Subject:
Re: Debian-free licenses was Re: modifiability of docs: final decision
From:
Rick Moen ####@####.####
Date:
10 Mar 2005 18:38:16 -0000
Message-Id: <20050310183814.GK27314@linuxmafia.com>
Quoting doug jensen ####@####.####
> On Thu, Mar 10, 2005 at 12:42:00AM -0800, Rick Moen wrote:
> > Quoting doug jensen ####@####.####
> >
> > > [Rick's] statement infers that no one knows who did it.
> >
> > This is obviously erroneous
>
> Here is your statement, have at it:
> 1. Although that page and the linked "License Information" page are
> maintained by an (unidentified) Debian webmaster,
You are having a logic problem, Doug.
The page maintainer is unidentified, in the (obvious) sense that there
is no maintainer notice to be found on it. If you cannot see why that
in now way constitutes a statement that -=no one=- knows who the
maintainer is, I'm not sure I can help you.
If nobody else, the maintainer would know who _he himself_ is, right?
Did you think I was alleging that the gentleman is an amnesiac?
By the way, I'm being charitable, in inferring (which by the way is
distinct from implying) that you're merely having a logic problem. The
other possibility is that this is some dumb attempt at cheap rhetorical
tricks.
> The http://www.debian.org/legal/licenses/ pages were authored by a
> Debian Developer, who I think is highly regarded, I certainly have
> alot of respect for him.
I'm happy for him. Now -- getting back to the subject -- please kindly
explain how its contents, which after all consist of summaries of
debian-legal public discussions, can possibly be seen as expressing any
official view of the Debian Project.
Here's a thought-experiment: Imagine that Emma Jane is a Debian
developer, and ITPs a package containing documentation. She then finds
the page in question, and is briefly worried, because she some of the
documentation she's packaging is shown as being under a licence that
"summaries" on debian-legal judged to be non-free.
So, she carefully reads the listed objections -- and happens to find
them, after considerable thought, to be wacky and devoid of merit.
Now, she's even more worried. She thinks: Am I _bound_ by the
judgements shown on this Web page?
So, she hits the books, and re-reads all the Debian governing documents
she had to master a few years ago as part of the New Maintainer process.
She reads all in-force General Resolutions, all official decisions of
the DPL, the Policy Manual, the New Maintainer's Guide, the Developer's
Reference, and decisions of the Technical Committee.
She finds that pronouncements on licensing issues are few and far
between, and finds one reference telling developers that they should
_consult_ the debian-legal mailing list on licensing and other legal
issues.
She tentatively concludes that she's supposed to apply the DFSG as best
she can, _consulting_ but not being issued marching orders by the motley
crew on debian-legal. She figures, correctly, that if she messes up on
DFSG application, and fails to respond properly when someone files a bug,
one or more other developers will NMU[1] her package, to fix the problem.
And, oddly enough, that's what _you_ were telling this mailing list some
months ago, in the message I quoted here last night.
But _today_, you seem to have changed your mind and call my saying what
amounts to the _exact same thing_ "a fairly high amount of misinformation".
> I don't know maybe you decided that my claim is substantiate, I don't
> recall that though.
No, you have conspicuously failed to substantiate your rather rude -- and
moreover vague -- comment.
> > Summaries of sundry offhand opinions posted to the public debian-legal
> > mailing list -- which is what the Web pages house -- are nothing
> > _at all_ like official statements of the project.
>
> Well, I don't think your accessment is accurate.
Well, _gosh_, someone call the newspapers: Doug has (another) offhand
opinion.
> However, aren't they more official then any statements that you would
> make on this list?
{sigh}
That would be a relevant question if I had asserted that my posts to
this mailing list are in any way the official view of any organisation.
Honestly, Doug, what a truly wacky question. These irrelevant
digressions are getting tiresome -- but I'm going to wrestle this
discussion back to the _actual_ subject, below.
> Well, look there something we agree on, I don't appreciate you wasting
> my time.
Please spare me your posturing about moral equivalancy, as I'm not
the one who came barging into the conversation vaguely accusing you
of posting "misinformation", and then rudely refusing to substantiate
the charge, and instead playing irrelevant games and calling me names.
> > > He knows that there is no one person here that can speak for the LDP.
> >
> > Although we were _not_ speaking of the LDP, which unlike Debian lacks a
> > formal structure -- making yours a non-sequitur comparison -- I will
> > immediately deny your premise, nonetheless: Guylhem has spoken
> > definitively for LDP on numerous occasions.
>
> I think the role in regard to the question at hand is similar.
OK, then, which specific debian-legal comments in those Web summaries
were posted by the Debian Project Leader, and intended as official
licence judgements delivered by the Debian Project?
In any event, I was merely debunking your statement as delivered:
Although the comparison was frivolous and irrelevant, it is obvious
that, your view nothwithstanding, that there _certainly is_ one person
here who can speak for the LDP.
Moreover, Guylhem tends to make it rather obvious when he's speaking in
his official capacity.
Which gets us back to the Web page: It's _nobody's_ official capacity:
It's a bunch of public mailing list comments, shoveled together and
put on an (uncredited) set of Web pages.
And you evidently don't like the fact that I've pointed that out. Deal.
[1] Emma Jane, an NMU is a non-maintainer update, i.e., a Debian
developer who is not the registered maintainer of a package sending up
an update to it, nonetheless. To ITP is to post an Intent to Package
message.
