that intuition says the packages should be in Debian, nevertheless, they are not DFSG free. Then, where was your support last year, when the non-free firmware GR disaster happened, and the work i and the kernel team was doing to progress on this issue was duly sabotaged by both MAnoj and Steve Langasek ? IF you close your eyes while people get attacked beside you for trying to do what you are calling for, then you have nothing to complain when things not happen like you want. Especially when those people who involve themselves get the kind of suffering and abuse i got because of my implication in the non-free firmware discussion. Note, i have since been expulsed, banned, humiliated, punished, kicked out of the kernel team, and in general am considered as a sub-human of the most evil kind, while everyone congratulated themselves to get ride of me. This mail will thus most probably not reach the mailing lists, consider bouncing it if you consider it appropriate. Sadly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On 2007-09-12, Faidon Liambotis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Joerg Jaspert wrote: You're not checking for copyright violations or for non-free stuff in all other packages. Yes he is. The only reason that things like linux-2.6.XX pass through NEW is, from my POV, because noone stepped up to fix it so that old source packages don't have to pass through. I don't consider it something needing fixing. It is a good way to have the copyright files occasionally reviewed. /Sune -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
John Kelly [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Russ Allbery [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: We previously had a vote on whether the DFSG should extend to the entire contents of the archive or only to software, and the vote outcome was that it extended to the entire contents of the archive. Recently, or some time ago? 2004, with some reaffirmation that could be read into the outcome of the firmware vote in 2006 and an explicit defeat of a vote saying that the DFSG only applies to programmatic works in August of 2006. -- Russ Allbery ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Wed, Sep 12, 2007 at 10:30:52AM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote: On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 12:42:56 +0300, Riku Voipio [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: On Wed, Sep 12, 2007 at 12:39:05AM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote: Non-free material is being included in main for the benefit of *precisely zero* users. There's no two ways about this: this is a Social Contract violation. Kernel has 736[1] open bugs, including ones that corrupt data and make other packages fail to build. All but one affect actual users. Does the Social Contract really mandate that we should fix bugs affecting 0 users before dealing with bugs that actually degrade the user experience? I think you are framing the question in a biased manner. The inclusion of non-free software often does not directly impair operations or degrade utility for most users -- they often are not concerned about exercising the freedoms that are being curtailed. But we have common cause in promoting free software, we acknowledge that non-free software is harmful, and we relegate it to a a repository that is not part of Debian, but it exists for users who want the functionality and do not care about the freedom aspect. So, in my opinion, getting rid of the non-fee material, and actually conforming to our social contract is indeed worth more than fixing these other bugs -- how many of those are release critical, as this bob-free material issue is? There is also the factor of the social contract being our given word, and people trusting us -- if we can not be expected to even try to keep our word on the social contract, what _can_ we be trusted with? IF you really think so, then why did you sabotage my efforts to reach a GR which could be used as a basis to address this issue with the hardware manufacturers last year ? Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 19:28:53 +0200, Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: IF you close your eyes while people get attacked beside you for trying to do what you are calling for, then you have nothing to complain when things not happen like you want. Especially when those people who involve themselves get the kind of suffering and abuse i got because of my implication in the non-free firmware discussion. Note, i have since been expulsed, banned, humiliated, punished, kicked out of the kernel team, and in general am considered as a sub-human of the most evil kind, while everyone congratulated themselves to get ride of me. Debian is no different from any other clique. The crowd follows those who appear strong, and devour any who appear weak. If Debian's highly esteemed social contract is for the benefit of users, then why not let users vote. The outcome may be different if another vote was taken, with language specifically exempting RFCs from the DFSG. -- Internet service http://www.isp2dial.com/
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Wed, Sep 12, 2007 at 06:35:18PM +0200, Pierre Habouzit wrote: I did not took any kind of position on the matter in that thread yet. But to make you happy I will: there is little point in shipping rfc's that are mirrored everywhere on the interwebs, and rfc's are clearly non-free, and do not end up in the final binary package. So there is no point in no stripping them from the source package as it's not near being burden for the maintainers, who after all, are the ones that suffer the most of that decision. If nothing else, RFCs shouldn't be shipped in arbitrary packages - there are packages containing nothing but RFCs, and including individual RFCs in other packages is needless duplication. Having packages available (whether in non-free or otherwise) can be useful in terms of having a local copy of the document, but not so vital as to ignore any licencing issues, since (as has been mentioned) they are distributed elsewhere. Also, distributing them without permission to modify them, just because nobody will ever want to modify them anyway doesn't really make sense to me. The vast majority of people will never want to modify artwork, or fonts, or other media included in packages, but still Debian requires them to be free because some people might. For that matter, the majority of people will never want to modify any program that they run, but Debian still requires them to be free. Most people will never want to modify RFCs, but some people might (or, at least, create derivative works, translations, etc.), so they should be required to be free or they should stay in the non-free section. -- Benjamin A'Lee [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://subvert.org.uk/~bma/ It's hard to live up to your principles. If it were easy, your principles probably aren't worth a damn anyway. - Mark Pilgrim signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
Sune Vuorela wrote: On 2007-09-12, Faidon Liambotis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Joerg Jaspert wrote: You're not checking for copyright violations or for non-free stuff in all other packages. I obviously meant all other *existing* source packages, i.e. all the uploads that don't pass through NEW. The only reason that things like linux-2.6.XX pass through NEW is, from my POV, because noone stepped up to fix it so that old source packages don't have to pass through. I don't consider it something needing fixing. It is a good way to have the copyright files occasionally reviewed. I don't think that old source packages are re-reviewed for copyright violations/non-freeness. But I could easily be wrong. Even if that is not the case, I don't think that Joerg's time should be spent that way, TBH -- but that not up to me :) Regards, Faidon -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
2007/9/12, John Kelly [EMAIL PROTECTED]: If Debian's highly esteemed social contract is for the benefit of users, then why not let users vote. The outcome may be different if another vote was taken, with language specifically exempting RFCs from the DFSG. This is pure demagogy [1] and adds nothing productive to the debate apart from trying to be a provocation. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demagogy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 20:27:41 +0200, Miriam Ruiz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 2007/9/12, John Kelly [EMAIL PROTECTED]: If Debian's highly esteemed social contract is for the benefit of users, then why not let users vote. The outcome may be different if another vote was taken, with language specifically exempting RFCs from the DFSG. This is pure demagogy [1] and adds nothing productive to the debate apart from trying to be a provocation. Again, if Debian's highly esteemed social contract is for the benefit of users, then why not let users vote? Or are you just a crowd of hypocrites? -- Internet service http://www.isp2dial.com/
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Wed, Sep 12, 2007 at 06:33:12PM +, John Kelly wrote: On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 20:27:41 +0200, Miriam Ruiz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 2007/9/12, John Kelly [EMAIL PROTECTED]: If Debian's highly esteemed social contract is for the benefit of users, then why not let users vote. The outcome may be different if another vote was taken, with language specifically exempting RFCs from the DFSG. This is pure demagogy [1] and adds nothing productive to the debate apart from trying to be a provocation. Again, if Debian's highly esteemed social contract is for the benefit of users, then why not let users vote? Or are you just a crowd of hypocrites? We care about users that are offline and need to read RFC's: $ apt-cache search RFC|grep doc-rfc doc-rfc - Migration Pseudo-Package doc-rfc-0001-0999 - Other RFCs doc-rfc-1000-1999 - Other RFCs doc-rfc-2000-2999 - Other RFCs doc-rfc-3000-3999 - Other RFCs doc-rfc-experimental - Experimental RFCs doc-rfc-fyi-bcp - FYI and BCP RFCs doc-rfc-misc - Miscellaneous RFCs doc-rfc-old-std - Old Standard RFCs doc-rfc-std - Standard RFCs doc-rfc-std-proposed - Proposed Standard RFCs We don't see the point to bend our ideals for obnoxious or invalid reasons (having RFCs in the source package is completely useless to the user in the first place). So can you now stop, or at least bring valid arguments ? -- ·O· Pierre Habouzit ··O[EMAIL PROTECTED] OOOhttp://www.madism.org pgpR6JgxpnL37.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
John Kelly, 2007-09-12 18:33:12 + : Again, if Debian's highly esteemed social contract is for the benefit of users, then why not let users vote? We do, actually. Those users who do show interest in influencing the course of Debian by concrete actions rather than by mailing-list trolling are entitled to vote. Others aren't. How do we know the difference? The criterion is known as the NM process. It's open to all. Roland. -- Roland Mas Death *was* hereditary. You got it from your ancestors. -- in Hogfather (Terry Pratchett) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 20:45:07 +0200, Roland Mas [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: John Kelly, 2007-09-12 18:33:12 + : Again, if Debian's highly esteemed social contract is for the benefit of users, then why not let users vote? We do, actually. Those users who do show interest in influencing the course of Debian by concrete actions rather than by mailing-list trolling are entitled to vote. Others aren't. How do we know the difference? The criterion is known as the NM process. It's open to all. If only maintainers qualify as users then your social contract is a farce. -- Internet service http://www.isp2dial.com/
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 20:45:13 +0200, Pierre Habouzit [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: We don't see the point to bend our ideals for obnoxious or invalid reasons (having RFCs in the source package is completely useless to the user in the first place). If you truly believe that users will never see them anyway, then stop wasting time removing them. So can you now stop, or at least bring valid arguments ? If you stop removing RFCs from Debian, you'll still be a crowd of wackos, but at least it won't be so immediately obvious to the casual passerby. -- Internet service http://www.isp2dial.com/
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Sep 12, Nathanael Nerode [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I guess the Social Contract really is a joke. I don't know why new applicants are supposed to agree to it. Old members apparently violate it at will for years with no consequences. When old members became members, it was commonly accepted that distributing RFCs and sourceless firmwares was not just acceptable but even good for users. -- ciao, Marco signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Sep 12, Russ Allbery [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: We previously had a vote on whether the DFSG should extend to the entire contents of the archive or only to software, and the vote outcome was that it extended to the entire contents of the archive. Unless you're You may be aware that some people believe that the changes of GR-2004-003 were just editorial... -- ciao, Marco signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
John Kelly wrote: On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 18:35:18 +0200, Pierre Habouzit [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: there is little point in shipping rfc's that are mirrored everywhere on the interwebs, and rfc's are clearly non-free Your sentence is self contradictory. For all practical intents and purposes, mirrored everywhere equals free. If you mean free as in no need to pay for it, certainly. Bt Pierre means Free as in can-do-with-as-desired. Can Pierre fix a typo? No. Can Pierre make a translation? No. Can Pierre make a derivative document? No. Can Pierre download it from the Internet? Yes. RFCs are not seeming too free, are they? -- John H. Robinson, IV [EMAIL PROTECTED] http WARNING: I cannot be held responsible for the above, sbih.org ( )(:[ as apparently my cats have learned how to type. spiders.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 21:07:43 +0300, Faidon Liambotis [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: Sune Vuorela wrote: On 2007-09-12, Faidon Liambotis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Joerg Jaspert wrote: You're not checking for copyright violations or for non-free stuff in all other packages. I obviously meant all other *existing* source packages, i.e. all the uploads that don't pass through NEW. Can you point me to violations of the DFSG, please? I would like to get these other packages fixed as well. Do you klnow about opther packages where, after knowing about DFSG violations for three years, no action is being taken? The only reason that things like linux-2.6.XX pass through NEW is, from my POV, because noone stepped up to fix it so that old source packages don't have to pass through. I don't consider it something needing fixing. It is a good way to have the copyright files occasionally reviewed. I don't think that old source packages are re-reviewed for copyright violations/non-freeness. But I could easily be wrong. I think every maintainer is supposed to be doing this for their own packages. Only when we have evidence that the maintainers are not doing their job does Joerg have to spend his time doing their job for them. Even if that is not the case, I don't think that Joerg's time should be spent that way, TBH -- but that not up to me :) Indeed. Maintainers should be doing this on their own. And, if there is a mistake, they should be willing to correct it when it is pointed out to them. manoj -- Unix: a moment of convenience, a lifetime of regret. old ITS hacker saying Manoj Srivastava [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/ 1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 19:10:54 +0100, Benjamin A'Lee [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: Having packages available (whether in non-free or otherwise) can be useful in terms of having a local copy of the document, but not so vital as to ignore any licencing issues, since (as has been mentioned) they are distributed elsewhere. Monthly rsync's are your friend. manoj -- Opinion, that great fool, makes fools of all. -- Field Manoj Srivastava [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/ 1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 22:03:48 +0200, Marco d'Itri [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: On Sep 12, Russ Allbery [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: We previously had a vote on whether the DFSG should extend to the entire contents of the archive or only to software, and the vote outcome was that it extended to the entire contents of the archive. Unless you're You may be aware that some people believe that the changes of GR-2004-003 were just editorial... Well, yes, myself included. I have always believed that the DFSG covered the entire contents of the Debian system, and thus GR-2004-003 was just an editorial change, with no change in practical effect. YMMV. manoj -- The most popular labor-saving device today is still a husband with money. Joey Adams, Cindy and I Manoj Srivastava [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/ 1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 21:59:53 +0200, Marco d'Itri [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: On Sep 12, Nathanael Nerode [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I guess the Social Contract really is a joke. I don't know why new applicants are supposed to agree to it. Old members apparently violate it at will for years with no consequences. When old members became members, it was commonly accepted that distributing RFCs and sourceless firmwares was not just acceptable but even good for users. I am afraid such generalizations can't really be made, except, of course, when speaking for oneself; I predate you in the developer ranks, and I never thought that. manoj -- Things are always at their best in the beginning. Pascal Manoj Srivastava [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/ 1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On 11140 March 1977, Faidon Liambotis wrote: You're not checking for copyright violations or for non-free stuff in all other packages. I wonder what I did to all those thousands of packages I had in NEW in the past. IMHO, it's not the ftp-master's job to check with each upload if a number of DDs follow the social contract as they should. It *is* *THE* ftp-masters job to check each and every upload that ends up in NEW before it hits the archive. If there is indeed a problem, we should try to solve this once and forever, shouldn't we? If the kernel team has a good solution that lets us trust such a *simple* mistake wont happen again - sure. I do *not* want to check it every time if I can avoid it. -- bye Joerg liw we have release cycles, that's why it takes so long to get a release out; if we had release race cars, things would go a lot faster -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On 11140 March 1977, Faidon Liambotis wrote: I don't consider it something needing fixing. It is a good way to have the copyright files occasionally reviewed. I don't think that old source packages are re-reviewed for copyright violations/non-freeness. But I could easily be wrong. Those that pass NEW for whatever reason are reviewed. Yes, I did reject lots of such packages for copyright-file brokenness. :) -- bye Joerg If un-free is black and free is white, then there are degrees of free-ness as there are shades of gray. [Kapil Paranjape] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Joerg Jaspert wrote: [...] Those that pass NEW for whatever reason are reviewed. Yes, I did reject lots of such packages for copyright-file brokenness. :) Speaking as someone who has just had a package pass NEW, I would like to thank you for double-checking to make sure I'd done everything right. - -- ┌── ｄｇ＠ｃｏｗｌａｒｋ．ｃｏｍ ─── http://www.cowlark.com ─── │ │ There does not now, nor will there ever, exist a programming language in │ which it is the least bit hard to write bad programs. --- Flon's Axiom -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFG6FwQf9E0noFvlzgRAqv0AKCET7jj9v1ntukuLgFAwHrm8MHWhwCgrcdw gYihemUrUWNIKFuX8Mn1Gbg= =lQZ7 -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
Faidon Liambotis wrote: IMHO, it's not the ftp-master's job to check with each upload if a number of DDs follow the social contract as they should. No? What exactly *is* there job then? According to http://ftp-master.debian.org/REJECT-FAQ.html it *is* one of their jobs. Regards, Patrick -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Wed, Sep 12, 2007 at 02:07:55PM +0200, Luk Claes wrote: What about adding clarifications, what about summarising parts of the RFC? You don't need a free license to do either of those things, though, which is part of the reason why... It's more about the freedom to fix things or to use things than it is to make it buggy... It's also not only about Debian, but in fact more about the freedom of our users to modify RFCs... ...modifying RFCs isn't a freedom most people value even slightly. Which is fine -- we distribute a bunch of stuff that doesn't have that freedom to people who appreciate having it packaged anyway -- that's one of the reasons we have non-free. If making RFCs available via non-free is awkward, or we're worried adding more interesting stuff to non-free might encourage people to use other non-free stuff they wouldn't otherwise, those are technical problems we can fix by improving our packaging tools and making non-free more fine-grained respectively. What's the value in continuing to debate this topic? [0] Cheers, aj [0] Well, other than giving us an excuse to call each other wackos and morons, of course... signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
(-kernel dropped) On Wed, Sep 12, 2007 at 03:47:43PM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote: On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 21:07:43 +0300, Faidon Liambotis [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: Sune Vuorela wrote: On 2007-09-12, Faidon Liambotis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You're not checking for copyright violations or for non-free stuff in all other packages. I obviously meant all other *existing* source packages, i.e. all the uploads that don't pass through NEW. Can you point me to violations of the DFSG, please? Just for the record, if other developers are repeatedly adding non-free stuff to packages in main without due care, it'd be technically plausible to run those uploads through NEW processing too. But we have lots of checks to ensure DDs are able to do a good job of sorting out free and non-free stuff, and the system of expecting updates to be good the vast majority of the time, filing bugs when they're not, and having them properly fixed seems superior in every way, so I'd /really/ hope nothing like that will be necessary. I think every maintainer is supposed to be doing this for their own packages. Only when we have evidence that the maintainers are not doing their job does Joerg have to spend his time doing their job for them. NEW processing is a second chance to catch these and other problems before they hit the distro; it's not something that can replace maintainers catching the problems at first pass. It's more like manual retraining of a spam filter -- you don't want it to be the common case that ftpmaster reviews licenses anymore than you want most spams to be looked at by a human. But just as you do want a human checking over at least a selection of messages and any misclassifications to make sure your spam filter's on track, if we want our policies on copyrights to be consistent, we want to be regularly reviewing the copyrights of some sampling of packages, and we want to pay closer attention to any edge cases where we notice things aren't going the way we want them to. ftpmaster samples packages with new names for copyright and other problems; most of the rest of the time we (ftpmaster, -legal, etc) only investigate further if there's some evidence there's an actual problem. At the point where it hits ftpmaster, though, the aim seems to me to be at least as much to ensure maintainers are doing the checks right (and consistently throughout Debian) as to do the checks themselves. Cheers, aj, who right atm can't think of a much higher compliment than comparing something to his spam filter signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
On Wed, Sep 12, 2007 at 11:26:37PM +0200, Joerg Jaspert [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 11140 March 1977, Faidon Liambotis wrote: I don't consider it something needing fixing. It is a good way to have the copyright files occasionally reviewed. I don't think that old source packages are re-reviewed for copyright violations/non-freeness. But I could easily be wrong. Those that pass NEW for whatever reason are reviewed. Yes, I did reject lots of such packages for copyright-file brokenness. :) By the way, I don't remember having seen some feedback in the making debian/copyright machine-interpretable thread from ftp-masters about usefulness of the proposal for them, and since there is at least one package tentatively using the proposal for its copyright file (namely webkit) that went through NEW recently, it would be nice to hear from ftp-masters as to whether it helped them in their check, or if it doesn't change anything (until tools parsing the machine readable format come up). Cheers, Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
I'm not sure I can take the Debian kernel team seriously any more. http://wiki.debian.org/KernelFirmwareLicensing states, in part: Debian kernel team identifies the following three types of firmware, currently found in the Linux kernel: 1. Sourceless binary blobs with no license, no explicit permission to redistribute, or an explicit prohibition to redistribute. This category currently includes the dabusb, dgrs, emi62, keyspan, smctr, cops, emi26, and 3c359 drivers. Removal of these drivers will have minimal impact on the users, as they are believed to be unpopular and not likely to be required during the installation. It has been agreed within Debian kernel team, that the firmware in category 1 is not acceptable in Debian. It is the intention of the kernel team to prune the affected drivers from the upstream tarball. The most recent linux-source-2.6.22 contains the following files: drivers/media/video/dabfirmware.h drivers/net/drgs_firmware.c drivers/usb/misc/emi26_fw.h drivers/usb/misc/emi62_fw_m.h drivers/usb/misc/emi62_fw_s.h drivers/usb/serial/keyspan_mpr_fw.h drivers/usb/serial/keyspan_usa*_fw.h (11 files) drivers/net/tokenring/smctr_firmware.h drivers/net/appletalk/cops_ltdrv.h drivers/net/appletalk/cops_ffdrv.h drivers/net/tokenring/3c359_microcode.h In other words, *all* of the above drivers. It's even worse than that. Look at the information about drgs: may 20: Dear Andres: After further research, we found that this product was killed in place and never reached the market. We would like to request that this not be included. There will be no users impacted by pulling support. -dil Non-free material is being included in main for the benefit of *precisely zero* users. There's no two ways about this: this is a Social Contract violation. Coming back to looking at Debian after being preoccupied by family business, I see that the kernel team is not even seriously trying to separate out any non-free material. There have been severe regressions from sarge and no attempt is being made to fix them. I guess the Social Contract really is a joke. I don't know why new applicants are supposed to agree to it. Old members apparently violate it at will for years with no consequences. It doesn't make me respect Debian very much. -- Nathanael Nerode [EMAIL PROTECTED] Read it and weep. http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Text_of_Gore_speech_0116.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
