Slashdot Mirror
The LDP and Debian
Guylhem writes: "The former LDP license was the first license used for our documentation. While we are now recommending the GNU FDL and the OPL 1 without options A or B, many documents are still licensed under the LDPL. David Merril, our Collection Coordinator, noticed that the LDPL is "not free" according to the Debian Free Software Guidelines.
We have to get in touch with the authors as soon as possible or 2/3 of the LDP document collection will be removed from the base Debian distribution because the code freeze is happening in 2 days. Maybe some of the LDP unreachable authors are reading slashdot and could take 1 minute to submit an updated document licensed under the FDL or OPL v1 -A -B ? Another solution is to find volunteers to rewrite from scratch the concerned documents."
Would they really use a code freeze as an excuse for putting out a release with the majority of it's documentation removed?
Surely not. I would think the intelligent thing to do would be to set a seperate freeze date for the documentation.
They aren't a company. They believe in Free Software specific to certain licenses, it's an ideal more than a product. They'd be hypocritical if they didn't do this.
I find it interesting that this would be modded up.
;)
"This self-important bullshit ought to stop"
You are making an assumption about the purpose of Debian. You assume that it's about providing you with a new release. It is not. Debian as a project is about producing a free software operating system. If 1/2 of that definition is not met by 2/3 of the documentation, then it should be of major concern (to at least 1/3 of the team
It's not a big deal, get back to hacking code
And what code do you hack? I'm getting rather tired of self-important Slashdot posters who feel that these slackers should go back in the kitchen and bake some pie. We, the coders of various open source and/or free software applications write the code for our own reasons. If you don't like the code or don't feel that it's up to your standards/schedules, then don't use it. We'll be just as happy either way.
I would have a lot more sympathy for your comments if you spent any time acknowledging that these folks have provided you with an awful lot of benefit because they're fanatics who will waste hours/days/years of their lives for the good of the free software cause.
sPh
Oh joy, another SlashDot poster who didn't bother to read the article. Why am I not surprised?
This change (moving non-free LDP documents to the non-free tree of Debian) is happening at *my* request, not Debian's. Regardless of your feelings on Debian's guidelines, I don't see how you can fault them for following their own guidelines.
There is no question whatsoever that the LDP documents in question violate the Debian Free Software Guidelines. And the DFSG apply to the *entire* distribution, not just software, despite the title.
David Merrill
LDP Collection Coordinator
The FDL ain't free either. It's quite ironic that Debian wants to convert LDP docs to FDL docs because the former doesn't meet the Debian definition of Free. Well the latter doesn't either. If it wasn't for the fact that the FDL came from GNU, Debian would reject it in a heartbeat.
According the the FSF's four freedoms, the OSI Open Source Definition, and the Debian guidelines, any license that allows immutable sections in the body of a work cannot be Free. Geez.
Of course, documentation should not follow the same rules as software. The root problem is that Debian needs separate guidelines for docs than they do for software. Both LDP and FDL (as well as "copy this at your leisure" licenses) should be allowed.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned