subject:"Re\: A new practical problem with invariant sections\?"

On Tue, Feb 14, 2006 at 08:29:59AM +0100, Yorick Cool wrote:
  Climbing a 4,000 foot mountain is certainly possible. Its just
  inconvenient [well, unless you do that kind of stuff for fun].
  Personally, I do not find this license to be free, even though its just
  a convenience issue.
 
 Seeing as that is a void condition which is totally unenforceable[1], the
 license is just the same as if the condition were inexistent, so yeah,
 it's as good as free.

Do you just want to nitpick and distract from what little conversation there
is here?  Do you have a response to his actual point (that convenience
arguments are a weak attempt to ignore non-free restrictions, which can be
applied to almost anything)?

-- 
Glenn Maynard


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

2006-02-14 Thread Don Armstrong

On Tue, 14 Feb 2006, olive wrote:
 [...]
 The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to 
 share and change it.
 [...]
 
 When I say that, a lot of people (which I would call zealots)

First off, please stop calling people names. Even if you disagree
vehemently with their position, it is not appropriate to use
pejorative terms to refer to them.[1]

 say that this argument is irrelevant and must not be discussed
 because it is obvious that the license is not the software and must
 be keep intact.

That's not the issue; the issue is that there is a bright line test
which we can apply. We simply determine whether we are dealing with a
license being used as a set of legal terms under which works in Debian
are being distributed, or a license being distributed as a work on its
own. The former cannot be modified by virtue of its privileged
position. The latter must be modifiable.

 But this shows at least that there can be sequence of octets which
 are not the software itself and must be preserved.

No one is arguing that there are not octets which must be preseved; a
copyright notice is yet another example which is far simpler.

 I claim that the invariant sections is just the same: it is not part
 of the documentation (this is required by the GFDL) and there must
 be preserved.

It's an inseparable part of the documentation. (It's an immodifiable,
irremovable section, after all.) What the GFDL requires is that the
section not be related to the primary topic of the documentation.

 For the people who don't agree, I would kindly ask them to say if
 they would consider free a license which give you all the freedoms
 you like but must be preserved intact if this license contains a
 preamble of length similar to the invariant section of GFDL?

If there is part of the license which is not part of the terms or does
not aid in the interpretation or understanding of the license, it
should be modifiable or expungeable; otherwise you're no longer
distributing a license being used as a set of legal terms under which
a work in Debian is licensed, you're distributing a bit of text that
is wholly unrelated to licensing in the guise of being a license.

The preamble to the GPL (since that appears to be the source of your
argument) is quite clearly directly related to the interpretation of
the terms that the license operates (or is actually part of the terms
themselves.)[2]

 The other objections of the GFDL (DRM, etc...) is based on a bogus
 reading of the GFDL.

I hate to break it to you, but that's not the case. Having discussed
this extensively with people at the FSF, the concerns are real, and
they are in the process of being addressed.


Don Armstrong

1: I personally would typically refrain from responding to e-mails
which attack people in this manner; I'm only responding here to
clarify the current situtation which faces license texts and their
relationship to the DFSG.

2: While the preamble purports to not be the terms, it clearly directs
their interpreation; GPLv3 makes this even more explicit.
-- 
A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but
won't cross the street to vote in a national election.
 -- Bill Vaughan

http://www.donarmstrong.com  http://rzlab.ucr.edu


signature.asc
Description: Digital signature

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

2006-02-14 Thread Frank Küster

Adam McKenna [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 On Mon, Feb 13, 2006 at 10:07:21AM -0800, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote:
 By contrast, if there is an invariant section written in Japanese, I
 cannot remove it, I cannot distribute a translation instead, I must
 instead simply not transmit the document *at all* if I am stuck with
 an ASCII-only medium.

 I guess you've never heard of UUENCODE.

That won't help: If the device is not capable of uudecoding and
displaying the resulting Japanese, the license requirement cannot be
fulfilled. 

Regards, Frank
-- 
Frank Küster
Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer (teTeX)

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

2006-02-14 Thread olive


Don Armstrong wrote:

On Tue, 14 Feb 2006, olive wrote:


[...]
The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to 
share and change it.

[...]

When I say that, a lot of people (which I would call zealots)



First off, please stop calling people names. Even if you disagree
vehemently with their position, it is not appropriate to use
pejorative terms to refer to them.[1]



Perhaps the word was inappropriate.

I quote from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zealot;

Zealotry denotes zeal in excess, referring to cases where activism and 
ambition in relation to an ideology have become excessive to the point 
of being harmful to others, oneself, and one's own cause. A zealous 
person is called a zealot.


And this was my opinion: the idealogy of some people is in my opinion 
have become excessive to the point of being harmful to free software. I 
think that I have the right of saying that without being accused of 
insulting people.


Olive


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

2006-02-14 Thread Patrick Herzig

On 14/02/06, olive [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Perhaps the word was inappropriate.

 I quote from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zealot;

 Zealotry denotes zeal in excess, referring to cases where activism and
 ambition in relation to an ideology have become excessive to the point
 of being harmful to others, oneself, and one's own cause. A zealous
 person is called a zealot.

 And this was my opinion: the idealogy of some people is in my opinion
 have become excessive to the point of being harmful to free software. I
 think that I have the right of saying that without being accused of
 insulting people.

If you come to a discussion with nothing but gut-feelings about some
stuff you most likely only did some cursory reading on of course your
arguments will be shot down quickly by people who have spent
considerable time discussing, debating, and exploring the topic.
Simply being thorough, however, especially in the legal field, does
not make someone a zealot.

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

On Tue, Feb 14, 2006 at 01:02:27PM +0400, olive wrote:
 And this was my opinion: the idealogy of some people is in my opinion 
 have become excessive to the point of being harmful to free software. I 
 think that I have the right of saying that without being accused of 
 insulting people.

Zealot is derogatory and inflammatory.  If you're not a native speaker and
didn't know that, now you do.  If you don't want to be accused of insulting
people, it's your task to not do so; if you do, you do not have any such
right not to be told so.  (It's disappointing that you respond in this
tone in response to Don's forbearance.)

-- 
Glenn Maynard


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

2006-02-14 Thread olive


Glenn Maynard wrote:

On Tue, Feb 14, 2006 at 01:02:27PM +0400, olive wrote:

And this was my opinion: the idealogy of some people is in my opinion 
have become excessive to the point of being harmful to free software. I 
think that I have the right of saying that without being accused of 
insulting people.



Zealot is derogatory and inflammatory.  If you're not a native speaker and
didn't know that, now you do.  If you don't want to be accused of insulting
people, it's your task to not do so; if you do, you do not have any such
right not to be told so.  (It's disappointing that you respond in this
tone in response to Don's forbearance.)



OK; zealot was not the most appropriate word and forgive me for that.
The answer to Don's was in order to clarify my opinion; it was 
interpreted as an insult while I would have liked to say, without 
insulting people, that the idealogy of some people is in my opinion 
have become excessive to the point of being harmful to free software. I 
think that the tone of this message is OK.


It's true that I am not a native speaker so I may not have have used the 
exact tone in my message but I think that a non native speaker like me 
can also participate in this discussion.


To answer, Patrick remark; a search in this list will show you that I 
have considerably discussed and defended my opinion even if I do not 
agree with most of the posters.


Olive


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

2006-02-14 Thread Yorick Cool

On Tue, Feb 14, 2006 at 02:47:02AM -0500, Glenn Maynard wrote:
 On Tue, Feb 14, 2006 at 08:29:59AM +0100, Yorick Cool wrote:
   Climbing a 4,000 foot mountain is certainly possible. Its just
   inconvenient [well, unless you do that kind of stuff for fun].
   Personally, I do not find this license to be free, even though its just
   a convenience issue.
  
  Seeing as that is a void condition which is totally unenforceable[1], the
  license is just the same as if the condition were inexistent, so yeah,
  it's as good as free.
 
 Do you just want to nitpick and distract from what little conversation there
 is here?  Do you have a response to his actual point (that convenience
 arguments are a weak attempt to ignore non-free restrictions, which can be
 applied to almost anything)?
 
First off, hello. 

Actually, I wasn't aiming to nitpick. My general attitude is not to
rant on endlessly when I feel my opinion is more or less represented
in the conversation already, hence why I didn't elaborate on the
general conversation. I try not to add noise, but only to post when I
have something releatively new (in a very loose sense, granted) to say.

Anyway, my point wasn't that much of a nitpick.

The and what about this absurd license argument crops up regurlarly
to try to demonstrate that requirements having nothing to do with
software freedom per se can impede it's freedom. The problem is that
the particular absurd license argument fails miserably in that such
licenses' absurd requirements would be unenforceable[1]. This statement
does not resolve the convenience problem, because even if the
absurd license argument is unvalid, one can still argue that inconvenient
clauses are non-free (FWIW, I tend to believe the contrary regarding a
certain number of specific unconvenient clauses). I believe that is far
from being a nitpick, because the argument is thrown around quite
often, and having to deal with it creates alot of unuseful noise which
does not help resolve the specific question at hand either way. Hence why I
pointed out the weakness of the argument.

Anyway, what do you think distracted most from the conversation, my
initial remark, or your message and my reply?

Yorick

[1]In civil law anyway.


signature.asc
Description: Digital signature

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

On Tue, Feb 14, 2006 at 09:44:33AM +0100, Frank Küster wrote:
 Adam McKenna [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 
  On Mon, Feb 13, 2006 at 10:07:21AM -0800, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote:
  By contrast, if there is an invariant section written in Japanese, I
  cannot remove it, I cannot distribute a translation instead, I must
  instead simply not transmit the document *at all* if I am stuck with
  an ASCII-only medium.
 
  I guess you've never heard of UUENCODE.
 
 That won't help: If the device is not capable of uudecoding and
 displaying the resulting Japanese, the license requirement cannot be
 fulfilled. 

That's ridiculous.

The requirement is not that the sections must display on every device
imaginable anyway.  The requirement is that the sections are preserved when
the document is distributed.

--Adam


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

2006-02-14 Thread Frank Küster

Adam McKenna [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 On Tue, Feb 14, 2006 at 09:44:33AM +0100, Frank Küster wrote:
 Adam McKenna [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 
  On Mon, Feb 13, 2006 at 10:07:21AM -0800, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote:
  By contrast, if there is an invariant section written in Japanese, I
  cannot remove it, I cannot distribute a translation instead, I must
  instead simply not transmit the document *at all* if I am stuck with
  an ASCII-only medium.
 
  I guess you've never heard of UUENCODE.
 
 That won't help: If the device is not capable of uudecoding and
 displaying the resulting Japanese, the license requirement cannot be
 fulfilled. 

 That's ridiculous.

To me, it's rather sad.

 The requirement is not that the sections must display on every device
 imaginable anyway.  The requirement is that the sections are preserved when
 the document is distributed.

So how can I distribute the document on that device if I cannot include
it on the device?  I cannot, and hence the modifications needed to use
it on that device are not allowed.

Of course I can distribute the complete document and tell the owner of
such a device how to create a derivative that fits on it.  But then he
may no longer distribute it.

That's non-free.

Regards, Frank
-- 
Frank Küster
Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer (teTeX)

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

On Tue, Feb 14, 2006 at 06:08:06PM +0100, Frank Küster wrote:
 So how can I distribute the document on that device if I cannot include
 it on the device?  I cannot, and hence the modifications needed to use
 it on that device are not allowed.

I don't know of any device that rejects files of a particular encoding.  Can
you give an example of such a device?

 Of course I can distribute the complete document and tell the owner of
 such a device how to create a derivative that fits on it.  But then he
 may no longer distribute it.

No, he just can't view the invariant sections on his device.  The requirement
is that you give him those sections when you distribute the document, not
that he be able to read them on every device he owns.

If we extrapolate your argument out to the extreme, I am breaking the
license if I print out the document (along with Japanese invariant sections)
and give it to someone who doesn't understand Japanese.  That's plain stupid.

--Adam

-- 
Adam McKenna  [EMAIL PROTECTED]  [EMAIL PROTECTED]


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

On Tue, Feb 14, 2006 at 02:47:02AM -0500, Glenn Maynard wrote:
  Seeing as that is a void condition which is totally unenforceable[1], the
  license is just the same as if the condition were inexistent, so yeah,
  it's as good as free.
 
 Do you just want to nitpick and distract from what little conversation there
 is here?  Do you have a response to his actual point (that convenience
 arguments are a weak attempt to ignore non-free restrictions, which can be
 applied to almost anything)?

If that was his point, he picked a very bad example.  His exmaple license 
would fail on discrimination before convenience even became a factor.

As far as the convenience arguments, as I pointed out earlier, the
differences between freedom and convenience are quite clearly delineated in
the dictionary, and attempts to conflate the two do not make for compelling
arguments.

--Adam
-- 
Adam McKenna  [EMAIL PROTECTED]  [EMAIL PROTECTED]


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

2006-02-14 Thread Nathanael Nerode

Anthony DeRobertis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
But, there is a problem: My portable device understands only ASCII, or
maybe ISO-8859-1 if I'm lucky (at least in the US, this is pretty
common). It doesn't understand UTF-8, Shift-JIS, etc. It is not
technically possible to keep the Japanese invariant section.

Oh, it's possible, the section just ends up as unreadable garbage.  Nothing in 
the GFDL requires that the invariant sections be readable.

Likewise, it must retain its original Japanese title, so the table of contents 
will contain a line of unreadable garbage.

Of course, I think requiring that a modified work contain unreadable garbage 
is a non-free restriction.  But at least this is *possible*.  :-)

-- 
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]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

2006-02-14 Thread Anton Zinoviev

On Mon, Feb 13, 2006 at 08:32:19PM +0100, Florian Weimer wrote:
 * Craig Sanders:
 
  there's nothing in the GFDL that prevents you from doing that. the
  capabilities of your medium are beyond the ability of the GFDL (or any
  license) to control.
 
 Uhm, the existence of the anti-DRM clause disproves this claim.

The anti-DRM clause (you may not use technical measures to obstruct
or control the reading or further copying of the copies you make or
distribute) means that you may not use intentionaly the limitations
of the device for the purpose of obstructing the user's ability to
read the document.  In our case there is no intention.

Anton Zinoviev


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

2006-02-14 Thread Nathanael Nerode

Yorick Cool [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 On Mon, Feb 13, 2006 at 08:49:33PM -0500, Anthony DeRobertis wrote:
  Climbing a 4,000 foot mountain is certainly possible. Its just
  inconvenient [well, unless you do that kind of stuff for fun].
  Personally, I do not find this license to be free, even though its just
  a convenience issue.
 
 Seeing as that is a void condition which is totally unenforceable[1], the
 license is just the same as if the condition were inexistent, so yeah,
 it's as good as free.
snip
 [1] This is at least the case in civil law countries. I have a few
 doubts about common law countries.
 

It's almost certainly enforcable in common law countries: contracts can 
require you to do pretty much anything which isn't illegal, and licenses of 
this sort are definitely contracts (because they impose restrictions on your 
activities which would be unrestricted without acceptance of the license).  

If you use the copyrighted work (in a way which requires permission under 
copyright law) without a valid license, you are infringing copyright.  And 
the copyright holder can license the work in exchange for nearly any 
compensation he likes.  Perhaps he has a strong personal interest in 
promoting mountain climbing.  There is a doctrine of copyright misuse, but 
it's used very rarely and appears to be very narrow.

I don't know about civil law countries, but I'd love to know why you think it 
isn't enforcable there.

-- 
Nathanael Nerode  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

[Insert famous quote here]


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

On Tue, Feb 14, 2006 at 04:57:47PM +0100, Yorick Cool wrote:
 The and what about this absurd license argument crops up regurlarly
 to try to demonstrate that requirements having nothing to do with
 software freedom per se can impede it's freedom. The problem is that
 the particular absurd license argument fails miserably in that such
 licenses' absurd requirements would be unenforceable[1]. This statement
 does not resolve the convenience problem, because even if the
 absurd license argument is unvalid, one can still argue that inconvenient
 clauses are non-free (FWIW, I tend to believe the contrary regarding a
 certain number of specific unconvenient clauses). I believe that is far
 from being a nitpick, because the argument is thrown around quite
 often, and having to deal with it creates alot of unuseful noise which
 does not help resolve the specific question at hand either way. Hence why I
 pointed out the weakness of the argument.

The argument is we wouldn't allow this restriction, so why should we allow
this other restriction that looks very similar?  The question of whether
the extreme example is enforcable or not doesn't enter into it.  It's a
very useful approach to explaining an argument; it accentuates the variables,
and helps people find common points of reference.  When people agree with
the extreme case, and still disagree with the argument, they've established
outer boundaries to narrow in on where they believe the line lies, and why;
and it's a useful step in determining when that line is blurry (where bright
line tests don't exist).

(Unfortunately, some people miss that point, and merely respond with that's
silly[1].)

 Anyway, what do you think distracted most from the conversation, my
 initial remark, or your message and my reply?

My response started out with a reply to your claim, which I then deleted
to avoid the distraction.  Instead, I offered my interpretation of Anthony's
argument, which had multiple purposes: to summarize it in case it was missed;
and to give Anthony an opportunity to correct me, if my interpretation was
off.  I don't consider that a distraction at all.

Since you seem to insist (and we're already thoroughly distracted anyway),
I'll offer that, too.  Nonenforcable only means free if the author's wishes
are considered discardable if they don't have legal teeth.  The author
wants to restrict you in a DFSG-unfree way, but we think you can get away
with it, so don't worry is hardly something Debian should be saying.
Additionally, enforcable depends on jurisdiction; Debian doesn't have the
means to tell with any certainty that a clause is unenforcable in *all*
jurisdictions.  Even your post included an in civil law qualifier.  For
license evaluation purposes, we assume that every restriction is enforcable
(unless it's directly relevant, eg. severability).


[1] Examples are probably unnecessary, but for the hell of it,
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/02/msg00285.html [grep for
fraud]

-- 
Glenn Maynard


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

2006-02-14 Thread Joe Smith



Adam McKenna [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote in message 
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]

On Mon, Feb 13, 2006 at 07:42:23PM -0500, Joe Smith wrote:

I'm not one for entering flamewars, but I must ask what is freedom if not
convience?


dict is both free AND convenient!

  n 1: the state of being suitable or opportune; chairs arranged
   for his own convenience
Why would one desire freedom for something except that it is more suitable 
or opportune than not being free?


Lets face it, the only reason that free software is desrireable is because 
that freedom makes certain things

easier, or more convienient?




--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

2006-02-14 Thread Anton Zinoviev

On Sun, Feb 12, 2006 at 07:31:20PM -0500, Anthony DeRobertis wrote:

I don't recall the following example being brought up.

Thank you for this example. It was new and I liked it because it is
not as abstract as most of the other examples.

Let's assume a manual, written by in Japanese, with Japanese invariant
sections. Someone translates this manual to English. The translator, of
course, leaves the Japanese invariant section intact.

Now, I'd like to download this (translated) manual and place it on a
portable device I own, so I can easily read it without killing a bunch
of trees. I think this is clearly a useful modification, and I think
that I should be able to do this for a DFSG-free work.

But, there is a problem: My portable device understands only ASCII, or
maybe ISO-8859-1 if I'm lucky (at least in the US, this is pretty
common). It doesn't understand UTF-8, Shift-JIS, etc. It is not
technically possible to keep the Japanese invariant section.

Actually I can see here two different problems.

The first problem is that you are unable to install the document on
your device together with the invariant sections. This however is not
a real problem because you don't have to do this. I am not sure, but
I suppose Craig meant this in part of the discussion. GFDL does not
require from you to install the invariant sections on your device.

The other problem, on the other hand, is more interesting. How can we
distribute the document, respecting the requirements of GFDL, in a way
that is convenient for use on your device. I can see two ways for
this.

The first way is to distribute the text in some encoding that supports
Japanese such as UTF-8. That way on your device you will be able to
read the English part of the document (which contains only ASCII
characters), but the non-English part will be visible to you in that
way:

Ofcourse the users whose devices can read UTF-8 will be able to view
the text properly.

The second way to distribute the text exploits the fact that GFDL
doesn't place requirements about the format of the document. There is
no requirement acording to which the document must be included in only
one file. There is also no requirement to use same format for the
different files belonging to the document. This makes possible to
distribute the document in a bundle of two parts -- the part to be
installed on your device and the part that can not be read by your
device.

Infact the described problem is very similar to the situation when
some invariant sections contains pictures. Ofcourse the plain text
files can not contain inline pictures, but this doesn't mean we are
unable to distribute such a document in plain text files. It is
enough to distribute the text and the graphical images in separate
files provided that the text includes references to the graphical file
names when appropriate.

Consider the HTML format -- it is text-only but can contain references
to graphical images. The graphical browsers include these images
inline but the text-browsers show the users only the names of the
images. The user decides whether to look at the image or not. The
plain-text files are similar case -- the text contains references to
the images and the user decides whether to look at them or not.

I believe this gives a notable, practicle reason why invariant sections
are not free.

I hope I managed to explain why in this interesting example the
invariant sections do not deprive our rights to read, to adapt, to
distribute and to improve.

Anton Zinoviev

--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

On Tue, Feb 14, 2006 at 04:13:59PM +0400, olive wrote:
 To answer, Patrick remark; a search in this list will show you that I 
 have considerably discussed and defended my opinion even if I do not 
 agree with most of the posters.

You have?  You elided the bulk of Don's response wholesale, and your
arguments often seem to reduce to poorly-defended assertions of what
you think the DFSG should mean.

And to repeat myself from a response to a previous poster making your
argument,

 This is just more wedging, trying to abuse the fact that Debian allows
 invariant license texts to squeeze in other invariant stuff.

 I would suggest anyone engaging in such wedging carefully reevaluate
 whether what they're doing is really in the best interests of Debian;
 or whether they're just trying to contrive a way to pound Debian into
 agreement with the FSF.

[1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2006/01/msg00493.html

-- 
Glenn Maynard


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

On Tue, Feb 14, 2006 at 03:08:42PM -0500, Nathanael Nerode wrote:
 I don't know about civil law countries, but I'd love to know why you think it 
 isn't enforcable there.

Who cares?

It discriminates against several groups of people and fields of endeavor.
The point is moot.

--Adam


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

2006-02-14 Thread Raul Miller

On 2/14/06, olive [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 In every matter, it is virtually impossible to write a rule that can
 mechanically be interpreted to give a suitable result.

I disagree.

It's impossible to cover all aspects of all cases, but obtaining
suitable results is entirely possible.

 The preamble of the GPL is also some king of invariant section:
 it says nothing about the license itself but has only political claims:

I'll agree that invariant sections are similar to licenses.

But I'll not agree that they are equivalent.

 But this shows at least that there can be sequence of octets which are
 not the software itself and must be preserved. I claim that the
 invariant sections is just the same: it is not part of the documentation
 (this is required by the GFDL) and there must be preserved.

And we have no problem with maintaining things which are
not the software -- in non-free.

 For the people who don't agree, I would kindly ask them to say if they
 would consider free a license which give you all the freedoms you like
 but must be preserved intact if this license contains a preamble of
 length similar to the invariant section of GFDL? I have ask the question
 in the past but nobody have answered because it was a facile argument.
 But if this argument is facile; please answer.

It's true that the license associated with a copyrighted
piece of software must be kept intact when distributing that
piece of software.  That's a fundamental requirement of
copyright law.

And where someone puts a political rant into an otherwise free
license, we use it as-is.

But the license serves a very specific role -- in free software,
it is what says that the software is free.  And we judge the
licenses based on their content.

Invariant sections do not fill this role.  They fill other roles.

And the license requirement that they not be removed is
a restriction on modification.

Modifying the DFSG to explicitly allow invariant sections
should be pretty simple, right?  The trick would be making the
modification narrow enough that it won't come back to bite
us in a few years.

 The other objections of the GFDL (DRM, etc...) is based on a bogus
 reading of the GFDL.

Whatever bogus means in this context...

...and, nevertheless, this is a reading which is could be legally valid.

This restriction should instead say something like When distributing
the Document, you may not use technical measures to obstruct or
control the rights of other people to read or further copy the copies
you make or distribute.

--
Raul

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

On Tue, Feb 14, 2006 at 04:17:11PM -0500, Joe Smith wrote:
 dict is both free AND convenient!
 
   n 1: the state of being suitable or opportune; chairs arranged
for his own convenience
 Why would one desire freedom for something except that it is more suitable 
 or opportune than not being free?

Yes, convenience is an *effect* of certain types of freedom.  As a mental
exercise, try to imagine a scenario where the existence of a particular piece
of free software would be very *inconvenient* for you.

 Lets face it, the only reason that free software is desrireable is because 
 that freedom makes certain things
 easier, or more convienient?

No, it's desirable because it's free.  Convenience is subjective.  Freedom is
absolute.

--Adam

-- 
Adam McKenna  [EMAIL PROTECTED]  [EMAIL PROTECTED]


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

On Tue, Feb 14, 2006 at 07:52:26PM -0800, Adam McKenna wrote:
 On Tue, Feb 14, 2006 at 04:17:11PM -0500, Joe Smith wrote:
  dict is both free AND convenient!
  
n 1: the state of being suitable or opportune; chairs arranged
 for his own convenience
  Why would one desire freedom for something except that it is more suitable 
  or opportune than not being free?
 
 Yes, convenience is an *effect* of certain types of freedom.  As a mental
 exercise, try to imagine a scenario where the existence of a particular piece
 of free software would be very *inconvenient* for you.

I think convenience is something to be considered in determining whether
something is free or not; a hint, nothing more, but not irrelevant either.
It's something that can be sacrificed, to a certain degree: the GPL is
pretty inconvenient at times, but its effects are acceptable.

Practicality is more significant.  If a license makes it *impractical* to
exercise DFSG freedoms, it's non-free.  That doesn't actually say much,
except that merely making it possible to exercise freedoms isn't enough,
if it's not practical; that there are limits to the hoops that can be
placed in front of DFSG freedoms.

Of course, that's also just a guideline--there are some cases which we
accept being made impractical by a license, such as proprietary distribution
(because that case is considered inherently incompatible with Free Software
goals).  I think it's a better one than convenience, though.

 No, it's desirable because it's free.  Convenience is subjective.  Freedom is
 absolute.

Freedom is subjective, too; there are a lot of views on it, even within the
bounds of the letter of the DFSG.

-- 
Glenn Maynard


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

2006-02-13 Thread Hamish Moffatt

On Mon, Feb 13, 2006 at 05:19:32PM +1100, Craig Sanders wrote:
 On Sun, Feb 12, 2006 at 10:44:51PM -0600, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
  What if he wants to further distribute the stuff to other
   people who are using a device like his? I mean, sharing stuff useful
   to me is one of the prime reasons I like free software -- if stuff is
   useful, I can share.
 
 why are you obsessing with a convenience issue and pretending that it
 has ANY BEARING AT ALL on freedom issues?  it doesn't.

The text of Aj's proposal does something similar actually;

(2.2) Transparent Copies

The second conflict is related to the GFDL's requirements for
transparent copies of documentation (that is, a copy of the
documentation in a form suitable for editing). In particular, Section 3
of the GFDL requires that a transparent copy of the documentation be
included with every opaque copy distributed, or that a transparent copy
is made available for a year after the opaque copies are no longer being
distributed.

For free software works, Debian expects that simply providing the source
(or transparent copy) alongside derivative works will be sufficient, but
this does not satisfy either clause of the GFDL's requirements. 


That Debian expects that simply providing the source alongside ...
does not appear to make this non-free. It might make be inconvenient for
us and/or require us to change the ftp-master scripts, but that doesn't
seem to affect its freeness.


Hamish
-- 
Hamish Moffatt VK3SB [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

2006-02-13 Thread Peter Samuelson


[Hamish Moffatt]
 That Debian expects that simply providing the source alongside ...
 does not appear to make this non-free. It might make be inconvenient
 for us and/or require us to change the ftp-master scripts, but that
 doesn't seem to affect its freeness.

One must remember, however, that while a mere convenience issue for
our users may be a non-issue for Debian, a mere convenience issue
that affects Debian directly is very relevant.

Nothing in the SC or DFSG requires Debian to accept any software that
comes along and adheres to the letter of the DFSG.  As a hypothetical,
if the software required Debian's FTP servers to keep the source
available for 10 years, unconditionally, we'd probably refuse to ship
that software on the grounds that that would be a PITA.  Likewise, I
think that FDL-licensed content may be DFSG-free, but considering the
practical problems it causes us, we'd rather not ship any of it is a
consistent and reasonable position to take.


signature.asc
Description: Digital signature

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

2006-02-13 Thread Hamish Moffatt

On Mon, Feb 13, 2006 at 02:34:32AM -0600, Peter Samuelson wrote:
 [Hamish Moffatt]
  That Debian expects that simply providing the source alongside ...
  does not appear to make this non-free. It might make be inconvenient
  for us and/or require us to change the ftp-master scripts, but that
  doesn't seem to affect its freeness.
 
 One must remember, however, that while a mere convenience issue for
 our users may be a non-issue for Debian, a mere convenience issue
 that affects Debian directly is very relevant.
 
 Nothing in the SC or DFSG requires Debian to accept any software that
 comes along and adheres to the letter of the DFSG.  As a hypothetical,
 if the software required Debian's FTP servers to keep the source
 available for 10 years, unconditionally, we'd probably refuse to ship
 that software on the grounds that that would be a PITA.  Likewise, I
 think that FDL-licensed content may be DFSG-free, but considering the
 practical problems it causes us, we'd rather not ship any of it is a
 consistent and reasonable position to take.

Indeed. However Aj's proposal actually argues that the transparent
copies clause makes these documents non-free. That doesn't seem to be
justified. I don't think Manoj's position statement document adds any
additional justification either.

Hamish
-- 
Hamish Moffatt VK3SB [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

2006-02-13 Thread Thomas Bushnell BSG

Craig Sanders [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

 the GPL says you must include the full machine-readable/editable source
 code, so if you can't do that in a given medium (say, a chip with 1KB
 capacity) then GPL software is not free in any medium.

Of course, but that isn't an imposition on changes.

If a GPL'd program comes with a bunch of Japanese text, then I could
always remove that text if I must transmit the program on ASCII.  I
might have a weaker less useful program, but I can at least do
something.  I might also translate the Japanese into English and
distribute that instead.  I have many options.

By contrast, if there is an invariant section written in Japanese, I
cannot remove it, I cannot distribute a translation instead, I must
instead simply not transmit the document *at all* if I am stuck with
an ASCII-only medium.

Thomas


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

2006-02-13 Thread Thomas Bushnell BSG

Craig Sanders [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

 why are you obsessing with a convenience issue and pretending that it
 has ANY BEARING AT ALL on freedom issues?  it doesn't.

I think if you'll look at the header you'll see that this is about a
new practical problem.  If you aren't interested in the practical
problems, then you don't need to worry about them.  Those of us who
are interested in them should be able to discuss them, right?

We have also been told by some that the DFSG should be interpreted only to
require permission to make useful modifications.  If that is correct,
then it immediately becomes relevant whether a given modification is
useful, and whether that modification is prohibited.

Thomas


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

2006-02-13 Thread Florian Weimer

* Craig Sanders:

 there's nothing in the GFDL that prevents you from doing that. the
 capabilities of your medium are beyond the ability of the GFDL (or any
 license) to control.

Uhm, the existence of the anti-DRM clause disproves this claim.


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

On Mon, 13 Feb 2006 17:19:32 +1100, Craig Sanders [EMAIL PROTECTED] said:

 if there is a particular process which can shoehorn the document into
 the limited device, then it's perfectly OK to distribute the document
 along with with instructions (whether human-executable instructions or
 a script/program) for doing so. i.e. this meets the requirements of
 the patch clause in the DFSG.

Note that the patch clause only applies to limiting distribution of
the modified source to be original source + patch.  A license cannot
limit distribution to the modified binary to be binary obtained from
original source + patch.

-- 
Hubert Chan [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.uhoreg.ca/
PGP/GnuPG key: 1024D/124B61FA
Fingerprint: 96C5 012F 5F74 A5F7 1FF7  5291 AF29 C719 124B 61FA
Key available at wwwkeys.pgp.net.   Encrypted e-mail preferred.


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

On Mon, 13 Feb 2006 14:37:07 +1100, Craig Sanders [EMAIL PROTECTED] said:

 the GPL says you must include the full machine-readable/editable
 source code, so if you can't do that in a given medium (say, a chip
 with 1KB capacity) then GPL software is not free in any medium.

From the GPL:

,
|   3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
| under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
| Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
| 
| a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
| source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections
| 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
`

3a only says that a binary has to be *accompanied* with the source code.
Hence it can be on a separate medium.  So you can distribute your 1KB
chip, stapled to a CD-ROM that contains the source, and still comply
with the terms of the GPL.

Interestingly, you don't even have to make sure that it's on a medium
that the recipient can actually read, as long as it's a medium
customarily used for software interchange.  So you can distribute the
source on CD-ROMs, even if you know your recipient doesn't have a CD-ROM
drive.


But it gets even better.  You don't even have to accompany the binary
with the source itself.  If you want, you can instead:

,
| b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
| years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
| cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
| machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
| distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
| customarily used for software interchange; or,
| 
| c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer
| to distribute corresponding source code.  (This alternative is
| allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
| received the program in object code or executable form with such
| an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
`

 try again. if you keep coming up with these absurd claims, the laws of
 chance says that you must get it right one day. OTOH, you've got a
 better chance of winning a big lottery.

-- 
Hubert Chan [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.uhoreg.ca/
PGP/GnuPG key: 1024D/124B61FA
Fingerprint: 96C5 012F 5F74 A5F7 1FF7  5291 AF29 C719 124B 61FA
Key available at wwwkeys.pgp.net.   Encrypted e-mail preferred.


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

On Mon, Feb 13, 2006 at 08:32:19PM +0100, Florian Weimer wrote:
 * Craig Sanders:
 
  there's nothing in the GFDL that prevents you from doing that. the
  capabilities of your medium are beyond the ability of the GFDL (or any
  license) to control.
 
 Uhm, the existence of the anti-DRM clause disproves this claim.

you people never give up, do you? as soon as one bogus claim against the
GFDL is disproved, you recycle another one that was demolished months,
weeks, or only days ago.  repeat ad nauseum.

we've been over the bullshit anti-DRM clause numerous times.  go read the
archives.  i really couldn't be bothered doing it again.

craig

-- 
craig sanders [EMAIL PROTECTED]   (part time cyborg)


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

On Mon, Feb 13, 2006 at 10:01:24AM -0600, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
  why are you obsessing with a convenience issue and pretending that
  it has ANY BEARING AT ALL on freedom issues?  it doesn't.
 
 Err, because I do not see this as a matter of mere
  convenience. If I spend a significant time on the road with my
  device, and I need the manual when I am away from my laptop, this is
  not just a geek hah hah. look at what I got on my phone thing.

you're still talking about convenience, not freedom.

 Why is being able to distribute this this amy more of mere
 convenience than, say, wmbattery? anyone can just cat
 /proc/acpi/BAT0/state, no? At a more extreme end: why do we need gcc?
 or any other compiler? Is it not just a convenience as opposed to
 writing in machine language to the bare metal, like real programmers
 do?

stop trying to muddy the waters with irrelevant distractions that aren't
even vaguely similar analogies, let alone close.

 Any matter of freedom, unless it is related to food, shelter, and
 basic survival, can be couched as a matter of cenvenience; so I am
 very vary of such arguments.

bullshit. freedom, as used by Debian, is explicitly defined in the
DFSG. the DFSG has a number of clauses detailing what we consider
free and what we don't consider free. convenience is NOT one of those
clauses, and never was. in fact, convenience is implicitly discarded as
a criteria by the existence of the patch clause, which explicitly states
that the major inconvenience of modification-by-patch-only is free.


  the answer to your disingenuous question is obvious. he gives them
  the entire document, and the recipient does whatever they want/need
  to get it onto their PDA. if they physically can't do what they want
  with it (e.g. because of limitations in the device/medium they're
  trying to import it to), then that is just an unfortunate reality in
  a world governed by physical laws rather than wishes and magic.
 
 But if it were not for the GFDL, we would not have to make our
  users face an impossibility, or figure out how to strip things from
  binary packages in order to get them to install. As a user, seems
  like a significant obstacle to distribution and use, from my
  perspective.

every free license has some hoops and hurdles that have to be jumped.
that doesn't make them non-free. you're holding the GFDL up to a
standard of perfection far beyond that which is required of any other
license - and why? for some stupidly pedantic political/religious point.
to force the FSF to do your bidding and to prove that you and your
loathsome friends are Holier Than Stallman, True Defenders of the Free
Software Flame or some other self-justifying dreck.

it's all about manipulation and power - you zealot scum are trying to
manipulate Debian into forcing the FSF to do your will, an on-going
effort for the last few years. it isn't going to work - even if you
succeed in forcing Debian to take a moronic stand, the FSF has enough
sense and enough backbone to dismiss it as lunatic frothings at the
mouth. all you will succeed in doing is to discredit Debian and make
Debian irrelevant.


  if there is a particular process which can shoehorn the document
  into the limited device, then it's perfectly OK to distribute the
  document along with with instructions (whether human-executable
  instructions or a script/program) for doing so. i.e. this meets the
  requirements of the patch clause in the DFSG.
 
 But I can no longer distribute the modified copy; I can tell
  people how to modify their copy, and then build the package, so they
  can then do the same.

 In other words, I cannot distribute the modified version , I
  can only tell people how to modify it for themselves. DOes not quite
  meet the freedom requirement, in my view.

that qualifies as free according to the DFSG. patch clause.

your view is very selective. as is your reading of the DFSG. like
any zealot quoting scripture, you use only the bits that support your
current claim and ignore anything that doesn't.


craig

-- 
craig sanders [EMAIL PROTECTED]   (part time cyborg)


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

2006-02-13 Thread Raul Miller

On 2/13/06, Craig Sanders [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 you people never give up, do you? as soon as one bogus claim against
  the GFDL is disproved, you recycle another one that was demolished
 months, weeks, or only days ago.  repeat ad nauseum.

Another possibility is that you're begging the question.
(Begging the question means: assuming your conclusion
is true in your argument about why the conclusion is true.)

How about we try a different approach:

Let's say that we want GFDL'd documentation to be a part
of main.  (That's going to be true for at least some people in
the project.)

How do we describe what it is that we want?  Do we need
to keep an arbitrary list of licenses, and everything that's
on that list is OK?  Do we just want to use the non-free
criteria (everything that we can legally distribute)?

How do we describe what it is we're trying to accomplish
here?

If I might make a suggestion: this description should
start out with a list of what things we consider important,
and what things we consider required.

Having the legal right to do security updates, and to port
the packages to other architectures, for example, are
crucial.

Also crucial is having a broadly useful system.

We already are sacrificing some things we'd like to have
(the ability to mix and match information between packages)
for the above goals.

If most of Debian wants the GFDL to be acceptable, then
maybe we can come up with some simple concept that
we can all understand which expresses how this better
aligns with our goals (for example: the social contract)
than the way we have been doing things so far.

But I don't think we're going to get there by pretending that
we have accepted the GFDL all along.

If you want the proposal to be treated seriously, you need
to treat the proposal seriously.  If you try passing off
the proposal as not really a proposal, what's the point?

--
Raul

The Curious Case Of The Mountainous Molehill (was Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?)

you people love to recycle the same lies over and over and over again.
i'm becoming convinced that it is a deliberate strategy - repeat the
same lies and eventually everyone will just give up out of exhaustion.

On Mon, Feb 13, 2006 at 01:42:44PM -0700, Hubert Chan wrote:
 3a only says that a binary has to be *accompanied* with the source code.
 Hence it can be on a separate medium.  So you can distribute your 1KB
 chip, stapled to a CD-ROM that contains the source, and still comply
 with the terms of the GPL.

you can do the same with GFDL documents. e.g. the stupid coffee cup
example so popular with you zealots - if you can't fit the invariant
sections on the cup itself, then print it on paper and include it in the
box. problem solved.

for some reason, though, you zealots ignore that inconvenience, or treat
it as free for the GPL and other licenses, but consider it beyond the
pale and non-free for the GFDL.


 But it gets even better.  You don't even have to accompany the binary
 with the source itself.  If you want, you can instead:

the GFDL has a similar provision.  you can provide a link to an internet
address containing the full document.


craig

-- 
craig sanders [EMAIL PROTECTED]   (part time cyborg)


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: The Curious Case Of The Mountainous Molehill (was Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?)

On Tue, 14 Feb 2006 09:29:05 +1100, Craig Sanders [EMAIL PROTECTED] said:

 you people love to recycle the same lies over and over and over again.
 i'm becoming convinced that it is a deliberate strategy - repeat the
 same lies and eventually everyone will just give up out of exhaustion.

 On Mon, Feb 13, 2006 at 01:42:44PM -0700, Hubert Chan wrote:
 3a only says that a binary has to be *accompanied* with the source
 code.  Hence it can be on a separate medium.  So you can distribute
 your 1KB chip, stapled to a CD-ROM that contains the source, and
 still comply with the terms of the GPL.

 you can do the same with GFDL documents. e.g. the stupid coffee cup
 example so popular with you zealots - if you can't fit the invariant
 sections on the cup itself, then print it on paper and include it in
 the box. problem solved.

I was not discussing any problem with the GFDL.  I was showing you that
your reading of the GPL was incorrect.  The GPL does not require you to
stick the full source onto the same 1KB chip as the binary, as you
claimed that it did.

 for some reason, though, you zealots ignore that inconvenience, or
 treat it as free for the GPL and other licenses, but consider it
 beyond the pale and non-free for the GFDL.

 But it gets even better.  You don't even have to accompany the binary
 with the source itself.  If you want, you can instead:

 the GFDL has a similar provision.  you can provide a link to an
 internet address containing the full document.

Please show me where the GFDL has such a provision.  The passage that
you previously attempted to use was shown to you to apply only to
*transparent copies* (i.e. the source), and not to the full document
that includes the invariant section.  You have yet to show any other
passage that might provide such permission to just include a link.
Until you do that, please stop making such unfounded claims.

-- 
Hubert Chan [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.uhoreg.ca/
PGP/GnuPG key: 1024D/124B61FA
Fingerprint: 96C5 012F 5F74 A5F7 1FF7  5291 AF29 C719 124B 61FA
Key available at wwwkeys.pgp.net.   Encrypted e-mail preferred.


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

On Mon, Feb 13, 2006 at 02:34:32AM -0600, Peter Samuelson wrote:
 Nothing in the SC or DFSG requires Debian to accept any software that
 comes along and adheres to the letter of the DFSG.  

true.

the convention so far, though, has been if it's free and someone can
be bothered packaging it, then it can go in the archive. this has been
argued numerous times, usually over packages like purity or the bible or
other non-technical documents. whenever it has come up, it has always
ended in if it's free, it will be accepted, a result consistent with
maximal freedom.

 As a hypothetical, if the software required Debian's FTP servers to
 keep the source available for 10 years, unconditionally, we'd probably
 refuse to ship that software on the grounds that that would be a PITA.
 Likewise, I think that FDL-licensed content may be DFSG-free, but
 considering the practical problems it causes us, we'd rather not ship
 any of it is a consistent and reasonable position to take.

perhaps so(*), but that is an ENTIRELY different issue to the question of
whether the GFDL is free or not.

the zealots have claimed (repeatedly) that the GFDL is non-free. so far,
they have yet to come up with any proof of their claim.

ordinarily, in any sane environment, a bogus claim without any proof
would just wither away and die. unfortunately, there are a number of
extremely loud zealots who keep on pushing the issue, aided and abetted
by the fact that one of their number is the debian project secretary who
consistently interprets reality in terms of loony zealot dogma. so this
stupid issue never dies.



craig

(*) i don't have any particular problem with that line of argument.
i don't agree with or support it in any way, but at least it's not
dishonest. if debian wants to exclude stuff for convenience reasons,
then fair enough - but lying to pretend that the reason is that it's
non-free when it's really just inconvenient is inexcusable.


-- 
craig sanders [EMAIL PROTECTED]   (part time cyborg)


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

On Mon, Feb 13, 2006 at 02:33:01PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote:
 Craig Sanders [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 
  bullshit. freedom, as used by Debian, is explicitly defined in the
  DFSG. the DFSG has a number of clauses detailing what we consider
  free and what we don't consider free. convenience is NOT one of those
  clauses, and never was. in fact, convenience is implicitly discarded as
  a criteria by the existence of the patch clause, which explicitly states
  that the major inconvenience of modification-by-patch-only is free.
 
 Modifiability *is* one of those clauses, and a rule that says you
 cannot modify this essay is in violation of that clause.

once again: you *can* modify an invariant section by patching it. the
GFDL does not say you can not modify at all, it says you can not
delete or change these small secondary sections, but you can add your
own comments to them. no, you can not steal credit for someone else's
work, or gag someone by removing their words, nor can you put your own
words in their mouth. you do have the freedom to add your own words
commenting on theirs.  i.e. modification-by-patch is allowed.

for a document, that is more than adequate. hell, it's good enough for
actual software according to the DFSG.


oh, and once again (because i *KNOW* you'll try to obfuscate the crucial
fact about invariant sections, you do it every time the argument gets to
this point) - AN INVARIANT SECTION CAN *ONLY* BE A SECONDARY SECTION.
i.e. specifically *not* the primary topic of the document, either
unrelated to the primary topic or only tangentially-related. e.g. credit
and copyright notices, discussions of the author(s) relationship to the
topic, political rant about the topic, etc.




 But let there be no mistake.  My view (and, I think, Manoj's view), is

manoj's view is part of the problem here. as project secretary, he's
supposed to be impartial. he is obviously failing in that duty.




 Use of the word bullshit constitutes a violation of the policy for
 this mailing list.

your offensive presence is a violation of policy, but hey - i'll let
that slide.


craig

-- 
craig sanders [EMAIL PROTECTED]   (part time cyborg)


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: The Curious Case Of The Mountainous Molehill (was Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?)

On Mon, Feb 13, 2006 at 03:52:28PM -0700, Hubert Chan wrote:
  On Mon, Feb 13, 2006 at 01:42:44PM -0700, Hubert Chan wrote:
  3a only says that a binary has to be *accompanied* with the source
  code.  Hence it can be on a separate medium.  So you can distribute
  your 1KB chip, stapled to a CD-ROM that contains the source, and
  still comply with the terms of the GPL.
 
  you can do the same with GFDL documents. e.g. the stupid coffee cup
  example so popular with you zealots - if you can't fit the invariant
  sections on the cup itself, then print it on paper and include it in
  the box. problem solved.
 
 I was not discussing any problem with the GFDL.  I was showing you that
 your reading of the GPL was incorrect.  The GPL does not require you to
 stick the full source onto the same 1KB chip as the binary, as you
 claimed that it did.

neither does the GFDL, as you and your ilk repeatedly claim that it
does.

to spell out the bleeding obvious: that was the point of my using the
GPL like that. to show that just as it's false for the GPL, it is also
false for the GFDL. i'm sorry that such subtlety was too difficult for
your literal/fundamentalist mind. i'll try to stick to words of very few
syllables in future.


  the GFDL has a similar provision. you can provide a link to an
  internet address containing the full document.

 Please show me where the GFDL has such a provision. The passage that

i've shown it before. i have no interest in playing your time-wasting
game. go read the archives.

craig

-- 
craig sanders [EMAIL PROTECTED]   (part time cyborg)


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

2006-02-13 Thread Adam McKenna

On Mon, Feb 13, 2006 at 10:07:21AM -0800, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote:
 By contrast, if there is an invariant section written in Japanese, I
 cannot remove it, I cannot distribute a translation instead, I must
 instead simply not transmit the document *at all* if I am stuck with
 an ASCII-only medium.

I guess you've never heard of UUENCODE.

--Adam


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

2006-02-13 Thread Joe Smith



Craig Sanders [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote in message 
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]

On Mon, Feb 13, 2006 at 10:01:24AM -0600, Manoj Srivastava wrote:

 why are you obsessing with a convenience issue and pretending that
 it has ANY BEARING AT ALL on freedom issues?  it doesn't.

Err, because I do not see this as a matter of mere
 convenience. If I spend a significant time on the road with my
 device, and I need the manual when I am away from my laptop, this is
 not just a geek hah hah. look at what I got on my phone thing.


you're still talking about convenience, not freedom.


I'm not one for entering flamewars, but I must ask what is freedom if not 
convience?


Why require source code if a program can be edited with a dissasembler or 
even just a hex editor, if not convience?


Why require the ability to modify except convience of not having to harrass 
the proprietary developer

into making your desired changes?


The whole reason behind freedom is convience. If you don't under stand that 
talk to RMS, or even ESR.







--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

2006-02-13 Thread Adam McKenna

On Mon, Feb 13, 2006 at 07:42:23PM -0500, Joe Smith wrote:
 I'm not one for entering flamewars, but I must ask what is freedom if not 
 convience?

dict is both free AND convenient!

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  freedom
   n 1: the condition of being free; the power to act or speak or
think without externally imposed restraints
   2: immunity from an obligation or duty [syn: {exemption}]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  convenience
   n 1: the state of being suitable or opportune; chairs arranged
for his own convenience

--Adam

-- 
Adam McKenna  [EMAIL PROTECTED]  [EMAIL PROTECTED]


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

2006-02-13 Thread Sanjoy Mahajan

Craig Sanders [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 the GFDL does not say you can not modify at all, it says you can
 not delete or change these small secondary sections, but you can add
 your own comments to them.

I did not find any statement in the license with the text in quotes
('but you can add your own comments to them').  Giving section numbers
of the license along with such assertions helps others to check them
quickly.  Following my own advice, here is section 4(L) of the GFDL:

   4. ...In addition, you must do these things in the Modified Version:
   ...
   L. Preserve all the Invariant Sections of the Document, unaltered in
  their text and in their titles.  Section numbers or the equivalent
  are not considered part of the section titles.

The 'unaltered' means that you may not 'add your own comments to them'.
You may add another section saying, for example, 'The previous invariant
section is rubbish.  Here's why: ...' and mark it as an invariant
section.  However, this war of invariant sections leads to an
accumulation of invariant sections, none of which can be deleted.

 once again: you *can* modify an invariant section by patching it.

The distributed source code could include a patch modifying the
invariant section.  However, you cannot distribute an opaque copy
(e.g. printed copy, or HTML generated from DocBook, etc.)  based on the
patch, for then you would violate section 4(L).

-Sanjoy

`A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves.'
   - Bertrand de Jouvenal


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

2006-02-13 Thread Anthony DeRobertis

Craig Sanders wrote:

 stop trying to pretend that convenience is a freedom issue. it isn't.

[snip]

 it may be horribly inconvenient to not be able to usably install a
 foreign language document on an english-only device, but that is UTTERLY
 IRRELEVENT TO WHETHER THE DOCUMENT IS FREE OR NOT.


I have a simple question for you: Is the following license free?

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a
copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
Software), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to
permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to
the following condition:

1. That person first climbs a mountain at least 4,000 ft above mean sea
   level.

Climbing a 4,000 foot mountain is certainly possible. Its just
inconvenient [well, unless you do that kind of stuff for fun].
Personally, I do not find this license to be free, even though its just
a convenience issue.


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

2006-02-13 Thread Anthony DeRobertis

Craig Sanders wrote:

 if there is a particular process which can shoehorn the document into
 the limited device, then it's perfectly OK to distribute the document
 along with with instructions (whether human-executable instructions or
 a script/program) for doing so. i.e. this meets the requirements of the
 patch clause in the DFSG.

No it does not, as the patch clause in DFSG 4 clearly states that the
license must explicitly permit distribution of software built from
modified source code. Please either point to the provision in the GFDL
that explicitly allows that, or stop claiming DFSG 4 is relevant.


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: The Curious Case Of The Mountainous Molehill (was Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?)

On Tue, 14 Feb 2006 10:38:57 +1100, Craig Sanders [EMAIL PROTECTED] said:

 the GFDL has a similar provision. you can provide a link to an
 internet address containing the full document.
 
 Please show me where the GFDL has such a provision. The passage that

 i've shown it before. i have no interest in playing your time-wasting
 game. go read the archives.

You made the assertion that it was sufficient to just include a link to
the full document (including invariant sections) or to just the
invariant sections here:
  http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2006/02/msg00244.html

Thomas Bushnell disagreed with this:
  http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2006/02/msg00246.html
and you tried to justify your assertion by quoting the GFDL:
  http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2006/02/msg00247.html
This is the only post since the GR was presented that I am aware of
where you (or anyone else for that matter) tried to defend that position
by quoting the GFDL.

Both I:
  http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2006/02/msg00260.html
and Thomas:
  http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2006/02/msg00268.html
pointed out that the portion of the GFDL that you quoted is only an
exemption from having to provide a transparent copy along with the
text.  It cannot be used as an exemption from having to include the
invariant sections.

I do not see any reply to either my or Thomas' posts, and I am not aware
of any other post on this issue that quotes from the GFDL.  So as it
stands, as I see it, there has been no proof presented from the GFDL
that allows you to remove the invariant sections from a document and
just include a link to the originals.

-- 
Hubert Chan [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.uhoreg.ca/
PGP/GnuPG key: 1024D/124B61FA
Fingerprint: 96C5 012F 5F74 A5F7 1FF7  5291 AF29 C719 124B 61FA
Key available at wwwkeys.pgp.net.   Encrypted e-mail preferred.


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: The Curious Case Of The Mountainous Molehill (was Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?)

On Mon, Feb 13, 2006 at 08:07:48PM -0700, Hubert Chan wrote:
 On Tue, 14 Feb 2006 10:38:57 +1100, Craig Sanders [EMAIL PROTECTED] said:
 
  the GFDL has a similar provision. you can provide a link to an
  internet address containing the full document.
  
  Please show me where the GFDL has such a provision. The passage that
 
  i've shown it before. i have no interest in playing your time-wasting
  game. go read the archives.
 
 You made the assertion that it was sufficient to just include a link to
 the full document (including invariant sections) or to just the
 invariant sections here:
   http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2006/02/msg00244.html

yes, and it was an appropriate comment for the context in which it was
made.

 [ blah blah blah]

 pointed out that the portion of the GFDL that you quoted is only an
 exemption from having to provide a transparent copy along with the
 text.  It cannot be used as an exemption from having to include the
 invariant sections.

you're either getting confused or deliberately trying to confuse the issue.

i've never said that having to include invariant sections is a problem
that can be worked around - in fact, i've explicitly stated on numerous
occasions that it is not even a problem at all. at least, not a problem
with any freedom implications - it is a mere convenience issue, not a
freedom issue.

inconvenience might be annoying, it might be a complete pain in the
arse, but that is utterly irrelevant to the question of whether
something is free or not.

having to include the invariant sections with whatever other portions
of a GFDL document you want to use may be inconvenient, but it does
not make it non-free. similarly, not being able to delete the implicit
invariant sections from source code (e.g. copyright notices and history)
may be very inconvenient to software plagiarists, but that does not make
it non-free either.

so, why does being required to have the invariant sections somewhere in
the package (say, somewhere under /usr/share/doc) qualify as non-free,
while being forced to have the copyright notice or whatever somewhere in
the package (also say, under /usr/share/doc) qualify as free?

because one is software and the other is documentation? congratulations,
you've achieved the bizarre state of simultaneously believing that
documentation is software and is not software at the same time.
convenient, that.

there's no actual difference in the requirements. which doesn't make any
sense until you realise that you zealots have an agenda - to use the
GFDL to make debian take a moronic stand so you can try to exert power
over the FSF and force them to do your bidding.


 I do not see any reply to either my or Thomas' posts, and I am not
 aware of any other post on this issue that quotes from the GFDL. So
 as it stands, as I see it, there has been no proof presented from the
 GFDL that allows you to remove the invariant sections from a document
 and just include a link to the originals.

sorry, it's you loonies who have to prove that the GFDL is non-free.
you're the freaks making the claim, so you're the freaks who have to
prove that your claim is true. that's the way assertions and claims and
arguments work:  make a claim - back it up with proof.

given that you're disputing the FSF who are acknowledged experts in
the field of Free Software (certainly far more expert than a bunch of
nutcase zealots intent on derailing debian), your claim qualifies as
extraordinary - and extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs.

in this context, extraordinary means unambiguous, clear, and obvious
beyond any dispute.


the best you lot have managed so far is some lame posturing and a lot of
noise trying to fool people that convenience is a freedom issue.

craig

-- 
craig sanders [EMAIL PROTECTED]   (part time cyborg)


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

2006-02-13 Thread Anthony DeRobertis

olive wrote:

 Of course you can. You just keep the bytes representing the Japanese
 version intact even if these does not display properly on your device.

L. Preserve all the Invariant Sections of the Document, UNALTERED IN
THEIR TEXT and in their titles.

I think changing 標準語 to æ¨æºèª would not count as leaving the
invariant sections unaltered in their text.

Plus, leaving the raw octets unaltered is not generally possible. For
example, not all octects are valid latin1, and over half of octects are
not valid printing ASCII.

 
 This argument is totally flawed. The same argument would show that any
 software with a license written in Japanese is not free (besause you
 usually must keep the license).

Most licenses are not actually a problem in the same way invariant
sections are. Invariant sections in the GFDL must be kept as a part of
the document; generally, it is OK to distribute the license along with
the document --- it need not be part of it.


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: The Curious Case Of The Mountainous Molehill (was Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?)

On Tue, 14 Feb 2006 15:06:09 +1100, Craig Sanders [EMAIL PROTECTED] said:

 On Mon, Feb 13, 2006 at 08:07:48PM -0700, Hubert Chan wrote:
 You made the assertion that it was sufficient to just include a link
 to the full document (including invariant sections) or to just the
 invariant sections here:
 http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2006/02/msg00244.html

 yes, and it was an appropriate comment for the context in which it was
 made.

But it was a comment that was later shown to be false (or, at least, has
not yet been backed up).

 [ blah blah blah]
 
 pointed out that the portion of the GFDL that you quoted is only an
 exemption from having to provide a transparent copy along with the
 text.  It cannot be used as an exemption from having to include the
 invariant sections.

 you're either getting confused or deliberately trying to confuse the
 issue.

 i've never said that having to include invariant sections is a problem
 that can be worked around - in fact, i've explicitly stated on
 numerous occasions that it is not even a problem at all. at least, not
 a problem with any freedom implications - it is a mere convenience
 issue, not a freedom issue.

[...]

Did I say anything at all about freedom issues in my last message?  The
only thing that I said was that you claimed that the GFDL allowed people
to replace an invariant section with a link to a network location that
contained the full document, and I said that this claim has not yet been
backed up by a suitable quote from the GFDL.  Stop trying to change the
topic.  Either show where the GFDL gives permission to replace an
invariant section with a link, or stop claiming that it gives that
permission.  That is all I am saying.

I'm sorry if my lack of subtlety is confusing.

-- 
Hubert Chan [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.uhoreg.ca/
PGP/GnuPG key: 1024D/124B61FA
Fingerprint: 96C5 012F 5F74 A5F7 1FF7  5291 AF29 C719 124B 61FA
Key available at wwwkeys.pgp.net.   Encrypted e-mail preferred.


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

2006-02-13 Thread Thomas Bushnell BSG

Craig Sanders [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

 once again: you *can* modify an invariant section by patching it. the
 GFDL does not say you can not modify at all, it says you can not
 delete or change these small secondary sections, but you can add your
 own comments to them. 

A patched version of the manual, which omits the invariant section,
cannot be distributed.  

 no, you can not steal credit for someone else's
 work, or gag someone by removing their words, nor can you put your own
 words in their mouth. you do have the freedom to add your own words
 commenting on theirs.  i.e. modification-by-patch is allowed.

This is true, but it is irrelevant.  The DFSG does not only say that I
can add my words to the original; it requires that the license
preserve my ability to modify it.

Of course, the license can require attributions of credit and notice
that a change was made; the GPL requires these and causes no
problem. 

 for a document, that is more than adequate. hell, it's good enough for
 actual software according to the DFSG.

It doesn't matter whether it's adequate in your opinion; the DFSG
demands modifiability.

 oh, and once again (because i *KNOW* you'll try to obfuscate the crucial
 fact about invariant sections, you do it every time the argument gets to
 this point) - AN INVARIANT SECTION CAN *ONLY* BE A SECONDARY SECTION.

That's certainly true; nobody has challenged that.

However, the DFSG does not just say that the primary parts of the work
need to be modifiable; it says that the whole thing must be.

 Use of the word bullshit constitutes a violation of the policy for
 this mailing list.

 your offensive presence is a violation of policy, but hey - i'll let
 that slide.

Whether my presence is a violation of policy is irrelevant to the
question of your use of the word bullshit.

Thomas


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

2006-02-13 Thread olive


Craig Sanders wrote:

On Mon, Feb 13, 2006 at 02:34:32AM -0600, Peter Samuelson wrote:


Nothing in the SC or DFSG requires Debian to accept any software that
comes along and adheres to the letter of the DFSG.  



true.

the convention so far, though, has been if it's free and someone can
be bothered packaging it, then it can go in the archive. this has been
argued numerous times, usually over packages like purity or the bible or
other non-technical documents. whenever it has come up, it has always
ended in if it's free, it will be accepted, a result consistent with
maximal freedom.



As a hypothetical, if the software required Debian's FTP servers to
keep the source available for 10 years, unconditionally, we'd probably
refuse to ship that software on the grounds that that would be a PITA.
Likewise, I think that FDL-licensed content may be DFSG-free, but
considering the practical problems it causes us, we'd rather not ship
any of it is a consistent and reasonable position to take.



perhaps so(*), but that is an ENTIRELY different issue to the question of
whether the GFDL is free or not.




craig

(*) i don't have any particular problem with that line of argument.
i don't agree with or support it in any way, but at least it's not
dishonest. if debian wants to exclude stuff for convenience reasons,
then fair enough - but lying to pretend that the reason is that it's
non-free when it's really just inconvenient is inexcusable.



It is dishonnet because Debian will continue to ship GFDL documents in 
non-free which would cause the same pratical problems.


I agree that there are documents that are free but are not suited for 
Debian. I would agree to a policy that Debian will not ship such things 
such as books which are unrelated to computers (such as novels, etc...); 
not because they are unfree; just because this is not the purpose of 
Debian (I do not say however that would disagree to ship such things in 
Debian). Also a free but totally buggy and unusable software has not, 
IMHO, its place in Debian.


However the DFSG is there to juge if a license is free or not and these 
guidlines must be used to juge the freeness of a software. A lot of 
zealots in this list just invent way to reject licenses they don't like 
even if these complies with the DFSG; or invent some discriminations.


Olive





--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

2006-02-13 Thread olive


Raul Miller wrote:

On 2/13/06, Craig Sanders [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


you people never give up, do you? as soon as one bogus claim against
the GFDL is disproved, you recycle another one that was demolished
months, weeks, or only days ago.  repeat ad nauseum.



Another possibility is that you're begging the question.
(Begging the question means: assuming your conclusion
is true in your argument about why the conclusion is true.)

How about we try a different approach:

Let's say that we want GFDL'd documentation to be a part
of main.  (That's going to be true for at least some people in
the project.)

How do we describe what it is that we want?  Do we need
to keep an arbitrary list of licenses, and everything that's
on that list is OK?  Do we just want to use the non-free
criteria (everything that we can legally distribute)?


In every matter, it is virtually impossible to write a rule that can 
mechanically be interpreted to give a suitable result. For normal law, 
the judge have the ability to interpret the laws as long as the 
interpretation conforms to the spirit and the original will of the law. 
 The same must be applied with the DFSG and the central question should 
be can we practically exercise our freedom and I think the answer is 
yes for the GFDL even if there can be inconvenience. The preamble of the 
GPL is also some king of invariant section: it says nothing about the 
license itself but has only political claims:


[...]
The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to 
share and change it.

[...]

When I say that, a lot of people (which I would call zealots) say that 
this argument is irrelevant and must not be discussed because it is 
obvious that the license is not the software and must be keep intact.


But this shows at least that there can be sequence of octets which are 
not the software itself and must be preserved. I claim that the 
invariant sections is just the same: it is not part of the documentation 
(this is required by the GFDL) and there must be preserved.


For the people who don't agree, I would kindly ask them to say if they 
would consider free a license which give you all the freedoms you like 
but must be preserved intact if this license contains a preamble of 
length similar to the invariant section of GFDL? I have ask the question 
in the past but nobody have answered because it was a facile argument. 
But if this argument is facile; please answer.


The other objections of the GFDL (DRM, etc...) is based on a bogus 
reading of the GFDL.


Olive








--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

2006-02-13 Thread Yorick Cool

On Mon, Feb 13, 2006 at 08:49:33PM -0500, Anthony DeRobertis wrote:
 I have a simple question for you: Is the following license free?
 
 Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a
 copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
 Software), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
 without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
 distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to
 permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to
 the following condition:
 
 1. That person first climbs a mountain at least 4,000 ft above mean sea
level.
 
 Climbing a 4,000 foot mountain is certainly possible. Its just
 inconvenient [well, unless you do that kind of stuff for fun].
 Personally, I do not find this license to be free, even though its just
 a convenience issue.

Seeing as that is a void condition which is totally unenforceable[1], the
license is just the same as if the condition were inexistent, so yeah,
it's as good as free.

Yorick

P.S: Anthony, sorry for sending the message to you directly, I messed up.

[1] This is at least the case in civil law countries. I have a few
doubts about common law countries.



signature.asc
Description: Digital signature

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

2006-02-12 Thread Thomas Bushnell BSG

Craig Sanders [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

 don't be an idiot. you only have to keep the invariant sections if you
 are DISTRIBUTING a copy. you can do whatever you want with your own
 copy.  

Right, so you can't *distribute* a copy on an ASCII-only medium, even
of the English translation of a Japanese manual, if the Japanese
version...

Oh, never mind.  Craig is not listening, he's just vomiting words out
his mouth.  Sorry.

Thomas


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

On Sun, Feb 12, 2006 at 07:31:20PM -0500, Anthony DeRobertis wrote:
 Now, I'd like to download this (translated) manual and place it on a
 portable device I own, so I can easily read it without killing a bunch
 of trees. I think this is clearly a useful modification, and I think
 that I should be able to do this for a DFSG-free work.
 
 But, there is a problem: My portable device understands only ASCII, or
 maybe ISO-8859-1 if I'm lucky (at least in the US, this is pretty
 common). It doesn't understand UTF-8, Shift-JIS, etc. It is not
 technically possible to keep the Japanese invariant section.
 
 I believe this gives a notable, practicle reason why invariant sections
 are not free.

you zealot freaks have no qualms about lying, do you?

don't be an idiot. you only have to keep the invariant sections if you
are DISTRIBUTING a copy. you can do whatever you want with your own
copy.  

there are no jack-booted FSF storm-troopers ready to kick down your door
because you didn't copy an invariant section to your own PDA. nor even
any trained attack-lawyers. the GFDL does not restrict personal use as
you are trying to imply that it does.


craig

ps: according to your bogus argument, that also means any non
US-ASCII/iso-8859-1 document is non-free simply because you can't use it
on some common PDAs in the US. what an asinine assertion. or, similarly,
that because YOU can't read Japanase (or some other non-english
language) that foreign language documents are non-free.


-- 
craig sanders [EMAIL PROTECTED]   (part time cyborg)


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

On Sun, Feb 12, 2006 at 05:19:37PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote:
 Craig Sanders [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 
  don't be an idiot. you only have to keep the invariant sections if you
  are DISTRIBUTING a copy. you can do whatever you want with your own
  copy.  
 
 Right, so you can't *distribute* a copy on an ASCII-only medium, even
 of the English translation of a Japanese manual, if the Japanese
 version...

there's nothing in the GFDL that prevents you from doing that. the
capabilities of your medium are beyond the ability of the GFDL (or any
license) to control.

 Oh, never mind.  Craig is not listening, he's just vomiting words out
 his mouth.  Sorry.

no, it's lying arseholes like you who aren't listening. like every other
argument against the GFDL and every other alleged proof that the GFDL
is non-free, this is a mere CONVENIENCE ISSUE, not a FREEDOM ISSUE. the
DFSG does not require convenience, it only requires freedom.

stop trying to pretend that convenience is a freedom issue. it isn't. i
know that completely destroys all your arguments against the GFDL but
you'll just have to live with that - it being the truth and all. being a
lunatic bigoted zealot, you wont comprehend this but normal people place
a high value on truth.

it may be horribly inconvenient to not be able to usably install a
foreign language document on an english-only device, but that is UTTERLY
IRRELEVENT TO WHETHER THE DOCUMENT IS FREE OR NOT.

similarly, you can not legally install free software without permission
on a computer that does not belong to you - but that does not make the
software non-free. 

nor can i run an i386 binary of a GNU program on a PPC CPU. that does
not make the GNU program non-free.

in case this simple point is beyond your meager powers of reasoning,
the point is that some things are entirely outside the bounds of what
a free license is capable of achieving - e.g. it can't legally grant
you permission to install the software on someone else's machine and it
can't make your english-only machine magically capable of understanding
japanese.


craig

-- 
craig sanders [EMAIL PROTECTED]   (part time cyborg)


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

On Sun, Feb 12, 2006 at 06:28:34PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote:
 Craig Sanders [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 
  there's nothing in the GFDL that prevents you from doing that. the
  capabilities of your medium are beyond the ability of the GFDL (or any
  license) to control.
 
 This is hardly true.  The GFDL says you must transmit the original
 Japanese text in the case in question, and so if you cannot do so in a
 given medium, then you cannot use that medium to transmit the text.

the GPL says you must include the full machine-readable/editable source
code, so if you can't do that in a given medium (say, a chip with 1KB
capacity) then GPL software is not free in any medium.

try again. if you keep coming up with these absurd claims, the laws
of chance says that you must get it right one day. OTOH, you've got a
better chance of winning a big lottery.


  no, it's lying arseholes like you who aren't listening. like every
  other argument against the GFDL and every other alleged proof
  that the GFDL is non-free, this is a mere CONVENIENCE ISSUE, not
  a FREEDOM ISSUE. the DFSG does not require convenience, it only
  requires freedom.

 Ah, once Craig insisted to me that he would never ever read my email
 messages. Either that was a lie, or heeys'changed his mind.

up to your usual tricks again, i see. truth just isn't that important
to you, is it? you make up any old shit that suits your purposes at the
moment and hope you can pass it off without comment.

when did i ever say that, you lying scumbag?

i didn't say that and never have said that. what i actually do (as you
well know because you've received numerous returned copies of your mail)
is reject any message sent direct from you to me (i.e. from you, with
any of my addresses in either the To: or CC: headers).

craig

-- 
craig sanders [EMAIL PROTECTED]   (part time cyborg)


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?

2006-02-12 Thread olive


Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote:

Craig Sanders [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:



don't be an idiot. you only have to keep the invariant sections if you
are DISTRIBUTING a copy. you can do whatever you want with your own
copy.  



Right, so you can't *distribute* a copy on an ASCII-only medium, even
of the English translation of a Japanese manual, if the Japanese
version...


Of course you can. You just keep the bytes representing the Japanese 
version intact even if these does not display properly on your device.


This argument is totally flawed. The same argument would show that any 
software with a license written in Japanese is not free (besause you 
usually must keep the license). So this claim amounts to say that for a 
license to be free it must be written in English (or at least in a 
language coded in ASCII or some similar code). This sound to be a 
discrimination for me...



Olive



--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: A new practical problem with invariant sections?