On Thu, Oct 30, 2003 at 01:41:40AM +0000, MJ Ray wrote: > I think I agree with the comment that this amendment mixes too many > things into one proposal. For example, I agree with the generalisation > (rationale point 2) and most of the "editorial" changes, but violently > disagree with changing the use of "software" from its true meaning to > something apparently meaning "programs" (rationale point 4).
I largely agree with you, actually, but: 1) The Debian Social Contract is meant to be read by everyone, not just Debian Developers with a subtle and nuanced understanding of digital ontology; and 2) I am informed (on debian-legal) that the existing wording causes the Debian Social Contract's actual semantic meaning to be distorted or even rendered incorrectly in some foreign translations. Both of these cause disagreements and flamewars, especially the later, which leads to needless internal strife. While I share your wish that people would have a more closely-reasoned understanding of the term "software", empirical evidence seems to indicate that many people don't. I feel we should route around this damage in the Social Contract instead of using the Contract as platform from which to correct people's understanding of what is nowadays a commonplace English now. Such activities are simply beyond the Social Contract's scope. The Social Contract is there to clearly communicate our mission -- our guiding principles -- from Debian to the world. Other considerations must be secondary. I understand that you might feel I am betraying the position I vigorously defended on debian-legal recently, but I do not feel my opinion is inconsistent with the views I've expressed there over the past months. Debian-legal is where nuanced parsing of language thrives. I believe that, in actual fact, the Debian Project does not distinguish between works that are "software" and works that are any other sort of stream of bits. My amendments to the Social Contract are *intended* to make this crystal clear. If you have any suggestions for better achieving that end that do not cause the Social Contract to digress into a pedantic lesson in terminology, then I'd love to hear them. More briefly, I do not feel that the Social Contract is a document that should have to have footnotes. > Please break this amendment up. Please see my reply to Bas Zoetekouw for why I don't want to do this. -- G. Branden Robinson | The best place to hide something is Debian GNU/Linux | in documentation. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | -- Ethan Benson http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |
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