The LDP and Debian 279
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."
Re:Question about licenses... (Score:2, Informative)
You don't need to read the GPL, or even agree to it, if you are just using GPL software, it's only when you copy software do you need a licence from the original copyright owner.
From the GPL:
5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it.
As an author (Score:4, Informative)
The problem is that Debian is quickly becoming just as bad as Microsoft in terms of insisting that everyone play the games by their rules, freezing out everyone else. Wanting to keep the core distribution "pure" is one thing, but the zealots are clearly driving out the pragmatists. I'm getting *real* tired of reinventing tools to get around artifical constraints, and if it weren't for apt I would have switched distros long ago.
Now they suddenly announce that since 2/3 of LDP does not satisfy their definition of "free," they're going to drop them. Not move them into "non-free," drop them outright. The only way to avoid this is for authors to drop everything else in their life to make these changes.
And, rubbing salt in this wound, this question was clearly written by one of the persons responsible for dropping these documents. Yet he doesn't feel the need to actually provide a link to a list of the documents in question. We're clearly supposed to waste even more time trying to track down that list on the Debian site because this guy can't be bothered to provide the link in his message.
The message is clear: the volunteer authors are stupid (choosing the 'wrong' license, even though it was the best available at the time, and then not rushing to change it immediately once the Debian gods spoke from on high), and we don't even deserve the courtesy of having a list prepared that we can quickly check.
I'm real motivated to check my licenses now. Let me pencil it in - 2PM, December 5, 2184. Unless it's really urgent, in which case I'll just add a quick clause prohibiting its distribution within a Debian package and force this into a moot issue.
Re:As an author (Score:5, Informative)
David Merrill,
LDP Collection Coordinator
(OT) Slack with 2.4.x (Score:0, Informative)
Re:Questions (Score:5, Informative)
Some of them are Free, some are Non-Free.
We are doing our best to get as many documents licensed to suit Debian guidelines as we can. However, the LDP is not a Free project, and we do not require a Free license. We DO want to keep our documents in Debian as much as we possibly can, so I am asking the LDP authors to consider seriously a relicensing in order to do that. I'm not forcing anyone to do anything. Allegations to the contrary just show you didn't bother to read the announcement.
Now if I may be permitted a micro-rant...
I'm a volunteer just like the other LDP volunteers, and I give lots of my time trying to create and improve the documentation you all count on. I'm doing my best to deal appropriately with a difficult situation, and I'd appreciate receiving some support for that rather than endless flames and gripes over things I'm not even doing.
And Flower, that isn't directed at you.
David Merrill
LDP Collection Coordinator
Re:(OT) Slack with 2.4.x (Score:2, Informative)
Re:As an author (Score:5, Informative)
I know that some of these are free, not non-free, but I wanted to get the preliminary list up, especially now that this is a SlashDot story. This list is a list of all documents where the license isn't GFDL or OPL, or public domain (only a few LDP documents are under other free licenses).
Also, it doesn't show documents relicensed in the last few days.
Thanks again for the good idea.
David Merrill
LDP Collection Coordinator
Re:(OT) Slack with 2.4.x (Score:1, Informative)
Once I got past the installation problems, I didn't mind it, except for the fact it would freeze my machine solid. I wasn't the only one, I had friends who it did the same thing to (one of them only when he was copying files from one drive to another, me it would freeze while doing nothing)
Like I said, I still like Slackware, it probably installs the least amount of useless crap without giving you the choice to deselect it(*cough*Mandrake*cough*), and the init scripts are actually readable, but still, I prefer 7.1 to 8.0.
The license is non-free because: (Score:2, Informative)
The problem with this is that it doesn't distinguish between creating and distributing derived works. As is, the license requires you to send any derived works, even those created in the privacy of your own home and not distributed to anyone else, to the LDP.
Re:Cutting off you nose to spite your face (Score:5, Informative)
Moreover, there was no really free documentation license. Now we have 2 of them which please most of our authors. Fine. Let's move forward.
Your solution (requesting an exception, or a different code freeze date) is the last resort.
I would feel better if the authors did accept the license change. I will contact each one of them - if most of them change the license, I don't think debian would have a problem granting us a separate code-freeze date while we fix the remaining documents.
Else I would welcome any volunteer to join the LDP and rewrite the documents.
Guylhem P. Aznar
LDP coordinator
Re:am I the only one (Score:2, Informative)
Actually, it was someone at LDP that noticed that the license didn't work under Debian. If that guy hadn't noticed it, Debian developers would have been blissfuly ignorant of the issue.
"Debian fanatics"? No ... Here are the facts. (Score:5, Informative)
I'm the maintainer of the Debian packages containing the English-language HOWTOs distributed by the Linux Documentation Project.
A few days ago, during a discussion we were having about other things, David Merrill brought it to my attention that many of the LDP documents didn't belong in our main distribution. With the evidence in front of me, it was hard for me not to agree, and, once I knew of the problem, I felt bound to do something about it.
The timing, of course, was unfortunate, coming as it did so close to the woody freeze. Yes, I should have noticed it earlier, but to be honest I've been kind of busy writing code and fixing bugs [debian.org] in the three months or so since I've been working on Debian's HOWTO packages. I certainly wouldn't have planned it this way; the situation now leaves me with less than three weeks to implement a bunch of code to parse the LDP database [linuxdoc.org] and to split the packages up, which is definitely not something I enjoy doing at the end of a release cycle, so we aren't doing this for our own amusement.
Personally, I am extremely disappointed that much of the doc-linux packages will have to become doc-linux-non-free-html and doc-linux-non-free-text. I didn't become the doc-linux maintainer with the intention of removing documentation from the standard installation! I'll be doing my best to ensure that any documents that we start being able to distribute in main are moved back into main as soon as possible, including submitting updates for point releases of woody and persuading the release manager to include them. I'll also be checking by hand as many of the documents in non-free as I can just in case they really are free. The two days mentioned in the story, incidentally, are when the relevant part of the freeze starts, not when it ends, so the notice that's been given to authors isn't quite so ridiculously short as it sounds. Any documents that get relicensed in the next month and a bit will be included in main for woody, and it wouldn't surprise me if that deadline could be allowed to slip a bit.
I find it fascinating that lots of people seem to think that Debian is somehow beating its chest, stirring trouble, or being generally obnoxious. This is simply not true. First of all, we're reacting to concerns from the LDP, and secondly all the conversations I've had with LDP people, especially David Merrill, have been very civil and friendly. (Incidentally, David, if you're reading this, I owe you a drink of your choice.)
If you'd like to see where this discussion started, try the thread about this [debian.org] on debian-legal. Although David's original mail to me wasn't sent to that mailing list, I think the linked article quotes everything important.
I wish David and the LDP volunteers all the best, and I dearly hope that the current situation will be temporary.
Re:can it be done in practice? (Score:4, Informative)
In printed form, it would take up about 1.5 to 2 feet of shelf space, maybe more.
David Merrill
LDP Collection Coordinator
Yes, it's that bad (Score:1, Informative)
Wake up time, buddy-o. Yes, morality and ethics are at least that lacking that this kind of crap needs to be attended to. I don't know where you live, but here in capitalism land "business ethics" teaches that a "business" is not a being, but a construction that exists only to maximize its profit. "Therefore" it's foolish to try to assign a conscience to business or otherwise expect business to act ethical or moral in any way. "Therefore" people running or working at a business should resist any foolish impulses to impose morality on their business decisions. So poison the people, cut the corners. Market forces will stop you, if you really need to be stopped.
It's just a grand philosophy, isn't it? Sloughs off responsibility perfectly and hard to argue against within their constraints. Very comforting if you are the kind of immoral bastard who usually percolates up the business hierarchy. "Correct Ethics" are hard to understand after all and require experts to even contemplate, better to leave it up to others, ie the market.
Except that you never really see ethical choices that are hard unless someone is specifically trying to justify their poor choice. As always, every restriction and hurdle you'll ever see can almost always be traced straight back to some bastard that tried to get away with something.
So yes, we need these stupid things. Especially in the US where we literally incubate and select for bastards almost exclusively.
Re:thank you (Score:2, Informative)
In reality, we aren't going to release without packages like Apache. Somebody needed to fix them to avoid holding up the release, that's all, and the freeze update was written to kick developers into doing that. :) The Apache packages are just fine now.
The "offending docs" will be moved to non-free, as you say.