On Mon, Aug 23, 2004 at 01:53:04AM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote: > On Mon, Aug 23, 2004 at 09:48:59AM +0200, Sven Luther wrote: > > > > This is also a more general issue: how do we deal with licenses that we > > > > can't read, in the general case? We assume that Debian users can read > > > > English well enough to understand license grants, but we can't assume > > > > they understand French or other languages, too, and neither d-legal > > > > nor the ftpmasters can review such licenses properly--not just for > > > > freeness, but for legal distribution. Even if we have one or two > > > > people who can read a given language fluently, the license still won't > > > > receive anything approaching the level of scrutiny it would receive > > > > with the whole list able to read it. > > > > Agreed; I think at a minimum we need either a legally-binding license in > > > English, or an English translation vouched for by someone debian-legal > > > subscribers are willing to trust, to be able to make any determination > > > that a license is DFSG-free. > > > I disagree on that. We just need a subset of debian-legal speaking that > > language, and if anyone else disagrees, well, they are free to learn the > > language in question, like we were all forced to learn english to > > participate > > in this :) > > Except that we also need an ftpmaster to be able to follow the > discussions and make a final determination.
Well, the subset of debian-legal should provide the given assurance that a translation is accurate or someting. > As much as I am in favor of Debian being accessible to people who don't > speak English, it's important that we have *some* lingua franca for core > matters, and English is this lingua franca. Well, there is lha, which has been in non-free for ages, and which only had a japanese licence. Friendly, Sven Luther
