On Mon, 21 Apr 2003 23:22:36 -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote: > On Tue, Apr 22, 2003 at 12:25:39PM +1000, Martin Pool wrote: >> "We don't care what the author wants, we have the legal right to >> change what we like" is not a good message to send. Even if you don't > > Thankfully, Debian isn't sending this message.
For me (as an author whose software is in Debian) this is exactly how it comes across. Some people here apparently delight in pissing off upstream authors who object to the way their software is modified. There are plenty of posts saying that Debian can do what it likes, and precious few acknowledging that Hans ought to have any say in what is done to the software he wrote. Authors have a moral right (and a legal one in some places) not to have their work mutilated. I personally would not have put such a large and informal notice in my software, but perhaps Hans has good reasons, such as promising the sponsors that they would be prominently acknowledged. (That seems to be required by some research grants.) Debian should not stomp all over the author's intentions if it is reasonably avoidable. The alternatives do not seem to have been adequately explored. > > It ought to be obvious that removing a author/sponsor notice would be > > likely to offend. > It's not obvious. Removing a sponsorship notice is something I'd do > without a second thought; it's nothing more than advertisement and > it's just as annoying to me as a banner ad. I say "it ought to be obvious", because Hans put the message in there intending it to be prominent, rather than (say) putting it in a doc file. It is reasonable to assume that he cared about putting this message in front of everyone who used it. If you can't understand why removing it would annoy him then I really doubt your ability to cooperate with other people. -- Martin
