Re: snippets [was Re: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest]
On Sun, Sep 28, 2003 at 02:04:55PM -0600, Barak Pearlmutter wrote: A while ago, you gave a nice explanation of the correct meaning of the term begging the question as used in the study of logic and discourse. I'd like to thank you for helping to make sure everyone understands the concept by giving us such a clear example. I do not agree that I did so. Can you please explicitly denote the statement I made which simultaneously serves as my premise and conclusion? -- G. Branden Robinson| Debian GNU/Linux | Bother, said Pooh, as he was [EMAIL PROTECTED] | assimilated by the Borg. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: snippets [was Re: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest]
On Sunday, Sep 28, 2003, at 19:34 US/Eastern, Barak Pearlmutter wrote: I'm not sure I follow your reasoning there. You gave the lemmings argument (everyone else does X, so so should we). He pointed out that in certain circumstances where everyone else ignores non-freeness X, we don't. The difference between B and C here is that firmware without source denies to users their fundamental right to understand and modify the software that controls their computer. Similarly, the non-free xfonts-scalable-nonfree do not allow distribution of modified versions. This denies to a user who has modified such a font in order to improve the function of his computer the right to help his friends improve their displays as well. No such problems occur with snippets. It appears to me that you've arbitrarily decided this. The license on the GNU Manifesto denies modification as well; this denies the user who has modified the GNU Manifesto to be Bob's Manifesto the right to distribute it, too. The same applies to the person who wants to modify the heart-wrenching message from the cancer victim to express his own troubles with cancer. Or heart disease. Or anything else. Why should a essay be any different than a computer program, a font, or documentation?
Re: snippets [was Re: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest]
On Mon, Sep 29, 2003 at 10:59:38AM -0400, Anthony DeRobertis wrote: You gave the lemmings argument (everyone else does X, so so should we). He pointed out that in certain circumstances where everyone else ignores non-freeness X, we don't. Which, incidentally, is one major reason I use Debian, and I'm far from alone in this. It's certainly tiresome to see the old but *this* little bit of non-free doesn't seem to be causing any problems, so it's okay! arguments again. -- Glenn Maynard
Re: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest
On Sat, Sep 27, 2003 at 06:12:21PM -0600, Barak Pearlmutter wrote: Jan Schumacher [EMAIL PROTECTED] (using an expired key) writes: Do you believe unmodifiable essays like the GNU Manifesto could be accepted in Debian with the DFSG as they stand? This is not a matter of belief. This is longstanding, and heretofore uncontroversial, accepted Debian practice. Conscious decisions have to be predicated upon valid knowledge to be of precedential value. Most non-DFSG-free materials that we find in main are there because they were overlooked. I see no reason to suspect the GNU Manifesto of being any different. -- G. Branden Robinson| You could wire up a dead rat to a Debian GNU/Linux | DIMM socket and the PC BIOS memory [EMAIL PROTECTED] | test would pass it just fine. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Ethan Benson signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest
Barak Pearlmutter said: The GNU manifesto is in Debian right now, right where it belongs: /usr/share/emacs/21.2/etc/GNU and analogous locations in emacs20 and xemacs. And how precisely does it belong there? That's a stupid, obscure location. :-) (OK, perhaps you meant Whereever upstream puts it is where it belongs. I don't really consider that reasonable given the amount of stuff Debian moves around.) If there were a package whose bulk consisted of the GNU manifesto and related materials, I think people might have some problems with that. Not at all. In fact, I'd be happy to start a package for the non-free section entitled rms-essays, or gnu-political-statements, or whatever -- IF I could clear the licensing problems, which seems like a pain in the neck. These are all verbatim-copying only, and currently the only freely-reproducible copies I can find are: 1. The GNU web page copies, which are all in HTML with inappropriate interreferences to other parts of the GNU website 2. The Invariant Sections of manuals, which can't be used (under the GFDL) for a project like this one. (OK, so I was deliberately misinterpreting you to make a point -- you meant a package *in Debian*, I assume.)
Re: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest
On Sat, 2003-09-27 at 15:48, Barak Pearlmutter wrote: (2) I *did* include concrete examples of snippets under a different license than the package which includes them. $ head -10 /usr/share/emacs/21.2/etc/GNU #207932 signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Sunday 28 September 2003 02:12, Barak Pearlmutter wrote: Jan Schumacher [EMAIL PROTECTED] (using an expired key) writes: Fair enough. However, all of these statements are removable, and their modification is probably not prohibited by the license. The flow of the argument was: one example of Debian's respect for upstream authors is not removing these requests and offers. If they were unremovable, this would have made a poor example. If they are also modifiable, then they are most likely also DFSG-free by the strictest interpretation. I don't think anyone has argued to remove such texts. Do you believe unmodifiable essays like the GNU Manifesto could be accepted in Debian with the DFSG as they stand? This is not a matter of belief. This is longstanding, and heretofore uncontroversial, accepted Debian practice. The GNU manifesto is in Debian right now, right where it belongs: /usr/share/emacs/21.2/etc/GNU and analogous locations in emacs20 and xemacs. The Debian ftpmasters are doubtless quite aware of such snippets, and have no problems with them. *Changing* this tradition would be a big deal. Is this really a tradition or merely an oversight? Surely, if the resulting package were to be found non-free, you would not want to make an exception because it was always done that way? If there were a package whose bulk consisted of the GNU manifesto and related materials, I think people might have some problems with that. Certainly I would. That would also not fit the definition of a snippet I gave, which was an attempt to explain current Debian practice. I do not see how the GNU manifesto would be a snippet even in a large package like emacs. In fact, I would argue that it, or a collection of FSF political writings, should have their own package, but in non-free. Little snippets might slip under the radar if they are small and unconsequential enough, but serious political essays should not be among them. That is not to say that I have made up my mind that unmodifiable political statements should never be part of Debian. But right now, there are no criteria by which unmodifyable content can be accepted. Regards Jan -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE/dsD+4cR0MEP0sUQRAvwlAKC6L1E1DWchzQzzcvTy9aTCWL/IZwCgzHo9 pYZ96FKXzGv9Umck00tS9Ic= =NSIG -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: Bug#207932: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest
On Sat, Sep 27, 2003 at 11:05:05PM +, Dylan Thurston wrote: On 2003-09-27, Rob Browning [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In any case, presuming debian-legal becomes satisfied that I don't need to do anything about these files, I'll either mark this bug wonfix, or more likely, close it. Of course. When I filed the bug, I was under the impression that debian-legal had a concensus, but I may have acted too soon. If we have a reason to debate the matter, that's soon enough to file a bug. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest
On Sat, Sep 27, 2003 at 06:12:21PM -0600, Barak Pearlmutter wrote: Do you believe unmodifiable essays like the GNU Manifesto could be accepted in Debian with the DFSG as they stand? This is not a matter of belief. This is longstanding, and heretofore uncontroversial, accepted Debian practice. That statement applies equally to a wide range of similar bugs. That does not mean they should not be fixed. The Debian ftpmasters are doubtless quite aware of such snippets, and have no problems with them. That's a very bold statement. I seriously doubt that if you attempted to upload any new package which contained these snippets, and cited their licenses in the copyright file, that the ftpmasters would have no problems with them. I'd expect them to reject the package entirely. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest
Jan Schumacher [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Fair enough. However, all of these statements are removable, and their modification is probably not prohibited by the license. The flow of the argument was: one example of Debian's respect for upstream authors is not removing these requests and offers. If they were unremovable, this would have made a poor example. If they are also modifiable, then they are most likely also DFSG-free by the strictest interpretation. I don't think anyone has argued to remove such texts. You seem to be having trouble following this. Again, I was referring to unmodifiable but removable snippets. Like a copy of the heart-rending email from his cancer-stricken sister that inspired an upstream author to study molecular biology, work on colon-cancer oncogenes, and write a biosequence-processing program, which is being packaged for Debian. Stuff like that. Stuff that is not modifiable, of interest, reasonable to include, not code, not documentation, not technical in nature, not part of the program but merely accompanying it, and small compared to the technical thing it accompanies. Stuff whose removal would often impoverish our understanding of the circumstances of a work's creation. De-facto, we allow such snippets in Debian. It would be reasonable to discuss whether this informal but longstanding policy should be changed. But that would be new separate topic, which (if we choose to discuss it) should be divorced from attempts to resolve the GFDL question. It would also be a highly controversial proposal, and its consequences would be far-reaching. No upstream source eschews such snippets, and no other free software organization has any problem with them. Scanning all our packages for such snippets would be a truly gargantuan task.
Re: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest
On Sun, Sep 28, 2003 at 12:22:31PM -0600, Barak Pearlmutter wrote: Scanning all our packages for such snippets would be a truly gargantuan task. And yet at the same time you claim that the inclusion of any particular such snippet was a fully conscious decision made at the time the Social Contract and Debian Free Software Guidelines were adopted. Have you any evidence that this truly gargantuan task was undertaken back then? You undermine your own argument. When we find non-DFSG-free materials in main, we should remove them, or request their relicensing. -- G. Branden Robinson| There's something wrong if you're Debian GNU/Linux | always right. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | -- Glasow's Law http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
snippets [was Re: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest]
Most non-DFSG-free materials that we find in main are there because
they were overlooked. I see no reason to suspect the GNU Manifesto
of being any different.
I think you're wrong about that. Most Debian developers have, I
suspect, read the GNU Manifesto. Its unmodifiable status is not
hidden. Most Debian developers (excepting those unfortunate vi
knuckle-dragger in our midst) know that it can be found down in the
gizzards of the emacs support files. But Debian is full of snippets,
and no one has ever raised them as an issue before. The burden of
proof is really on you here, to show that this was all just some big
inadvertent mistake.
Anyway, I'd like to re-frame this slightly, in order to keep the
discussion focussed.
Okay, I know you understand this, but in order to be clear to others:
*** BY MY DEFINITION:
***
*** A snippet is a file in a source tarball which:
***
*** - MERELY ACCOMPANIES and is not an integral part of the source
*** - is REMOVABLE
*** - is NON-FUNCTIONAL (not code, not documentation, not needed for build)
*** - is NON-TECHNICAL in nature
*** - is usually of historic, humorous, or prurient interest
*** - is usually NOT itself MODIFIABLE, eg may redistribute verbatim
*** - is very SMALL compared to the technical material it accompanies
***
*** (Good examples of such snippets are historic or humorous emails
*** and usenet posts, political essays, jokes, and the like.)
First, let's divorce this discussion from the GFDL. Separate
question, separate topic.
The GNU Manifesto is such a snippet, in all the {GNU ,x}emacs
packages. But I'd rather use a pretend example in order to clarify
that we're not talking about the GFDL anymore, or RMS or the FSF. So
let's use a copy of the heart-rending email from his cancer-stricken
and now deceased sister that inspired an upstream author to study
molecular biology, work on colon-cancer oncogenes, and write a
biosequence-processing program which is packaged for Debian. It is
typical to find such snippets in upstream tarballs, and to include
them in /usr/share/doc/whatever/. I'm talking about stuff like that.
Stuff that is not modifiable, of interest, reasonable to include, not
code, not documentation, not technical in nature, not part of the
program but merely accompanying it, and small compared to the
technical thing it accompanies. Stuff whose removal would often
impoverish our understanding of the circumstances of a work's
creation, and of the work's author.
If we decide to go on a crusade against them, it would be a really big
deal for a couple reasons:
- Debian is absolutely *rife* with such snippets.
- This is because upstream tarballs are absolutely rife with them.
- It would be a major change in practice.
- Scanning our sources for them would be a gargantuan undertaking.
- No other free software organization eschews such snippets.
- They'd keep sneaking back in.
Furthermore, snippets have not caused any *problem*. We have free
software because non-free software sucks for various reasons. Think
of the RMS printer driver story. We have the DFSG because violations
of them cause actual problems and hassles to actual people, and make
software less useful or modifiable or free. Unremovable invariant
sections could screw up our manuals, and impede various uses and
recycling of material, so we're firmly against them. But snippets in
our packages, in contrast, have not caused anyone any trouble
whatsoever, and by nature cannot! Removing them would be a lot of
work, with no gain. Once we were done there would be nothing we could
point at and say you can now fix/do/run/help the XXX
program/documentation which you couldn't before. It would not, in
actual fact, increase the utility or freedom of the Debian GNU/Linux
Operating System.
Given all this, it seems highly unlikely to me that we could reach
consensus to change practice and set out to exterminate the snippets.
(On the other hand, this isn't license to sprinkle non-technical crap
all our our beloved distribution. We do have the freedom to remove
the snippets. Like chocolate sprinkles, they should not be overused.
Also like chocolate sprinkles, you don't have to write a formal rule
for when there are too many---it's easy to tell.)
snippets [was Re: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest]
A while ago, you gave a nice explanation of the correct meaning of the term begging the question as used in the study of logic and discourse. I'd like to thank you for helping to make sure everyone understands the concept by giving us such a clear example.
Re: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Sunday 28 September 2003 20:22, Barak Pearlmutter wrote: Jan Schumacher [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Fair enough. However, all of these statements are removable, and their modification is probably not prohibited by the license. The flow of the argument was: one example of Debian's respect for upstream authors is not removing these requests and offers. If they were unremovable, this would have made a poor example. If they are also modifiable, then they are most likely also DFSG-free by the strictest interpretation. I don't think anyone has argued to remove such texts. You seem to be having trouble following this. In the paragraph I am answering to above you talked about a GPLed program and statements in a README it included. If you want these to be unmodifiable, you will need to give it or both a different license. My point was that if these snippets are distributed under the GPL, which I thought you were saying, there is no controversy. Again, I was referring to unmodifiable but removable snippets. Ok, that is a different point. Like a copy of the heart-rending email from his cancer-stricken sister that inspired an upstream author to study molecular biology, work on colon-cancer oncogenes, and write a biosequence-processing program, which is being packaged for Debian. Stuff like that. Stuff that is not modifiable, of interest, reasonable to include, not code, not documentation, not technical in nature, not part of the program but merely accompanying it, and small compared to the technical thing it accompanies. Stuff whose removal would often impoverish our understanding of the circumstances of a work's creation. De-facto, we allow such snippets in Debian. It would be reasonable to discuss whether this informal but longstanding policy should be changed. But that would be new separate topic, which (if we choose to discuss it) should be divorced from attempts to resolve the GFDL question. If there is interest in discussing this, let this be discussed in a different thread. But the GNU manifesto is hardly just a little snippet, and that and other political essays were what was being talked about in the GFDL thread. Regards Jan -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE/d0P44cR0MEP0sUQRAspKAJ9K6aeKaU7fYL5kxgfTxTuNzlMkMgCgvZvq LczqjAtO50iWahn81s3br08= =LsS/ -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest
In my very first message on this subject I stated (in their
definition) that snippets were usually unmodifiable. I gave
specific examples whose modifiability is easy enough to determine:
$ head -7 /usr/share/emacs/21.2/etc/GNU
Copyright (C) 1985, 1993 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
of this document, in any medium, provided that the copyright notice and
permission notice are preserved, and that the distributor grants the
recipient permission for further redistribution as permitted by this
notice.
$ tail -4 /usr/share/emacs/21.2/etc/LINUX-GNU
Copyright 1996 Richard Stallman
Verbatim copying and redistribution is permitted
without royalty as long as this notice is preserved.
On the length-scale of GNU Emacs, these certainly satisfy the small
snippet requirement! Without including any ancillary emacs packages,
or counting GCC and friends, or counting all of Debian since after all
without these documents none of Debian would exist, we have ...
$ apt-cache show emacs21| egrep '^Size:'
Size: 12888244
$ stat --format=Size: %s /usr/share/emacs/21.2/etc/{,LINUX-}GNU
Size: 26334
Size: 5870
(26334+5870)/12888244 = 0.0025
Actually I do think they are misplaced, and would be better housed in
/usr/share/doc/emacs21/.
About the README offer you allude to, do you really think an
upstream author's statement:
Copyright blah blah blah ...
Distributed under the GNU GPL v2 ...
Source licenses for inclusion of this code in proprietary programs
are available from the author for $10,000 plus 2% of gross sales.
is modifiable? Removable sure. Maybe appendable. But modifiable?
How can it be changed? Do you think Debian could just change the 2%
to a 0.5%? Maybe give a discount to non-profits? When we talk about
code being modifiable, that's what we mean: the ability to change it
in arbitrary ways. Here, no changes are in fact possible, however you
read the license and such.
Re: snippets [was Re: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest]
On 2003-09-28, Barak Pearlmutter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If we decide to go on a crusade against them, it would be a really big deal for a couple reasons: - Debian is absolutely *rife* with such snippets. - This is because upstream tarballs are absolutely rife with them. - Scanning our sources for them would be a gargantuan undertaking. - They'd keep sneaking back in. All of these apply to ordinary bugs much better than to snippets. The number of bugs in a typical upstream tarball vastly exceeds the number of snippets, for instance, and are much harder to find.. For those keeping score, I've omitted these two: - It would be a major change in practice. - No other free software organization eschews such snippets. I disagree with the premises of those two, as well. For instance: no other free software organization edits out the non-free fonts from XFree86 or the non-free firmware from the linux kernel; and this seems like a relatively minor change, as changes in Debian go. Peace, Dylan
Re: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest
On 2003-09-28, Barak Pearlmutter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: About the README offer you allude to, do you really think an upstream author's statement: Copyright blah blah blah ... Distributed under the GNU GPL v2 ... Source licenses for inclusion of this code in proprietary programs are available from the author for $10,000 plus 2% of gross sales. is modifiable? Removable sure. Maybe appendable. But modifiable? How can it be changed? Do you think Debian could just change the 2% to a 0.5%? Maybe give a discount to non-profits? When we talk about code being modifiable, that's what we mean: the ability to change it in arbitrary ways. Here, no changes are in fact possible, however you read the license and such. I would take it at its word: it is licensed under the GPL. Of course, Debian would not misrepresent the upstream author (and it may well be illegal for other reasons, unrelated to copyright), so we would not change the text of the upstream author's message; but we could, for instance, freely prepare a translation (while stating that it is a translation). I'm sure there are some examples of packages currently in Debian with a README originally written in Japanese where we do just that. Note that a translation is a derived work and would be illegal if the README were under the standard all rights reserved copyright. Peace, Dylan Thurston
Re: Re: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest
Barak Pearlmutter wrote: About the README offer you allude to, do you really think an upstream author's statement: Copyright blah blah blah ... Distributed under the GNU GPL v2 ... Source licenses for inclusion of this code in proprietary programs are available from the author for $10,000 plus 2% of gross sales. is modifiable? Removable sure. Maybe appendable. But modifiable? How can it be changed? Do you think Debian could just change the 2% to a 0.5%? Maybe give a discount to non-profits? When we talk about code being modifiable, that's what we mean: the ability to change it in arbitrary ways. Here, no changes are in fact possible, however you read the license and such. We talk about modifiability rights under copyright (and sometimes patent and trade secret) law. Not other rights. People aren't allowed to distribute programs that defame or defraud other people regardless of the copyright license, and the example you just gave falls in precisely the same category. It is modifiable to, for instance: The original author of this code (Mr. Foo) offers source licenses for the inclusion of his code in proprietary programs; this does not apply to the modifications made by other authors, such as the Debian packaging. And it's quite likely that you would *want* to make this modification.
Re: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest
But you're allowed to paraphrase anything, so what's your point? You can even paraphrase non-modifiable essays. In an essay RMS explained that he used to work at ... and then Symbolics ... and he felt that ... and so he climbed to the mountain top and hacked for forty days and forty nights without food or water or sleep or wrist braces, and brought forth to the masses below ...
Re: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest
Barak Pearlmutter wrote: But you're allowed to paraphrase anything, so what's your point? You can even paraphrase non-modifiable essays. In an essay RMS explained that he used to work at ... and then Symbolics ... and he felt that ... and so he climbed to the mountain top and hacked for forty days and forty nights without food or water or sleep or wrist braces, and brought forth to the masses below ... Um, have you looked at US copyright cases recently? I guess probably not, since you're not in the US. You have to be very careful these days about changing *everything*, since for instance retaining the structure of the essay could be considered a copyright violation.
Re: snippets [was Re: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest]
- Debian is absolutely *rife* with such snippets. - This is because upstream tarballs are absolutely rife with them. - Scanning our sources for them would be a gargantuan undertaking. - They'd keep sneaking back in. All of these apply to ordinary bugs much better than to snippets. Upstream authors generally integrate debianogenic bug fixes, and do their best to not have bugs, so that's not really true. Besides which Debian does not attempt to guarantee that all packages have no bugs, but you are proposed that we endeavor to ensure that all packages have no snippets. In other words, the cases are completely different. - It would be a major change in practice. - No other free software organization eschews such snippets. I disagree with the premises of those two, as well. For instance: no other free software organization edits out the non-free fonts from XFree86 or the non-free firmware from the linux kernel; and this seems like a relatively minor change, as changes in Debian go. I'm not sure I follow your reasoning there. Your email address implies that you are associated with a math department, so let me phrase this in mathematical jargon: a proof of this form A - B A - C Therefore: B and C are the same is not valid. The difference between B and C here is that firmware without source denies to users their fundamental right to understand and modify the software that controls their computer. Similarly, the non-free xfonts-scalable-nonfree do not allow distribution of modified versions. This denies to a user who has modified such a font in order to improve the function of his computer the right to help his friends improve their displays as well. No such problems occur with snippets. (I'm including this to keep things from drifting off-topic) *** BY MY DEFINITION: *** *** A snippet is a file in a source tarball which: *** *** - MERELY ACCOMPANIES and is not an integral part of the source *** - is REMOVABLE *** - is NON-FUNCTIONAL (not code, not documentation, not needed for build) *** - is NON-TECHNICAL in nature *** - is usually of historic, humorous, or prurient interest *** - is usually NOT itself MODIFIABLE, eg may redistribute verbatim *** - is very SMALL compared to the technical material it accompanies *** *** (examples of such snippets are historic or humorous emails and *** usenet posts, political essays, jokes, and the like.)
Re: snippets [was Re: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest]
On 2003-09-28, Barak Pearlmutter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: - No other free software organization eschews such snippets. I disagree with the premises of those two, as well. For instance: no other free software organization edits out the non-free fonts from XFree86 or the non-free firmware from the linux kernel; and this seems like a relatively minor change, as changes in Debian go. I'm not sure I follow your reasoning there. Your email address implies that you are associated with a math department, so let me phrase this in mathematical jargon: a proof of this form A - B A - C Therefore: B and C are the same is not valid. I am not claiming that non-free firmware or non-free fonts in XFree86 are the same as unmodifiable snippets, only that your point above (No other free software organization eschews such snippets) does not serve to distinguish them. (Well, the FSF would eschew those bits in the kernel or XFree86 as well, but they don't actually do the work of separating them out.) But in any case, I think I missed making my larger point: in the section I quoted, you were arguing that we should avoid taking out snippets because it is a lot of work. To me, that is not an argument: either it's wrong or it's right (per the DFSG/courtesy to authors) to include snippets, and if it's wrong we should remove them when we notice them. If it's very wrong to include snippets, we should in addition go through the major work of identifying them all, but that doesn't follow from just the assertion that they violate the DFSG. Compare this with the situation with non-free code. It is nearly certain that there is some code that violates the DFSG in main; do you want to do an audit of all packages to root it out? I'm much more interested in the arguments why it's a good idea in the first place to include the snippets than in these arguments about how much work it would be to remove the unmodifiable snippets. Peace, Dylan
Re: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest
On Sun, Sep 28, 2003 at 04:23:08PM -0600, Barak Pearlmutter wrote: But you're allowed to paraphrase anything, so what's your point? You can even paraphrase non-modifiable essays. In an essay RMS explained that he used to work at ... and then Symbolics ... and he felt that ... and so he climbed to the mountain top and hacked for forty days and forty nights without food or water or sleep or wrist braces, and brought forth to the masses below ... There is no internationally recognised right to quote in this manner. In most jurisdictions, you may only do so in small quantities. You do not necessarily have the right to misquote, and even if you do, it is probably highly controlled. Have you ever noticed how a great many movies contain the text This is a work of fiction. Any resemblence to persons living or dead is purely coincidental in their legal gunk? It's essentially the same thing here: you cannot, in general, misrepresent or inaccurately portray somebody in a non-fictional/non-satirical context. If you wish to do these things, it must be clear you do not intend to be accurate. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: snippets [was Re: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest]
On Sun, Sep 28, 2003 at 02:04:55PM -0600, Barak Pearlmutter wrote: I'd like to thank you for helping to make sure everyone understands the concept by giving us such a clear example. This is a factually incorrect non sequitur. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest
First of all, I would like to publicly thank RMS for engaging in a sustained and illuminating conversation on this list. He has been confronted with an outrageously low signal-to-noise ratio. The thoughtful and well-reasoned messages have been buried in a mass of counterproductive picayune harping on terminology and word choice, ad-homenim arguments, insultingly-phrased demands, and even outright insults. Reading such a mass of text is quite a burden; more so when it is mostly crap; and particularly burdensome when the crap attacks the reader personally and unfairly. Despite this, some sensible dialog and useful exchange of views has occurred. In a recent message to this list, RMS mentioned that people had stated that Debian would remove all non-modifiable but removable text from Debian packages: According to Don Armstrong, a non-modifiable text cannot under any circumstances be considered DFSG-free, so it would have to be removed from the manual. Others have (it appears) said the same thing. Having seen a lot of rigid dogmatism here recently, I can hardly expect Debian not to be rigidly dogmatic on this issue too. Based on long-standing Debian tradition and practice, this is decidedly and demonstrably not the case! Don and others were perhaps writing in haste. Debian has a longstanding practice of respect for upstream authors. For instance, if the author of a GPLed program includes a statement in a README please if you like this program I'd very much appreciate it if you sent me $10, we do not remove such a statement. We even include offers by the author to sell the right to include the code in a proprietary program. To my knowledge, in all the many thousands of packages in Debian, such statements have never been removed! Even though Debian might find such an offer repulsive, we respect our upstream authors enough to include them. Another example of this sort of respect is our treatment of code obtained under a dual license. Debian has, to my knowledge, never redistributed code that was given to us under a dual license under just one of those licenses. This is the case even when we consider the other license quite abhorrent! Nor have we relicensed weakly licensed code (eg programs from the Free BSDs) under the GPL. Nor have we released LGPLed code under the GPL. Debian could do these things, but out of respect for our upstream authors we don't. As a last example, many source tarballs include snippets, defined as follows. *** BY MY DEFINITION: *** *** A snippet is a file in a source tarball which: *** *** - merely accompanies and is not an integral part of the source *** - is non-functional (not code, not documentation, not needed for build) *** - is usually of historic, humorous, or prurient interest *** - is removable *** - is usually not itself modifiable, eg may redistribute verbatim *** *** (Good examples of such snippets are historic or humorous emails *** and usenet posts, political essays, jokes, and the like.) To my knowledge Debian has not only never removed a snippet from the source we distribute, but includes such snippets in the binaries, typically in ...-doc.deb. One example of this is GNU Emacs, which includes a bunch of such snippets, all of which are included---right now---in /usr/share/emacs/21.2/etc/. All of them are removable: sex.6 (which is of questionable taste), GNU, CENSORSHIP (which is dated into such irrelevance that its inclusion is arguably embarrassing), LINUX-GNU (whose first sentence misleadingly reads The GNU project started 12 years ago), COOKIES (whose relevance, copyright status, and humor value is unclear), etc. Rob Browning, who packages GNU Emacs for Debian, could remove all of these snippets, or could go through and remove only some of them. But he doesn't, and I daresay I'd be quite shocked if he ever did. Debian does require the *right* to remove such snippets. And if there were an unacceptable snippets (racist screeds say, or SCO lawsuit apologist tracts, or libelous text) we would probably exercise that right. To my knowledge, this has never occurred. People who say that such snippets have no place in Debian, and constitute violations of the DFSG, are attempting to impose a very foolish consistency. And Jan Schumacher's statement: A /non-modifiable/ text could not be included in Debian, a /modifiable/ one would most likely be. is a load of hooey. Inclusion of snippets is not a violation of the DFSG. Such an overly-literal interpretation of the rules is precisely why we call them D-F-S-***GUIDELINES***! Because we use common sense in their application.
Re: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest
On Fri, 26 Sep 2003, Barak Pearlmutter wrote: Based on long-standing Debian tradition and practice, this is decidedly and demonstrably not the case! Don and others were perhaps writing in haste. Can you provide a concrete example of such a snippet which is not under the licence applied to the entire package by the COPYRIGHT, COPYING, or AUTHORS file and restricts modification or removal? I'm aware of none in any of the packages that I package or have looked over. To my knowledge, in all the many thousands of packages in Debian, such statements have never been removed! Even though Debian might find such an offer repulsive, we respect our upstream authors enough to include them. Sure, but in all of these cases we have the right to remove them, as well as the right to modify them. We simply choose not to exercise that right. In my responses to RMS on this issue, I have repeatedly stated that we in general do not modify or delete portions of packages unless we have to. A /non-modifiable/ text could not be included in Debian, a /modifiable/ one would most likely be. is a load of hooey. Inclusion of snippets is not a violation of the DFSG. Such an overly-literal interpretation of the rules is precisely why we call them D-F-S-***GUIDELINES***! Because we use common sense in their application. The right to modify anything except the license and copyright statement in a package is an important right for our users to exercise. I mean, we even explicitly list it in the DFSG: 3: The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software. I'm unaware of us ever saying that DFSG free licences 'must allow modifications to most of the package' or 'modifications to important parts of the package.' In the few cases where non-free nuggets exist in upstream sources, we have removed the nuggets. Getting back to what I understand to be the crux of your statement, I am still unable to formulate a decent line of reasoning that logically argues for the inclusion of unmodifiable 'snippets' whilst increasing or maintaining our user's freedom to modify the contents of the package to do whatever task our user's see fit to do. If someone could just formulate such a line, I might be willing to buy into it, but as it stands, I'd much rather have the freedom, thank-you-very-much. Don Armstrong -- People selling drug paraphernalia ... are as much a part of drug trafficking as silencers are a part of criminal homicide. -- John Brown, DEA Chief http://www.donarmstrong.com http://www.anylevel.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu pgpIyoQl7k9O8.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest
On Fri, Sep 26, 2003 at 07:31:14PM -0600, Barak Pearlmutter wrote: A /non-modifiable/ text could not be included in Debian, a /modifiable/ one would most likely be. is a load of hooey. Inclusion of snippets is not a violation of the DFSG. Such an overly-literal interpretation of the rules is precisely why we call them D-F-S-***GUIDELINES***! Because we use common sense in their application. Yes, and reject anything that impinges unacceptably on freedom, regardless of how it might be twisted to fit the DFSG. That includes such non-modifiable texts. Please do not attempt to make the Debian has no principles but the DFSG, and the DFSG is only a set of guidelines, therefore Debian has no principles and can do anything argument, because it's nonsense. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest
On 2003-09-27, Barak Pearlmutter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Based on long-standing Debian tradition and practice, this [removing non-modifiable texts] is decidedly and demonstrably not the case! Don and others were perhaps writing in haste. It is long-standing tradition; however, whether it should continue is another question. I haven't seen many people offering a principled defense of the practice. I would be very surprised if any DFSG-free text were removed from a Debian package. To my knowledge Debian has not only never removed a snippet from the source we distribute, but includes such snippets in the binaries, typically in ...-doc.deb. One example of this is GNU Emacs, which includes a bunch of such snippets, all of which are included---right now---in /usr/share/emacs/21.2/etc/. All of them are removable: sex.6 (which is of questionable taste), Please see the discussion Bug #154043. sex.6 has no copyright statement, and so can reasonably be supposed to be covered under the copyright of the whole package. GNU, CENSORSHIP (which is dated into such irrelevance that its inclusion is arguably embarrassing), LINUX-GNU (whose first sentence misleadingly reads The GNU project started 12 years ago), ... Already filed as bug #207932, marked as sarge-ignore (per the release manager's stated policy). If you want to offer a principled reason why this is not a bug, I'm eager to be convinced (although IANADD, so you don't need to convince me). COOKIES (whose relevance, copyright status, and humor value is unclear), Same situation as sex.6. Peace, Dylan
Re: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest
Barak Pearlmutter said on Fri, Sep 26, 2003 at 07:31:14PM -0600,: In a recent message to this list, RMS mentioned that people had stated that Debian would remove all non-modifiable but removable text from Debian packages: If Debian does not, somebody else will, and I guess that this is what RMS wants to prevent. includes a bunch of such snippets, all of which are included---right now---in /usr/share/emacs/21.2/etc/. All of them are removable: sex.6 (which is of questionable taste), GNU, CENSORSHIP (which is dated into such irrelevance that its inclusion is arguably embarrassing), LINUX-GNU (whose first sentence misleadingly reads The GNU project started 12 years ago), COOKIES (whose relevance, copyright status, and humor value is unclear), etc. I became aware of the concepts of free software, Debian, the FSF and the real meaning of 'free as in freedom' on doing some follow up reading after coming across other files in this very same directory (while using another distro). According to the consensus on this list, these files do not deserve to be in Debian, the OS. But, do please consider this situation :- If those files were modifiable / removable, and if somebody did, in fact, modify them, and I (or any other user) had come across that distro, I would never have turned to Debian. Please consider this fact while those packages / docs are being moved out to non-free. Debian does require the *right* to remove such snippets. Sure. Not only the snippets, but also the invariant sections in a GFDL'ed doc. But rights specific to Debian are not DFSG free. So the rights to modify will have to be granted to everybody. And one bad apple in that 'everybody', who would most likely have much money marketing power *might* remove the philosophy and political parts, and create their own distros bereft of the 'free as in freedom' 'pontifications'. ;) This problem cannot be wished away by dual licensing these docs under GPL. On the other hand, the Debian Community has very valid points to object to the GFDL, It will be difficult for Debian to make concessions specific to copyrights held by the FSF. Any body can use the invariant sections to include unpalatable messages. RMS has a point when he argues that it is not sufficient to have free software. We need to constantly remind everybody about those freedoms. To that end, it is essential to educate users and every body else about the freedoms, and utilise every opportunity to spread the word. Paving the way for removal of the political/ philosophical messages about freedom in software of the kind published by the FSF would be counter - productive to the free software community (and therefore, Debian itself) in the long run. I think the only way out would be to create a separate section for GFDl'ed docs with invariant sections named something like GFDL-doc or doc-semifree (or whatever - nonfree is harsh and unwarranted term). -- +~+ Mahesh T. Pai, LL.M., 'NANDINI', S. R. M. Road, Ernakulam, Cochin-682018, Kerala, India. http://in.geocities.com/paivakil +~+
Re: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest
Mahesh T. Pai [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I became aware of the concepts of free software, Debian, the FSF and the real meaning of 'free as in freedom' on doing some follow up reading after coming across other files in this very same directory (while using another distro). According to the consensus on this list, these files do not deserve to be in Debian, the OS. But, do please consider this situation :- If those files were modifiable / removable, and if somebody did, in fact, modify them, and I (or any other user) had come across that distro, I would never have turned to Debian. Please consider this fact while those packages / docs are being moved out to non-free. You are talking about an unlikely situation (that such a distro would gain huge market share) versus real concerns. Debian does require the *right* to remove such snippets. Sure. Not only the snippets, but also the invariant sections in a GFDL'ed doc. But rights specific to Debian are not DFSG free. So the rights to modify will have to be granted to everybody. And one bad apple in that 'everybody', who would most likely have much money marketing power *might* remove the philosophy and political parts, and create their own distros bereft of the 'free as in freedom' 'pontifications'. ;) This problem cannot be wished away by dual licensing these docs under GPL. Still couldn't remove the license. On the other hand, the Debian Community has very valid points to object to the GFDL, It will be difficult for Debian to make concessions specific to copyrights held by the FSF. Any body can use the invariant sections to include unpalatable messages. RMS has a point when he argues that it is not sufficient to have free software. We need to constantly remind everybody about those freedoms. To that end, it is essential to educate users and every body else about the freedoms, and utilise every opportunity to spread the word. Paving the way for removal of the political/ philosophical messages about freedom in software of the kind published by the FSF would be counter - productive to the free software community (and therefore, Debian itself) in the long run. Personally, I find it ironic that the FSF feel they have to use non-free means to spread the word about free software, and feel strongly enough about it to contaminate free manuals into non-free ones to do it. I think the only way out would be to create a separate section for GFDl'ed docs with invariant sections named something like GFDL-doc or doc-semifree (or whatever - nonfree is harsh and unwarranted term). There's all sorts of border cases in non-free, including `no commercial use'.
Re: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest
Can you provide a concrete example of such a snippet which is not under the licence applied to the entire package by the COPYRIGHT, COPYING, or AUTHORS file and restricts modification or removal? ^(2)^(1) (1) No, since such a snippet is *by definition* removable. (2) I *did* include concrete examples of snippets under a different license than the package which includes them. $ head -10 /usr/share/emacs/21.2/etc/GNU
Re: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest
Please do not attempt to make the Debian has no principles but the DFSG, and the DFSG is only a set of guidelines, therefore Debian has no principles and can do anything argument, because it's nonsense. Okay. I didn't make that argument, but as you request I will not make it in the future. (In fact, even without your request it seems unlikely that I would make such an argument.)
Re: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest
Dylan Thurston [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On 2003-09-27, Barak Pearlmutter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Based on long-standing Debian tradition and practice, this [removing non-modifiable texts] is decidedly and demonstrably not the case! It is long-standing tradition; however, whether it should continue is another question. I haven't seen many people offering a principled defense of the practice. Perhaps most people either felt that it was outside debian-legal's mandate to question such a long-standing practice, or that the practice is so obviously reasonable and common that it does not merit discussion. Already filed as bug #207932, marked as sarge-ignore (per the release manager's stated policy). If you want to offer a principled reason why this is not a bug, I'm eager to be convinced (although IANADD, so you don't need to convince me). Okay - that's not a bug because they're just little harmless snippets which are informative and interesting, are not functional, are *removable*, and merely accompany the package but do not constitute an integral part of it. By long-standing Debian tradition their inclusion is considered reasonable and proper, and not a violation of policy. Since this is the case, the burden of proof is upon you to demand such an serious change in Debian practice. Certainly their removal goes far beyond the GFDL-related consensus reached by debian-legal, which was concerned with non-removable materials. Peace, Luv+Reflection
Re: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest
Mahesh T. Pai [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Debian does require the *right* to remove such snippets. rights specific to Debian are not DFSG free. Absolutely Correct! When I said Debian does require the *right* to remove such snippets I did not mean to imply that the right might be exclusive to Debian. The right must be there for everyone. Debian requires that this right (available to everyone) be present. My statement was verbal shorthand for this.
Re: Bug#207932: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest
Barak Pearlmutter [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Okay - that's not a bug because they're just little harmless snippets which are informative and interesting, are not functional, are *removable*, and merely accompany the package but do not constitute an integral part of it. By long-standing Debian tradition their inclusion is considered reasonable and proper, and not a violation of policy. Since this is the case, the burden of proof is upon you to demand such an serious change in Debian practice. Certainly their removal goes far beyond the GFDL-related consensus reached by debian-legal, which was concerned with non-removable materials. And for whatever it's worth, as long as I'm maintaining the packages, these files will almost certainly not be removed unless there's some overwhelmingly convincing reason, like debian-legal tells me it needs to be done, there's a successful General Resolution passed on a relevant topic, or they're removed from the upstream... In any case, presuming debian-legal becomes satisfied that I don't need to do anything about these files, I'll either mark this bug wonfix, or more likely, close it. (Just so there's no confusion, I am planning to accomodate whatever we decide with respect to the GFDLed files.) -- Rob Browning rlb @defaultvalue.org and @debian.org; previously @cs.utexas.edu GPG starting 2002-11-03 = 14DD 432F AE39 534D B592 F9A0 25C8 D377 8C7E 73A4
Re: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest
Mahesh T. Pai [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Debian does require the *right* to remove such snippets. rights specific to Debian are not DFSG free. Absolutely Correct! When I said Debian does require the *right* to remove such snippets I did not mean to imply that the right might be exclusive to Debian. The right must be there for everyone. Debian requires that this right (available to everyone) be present. My statement was verbal shorthand for this.
Re: Bug#207932: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest
On 2003-09-27, Rob Browning [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In any case, presuming debian-legal becomes satisfied that I don't need to do anything about these files, I'll either mark this bug wonfix, or more likely, close it. Of course. When I filed the bug, I was under the impression that debian-legal had a concensus, but I may have acted too soon. Peace, Dylan
Re: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Saturday 27 September 2003 03:31, Barak Pearlmutter wrote: Debian has a longstanding practice of respect for upstream authors. For instance, if the author of a GPLed program includes a statement in a README please if you like this program I'd very much appreciate it if you sent me $10, we do not remove such a statement. We even include offers by the author to sell the right to include the code in a proprietary program. To my knowledge, in all the many thousands of packages in Debian, such statements have never been removed! Even though Debian might find such an offer repulsive, we respect our upstream authors enough to include them. Fair enough. However, all of these statements are removable, and their modification is probably not prohibited by the license. People who say that such snippets have no place in Debian, and constitute violations of the DFSG, are attempting to impose a very foolish consistency. And Jan Schumacher's statement: A /non-modifiable/ text could not be included in Debian, a /modifiable/ one would most likely be. is a load of hooey. Inclusion of snippets is not a violation of the DFSG. Such an overly-literal interpretation of the rules is precisely why we call them D-F-S-***GUIDELINES***! Because we use common sense in their application. That is what (I hope) all participants are doing. I don't think, though, that we have been talking about little snippets, exactly. Do you believe unmodifiable essays like the GNU Manifesto could be accepted in Debian with the DFSG as they stand? Regards Jan -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE/dhpz4cR0MEP0sUQRAkqAAJ91b3MgnHHEBVuhCOVqIH947sOJBwCfZsmg IMEvy3he3JWh51dR64MaDvw= =hvPC -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest
Jan Schumacher [EMAIL PROTECTED] (using an expired key) writes: Fair enough. However, all of these statements are removable, and their modification is probably not prohibited by the license. The flow of the argument was: one example of Debian's respect for upstream authors is not removing these requests and offers. If they were unremovable, this would have made a poor example. Do you believe unmodifiable essays like the GNU Manifesto could be accepted in Debian with the DFSG as they stand? This is not a matter of belief. This is longstanding, and heretofore uncontroversial, accepted Debian practice. The GNU manifesto is in Debian right now, right where it belongs: /usr/share/emacs/21.2/etc/GNU and analogous locations in emacs20 and xemacs. The Debian ftpmasters are doubtless quite aware of such snippets, and have no problems with them. *Changing* this tradition would be a big deal. If there were a package whose bulk consisted of the GNU manifesto and related materials, I think people might have some problems with that. Certainly I would. That would also not fit the definition of a snippet I gave, which was an attempt to explain current Debian practice.
Re: Respect for Upstream Authors and Snippets of Interest
Mahesh T. Pai [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Barak Pearlmutter said on Fri, Sep 26, 2003 at 07:31:14PM -0600,: In a recent message to this list, RMS mentioned that people had stated that Debian would remove all non-modifiable but removable text from Debian packages: If Debian does not, somebody else will, and I guess that this is what RMS wants to prevent. I'm willing to bet someone _does_ remove those sections. How many restrictions are you willing to put on the good guys in order to get the bad guys? If those files were modifiable / removable, and if somebody did, in fact, modify them, and I (or any other user) had come across that distro, I would never have turned to Debian. It's not like you'd find out about Debian from the FSF, anymore. I think the evidence is that they are removable, and again I'd bet that someone does remove them. one bad apple in that 'everybody' One bad apple in that 'everybody' might distribute a broken GCC that couldn't compile the kernel or other major chunks of code, leaving the users to use DRM-enabled versions of the kernel. They could even have the only version of GCC that would compile a kernel for that architecture. There's a lot of things we could do to stop this, but most of them would put too much trouble on the good guys (i.e. be non-free). I think the only way out would be to create a separate section for GFDl'ed docs with invariant sections named something like GFDL-doc or doc-semifree (or whatever - nonfree is harsh and unwarranted term). There are licenses in nonfree ranging from [...] don't even think about running nm on this binary to (one semifamous, now relicensed) here's the source, do whatever you want with it, just pet a cat sometime. If you want a semifree, there's a lot more stuff that should be moved there. I hardly see what good drawing another line between 'semifree' and 'nonfree' will do, though. -- __ Sign-up for your own personalized E-mail at Mail.com http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup CareerBuilder.com has over 400,000 jobs. Be smarter about your job search http://corp.mail.com/careers
