On Sat, Jan 24, 2004 at 11:17:26AM -0800, Daniel Quinlan wrote: > However, while debian-legal is a useful forum for discussing the merits > of licenses and possible incompatibilities, an outside group like Apache > doesn't seem to be able to get a definitive opinion about licenses under > development. This puts Debian in contrast to other groups such as the > OSI and the FSF.
There are a lot of things that are different between Debian and the other two groups you mention. > In the end, this seems to undermine Debian's ability to express a > collective opinion and influence the licensing of free software. I We have an opinion - the DFSG. Anything beyond that is mere noise. > Specifically, I suggest: > > 1. a single place where review requests should be sent FTP masters and debian-legal. > 2. review requests are posted to debian-legal for general discussion As above. > 3. an official entity, either a committee or a trusted individual who is > able to gauge consensus sufficiently effectively assembles > discussion, drafts a response which can be posted here for review > prior to returning it Hoo boy. I don't know how closely you follow other debian-legal discussions, but saying "we have consensus" is nothing more than a trigger for the fringe dwellers to prove that we don't by making as much noise as humanly possible. > 4. response is returned within 30 days of submission *That* is going to be awfully hard to mandate. OK, the basic process as I fathom it for licence review in Debian is: 1) Package with potentially dodgy licence is submitted for entry into the archive; 2) FTP masters look at licence, say "looks dodgy" and pass it over to debian-legal. 3) d-legal throw it around for a while, FTP masters look at discussion and come up with some sort of decision. If that is accurate (I'm not in the FTP master cabal, so I may not have all the details) then we already have basically what you're proposing. The FTP masters. Now, I'm quite sure that they don't particularly *want* the job of vetting licences - so they toss it over here. That's fine. What you can probably take away from this is that if the wizened hacks on d-legal say it's OK, then it's likely that FTP masters will let it through. Of course, knowing who the wizened hacks are and who are the fringe-dwellers might not be the easiest thing to do... > It would be laughably tragic if Debian ends up deciding that future > license revisions like Apache or any other free software project must > end up in non-free. I like the conclusion you've quietly hidden away in there - by referring to "free software project" and "non-free" in there, you're commenting that Debian must somehow be mislabelling. Cute. There is one fairly easy way to make sure a licence will be accepted - read the DFSG, and don't try to sail at the edge of wind. Make it unequivocally DFSG-free, and there won't be any problems. To address your initial request, the problem with trying to find someone to make the final choice is you're not likely to find anyone willing to stick the target on their back, and finding someone who'd be well-trusted enough by *all* developers. There are several d-legal denizens I'd trust, but I know that a lot of other people think they're total loons. What that says about me... If you really want a delegate for the position, though, feel free to ask [EMAIL PROTECTED] Nobody else in the project (AFAICT) has the authority to make that decision. - Matt
