Hello, On Mon, Aug 17, 1998 at 02:01:00AM +0100, Jules Bean wrote: > > We outline our stance on free licenses on the web page, get the > long-suffering Nils to do a press release on it, and make some noise. > Possibly, out of courtesy, we should privately get RMS's thoughts on it > first.
I would recommend this. There may be things we haven't considered at all (what legal implications it has to make an existing license modificable, what practical consequences it has [costs to pay a lawyer to double check etc]). Also, many GPL'ed programs allow to apply any later version of the GPL, so any change to the GPL would affect not only FSF software, but most GPL software out there. I think RMS will not make any change too easily. I think every lawyer will get a headache about recursive licenses :) > Any package which consisted of standalone licenses would go in verbatim. > We similarly outline our stance on free standards. Ok. > Any non-free standards go in verbatim. > We also make a public statement on free content, although acknowledging > maybe that this is a different battle. > Any non-free 'works of art' (non-free content) goes in verbatim. If the creation of a verbatim section is supported by the majority, I give in. Formally, I object, but not as a veto, just as a single objection. Considering the alternatives, I think this is a good compromise. My personal opinion is (just for the record), that all the things above can go into non-free, too. > Unless I have forgotten something, I suspect the only 'non-free' left in > main will then be the licenses themselves. I think that this is a worthy > exception. It appears to be required by the X consortium license, and the > GPL, and it could certainly be required by another license, without > rendering said license non-DFSG free. Yes. Well, there may be something you have forgotten: Email snippets from upstream authors. For example, there is a mail by Linus in one of the libc6/kernelheader packages. I think those are a worthy exception, too (we don't want a linus-mail.deb package with a single file, or do we?) Furthermore, there are things like the debian-manifesto, or the dfsg. What happens with them depends if verbatim is part of Debian or not: > I will emphasise that verbatim *is* (IMO) a part of debian. It is in no > way 'less' a part of debian than main. This may turn out as a matter of opinion. Some people agree with you, other had considerations (I remember Richard Braakmann and Raul Miller saying something to this effect). Maybe this should be subject to a vote among the developers, considering that it effects the whole distribution? > However, we recognise the value of > free licenses, free standards and also free content, and we attempt to > ensure that main remains free *with the single exception that* we will > always include the license with a package, even if that license is > non-free. Ok. [but what about email snippets...] > [As a side note, we should attempt to ensure that all grpahics in > main - e.g. example pixmaps, themes for E, backgrounds for Eterm, etc. are > free] This is important, yes. Thank you for your excellent summary, Marcus -- "Rhubarb is no Egyptian god." Debian GNU/Linux finger brinkmd@ Marcus Brinkmann http://www.debian.org master.debian.org [EMAIL PROTECTED] for public PGP Key http://homepage.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/Marcus.Brinkmann/ PGP Key ID 36E7CD09
