[Ichthux-devel] Penguin in the Pew Available

[Ben Armstrong]

On 5/4/05, Troy A. Griffitts <scribe at crosswire.org> wrote:
> I don't think the logic of this statement holds.  I could easily make a
> license that stated that electronic encoding updates and errors found to
> not match a printed edition could be made to a text I develop.  I'm sure
> I could make this license also not be DFSG-free in your eyes.

Fair enough.  It's also incidental to the main thrust of my argument,
which is that the DFSG  applying to the whole work of Debian
simplifies things greatly.  Nobody has come up with a proposal for how
documents should be treated differently that actually works.  It isn't
easy.

> >  If the text wasn't DFSG-free, the errors could not have been corrected.
> Thus, the text wasn't DFSG-free, and the errors COULD be corrected.

OK.

> You are limiting my freedom as to what I can include with my software,
> not enhancing it.  VI states that you must include their unchanged page
> for helping children in Uganda-- many people write software for causes
> other than the empty promises of Marxism.  If you tell me I CAN'T
> included my opinion article with my software, then you are limiting my
> purpose and freedom for writing software.  It's absurb to mandate
> software distribution principles on published opinions.  These
> businesses have different and somtimes conflicting needs.

ITYM Vim.  Yes, that has caused problems in the past (search
debian-legal archives re. Vim using google for background info).  I
don't think Debian objects to that sort of non-modifiable text, which
properly belongs as an addendum to the "copyright" document.  It is
accepted that licenses themselves, to hold any meaning, must be
non-modifiable.  The problem is when the actual content, not just the
license, is non-modifiable.

> If you would allow me to include my personal purpose statement with my
> software, and still publish it on a Debian CD, then why is there a
> problem including PitP on the Debian CD.  This was my only point.

We'd have to go over with debian-legal the objections they have to the
CC license you chose.  If you could license it "CC + whatever
modifications to CC make it acceptable to debian-legal" we wouldn't
have a problem on our hands.  The problem is that the non-free
licenses that are problematic open holes in the DFSG that would set
dangerous precedents for future packages.  So even if the *spirit* of
the DFSG is upheld by your work, acceptance of the work under its
current license causes problems.

> Thanks for the interaction.  I enjoy exploring these principles _on
> occasion_.

I don't mind exploring them from time to time.  I recognize it is a
big headache, though, for many people.  Licenses are like computer
languages, it seems: they are necessary evils we have to use in spite
of their flaws, and we're always irritated by those flaws and are on
the lookout for better ones.

Ben