FS/OSS license: not quite enough of a requirement

[Alexandre Oliva]

On May 14, 2007, Rahul Sundaram <sundaram at fedoraproject.org> wrote:

> Alexandre Oliva wrote:
>>> The way you ask for comments in guidelines is the process I have just
>>> outlined here.
>> 
>> Except that presenting a draft if people don't even understand why any
>> change is needed will just get the draft discarded as pointless, so it
>> would be wasting my time and yours.

> Not if you include a section called "rationale" explaining why you are
> asking for the changes.

As long as the rationale is understood the way I mean it, yes.  But my
experience hasn't been exactly conducive to a belief that it will.
Thus my request for comments, such that we can come up with something
that we all understand and agree as to its meaning.

>> I realize that.  I'm willing to provide the details.  But saying
>> you're going to ask someone else what I mean, perhaps assuming I'm a
>> proxy for someone else, is not exactly respectful.

> Who said I am asking someone else?

A number of times, when I came up with issues along these lines, they
were deflected with claims that "we are already talking to the FSF
about this."  At least it felt that way to me.

> We have worked long enough, yes but there are several things that I am
> yet to understand your position on. You talk about user's freedom

WRT software.

> but then say that documentation or license text need not be
> modifiable. I need less abstract talk and more details. Please
> provide them.

Documentation is important for software, but it's not software.  It
ought to be modifyable such that it can be maintained in sync with the
software.  Invariant sections don't stop this if used properly.

Licenses are essential for software, but they're not software, and
permitting them to be modified at will would render them pointless to
defend our freedoms, whether they're included as part of Free Software
or Free Documentation.

-- 
Alexandre Oliva         http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
FSF Latin America Board Member         http://www.fsfla.org/
Red Hat Compiler Engineer   aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org}
Free Software Evangelist  oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org}