On 2004-08-23 21:16:06 +0100 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
On Mon, Aug 23, 2004 at 03:12:51AM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote:
I am dismayed and exasperated by the recent trend of bashing the
debian-legal list collectively,
I don't think turning around and blaming the NM process is a
reasonable
reaction.
Great! Can everyone get past the mutual blaming and improve the NM
process then? It is really important that NMs understand that we
actually have real trouble to worry about when looking at copyrights,
trademarks and patents, and that "err on the side of putting
everything in main" really could hurt. Is asking a question about beer
prices (nm_pp.txt Q3, asked of me twice during NM IIRC) enough to do
that?
Actually, looking at nm_pp.txt, it's not really clear to me what
answers to 5a and 6 would be accepted, given the expressed views of
some DDs. Anyway, we probably need some questions about the more
interesting things like patent termination clauses or
copyright-enforced trademarks (debian logo?), as they are pretty
common problems. I'll have to let some of the gurus give good examples
to start, but I'll help if I can.
[...]
Many folks see debian-legal as "armchair laywering" from a position
of
ignorance. How many participants are attorneys?
Few. I think there are a couple of helpful law students subscribed.
I'm amazed that they stick around, given the abuse they sometimes get
from the "lawyers should go get another job" school of DDs. I
appreciate their perseverence and help, though.
For my part, I try to listen to lawyers who actually know copyright,
trademarks and patents when they talk to me, but that only really
happens at conferences recently. I've been exposed to the sharp end of
copyright for enough years that I should have learnt something from
them by now.
To me, a bigger problem with debian-legal is the sheer volume it
generates and very few people have indexed it, so it takes a lot of
effort to actually learn from history. Grounding firmly in the DFSG is
tricky, as they're guidelines, not a closed definition. Recently,
debian-legal has also been the victim of some unfriendly people and
the tabloids stirring the pot which has amplified the problems. The
archive search engine isn't that great for research when there are
hundreds of posts about a licence. We've a few things in motion to try
to improve that side of things, but I'm sure more help would be
welcome.
Best wishes,
--
MJR/slef My Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
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