Final updates for this Python Policy revision

[Scott Kitterman]

I think we are at the point where the proposed update to the Python Policy is
clearly more relevant and better than what is currently published. Once this
is done, we can work on refinements. Loïc Minier (lool) did attempt to send
the proposed final patch set to the list and it has gotten stuck somewhere and
didn't make it to the list.

Rather than wait to get that resolved, I'll point you at the git repository

Pushed as git.debian.org:~lool/public_git/python-defaults.git if you
want to use ssh with an alioth account, or
git://git.debian.org/~lool/python-defaults.git otherwise

The only other change I've made is to revert the first hunk of 0026-Clarify-
which-files-are-provided.patch. Once we hit a time where we are both awake,
I'll get git updated.

I'm preparing an upload of python-defaults to publish this and unless I hear
screams will do it as soon as I can get the package assembled and the
maintainer's blessing (I have worked on this already and don't anticipate a
problem).

Scott K

[anatoly techtonik]

Hello,

The policy is under GPL license which is kind of ridiculous to prevent
citing Debian Policy in private talks. I imagine people discussing
"those folks at Debian. Have you heard - they've changed you-know-what
to make packaging easier". =)

Is there any license that more clearly states reason behind choosing
the license? Seems like GPL in this case was chosen just because
"everything is GPL".

What about http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ ? It is
compatible with DFSG
http://wiki.debian.org/DFSGLicenses#CreativeCommonsAttributionShare-Alike.28CC-BY-SA.29v3.0

Ciao
--
anatoly t.

Post by Scott Kitterman
I think we are at the point where the proposed update to the Python Policy is
clearly more relevant and better than what is currently published.  Once this
is done, we can work on refinements.  Loïc Minier (lool) did attempt to send
the proposed final patch set to the list and it has gotten stuck somewhere and
didn't make it to the list.
Rather than wait to get that resolved, I'll point you at the git repository

Pushed as git.debian.org:~lool/public_git/python-defaults.git if you
want to use ssh with an alioth account, or
git://git.debian.org/~lool/python-defaults.git otherwise

The only other change I've made is to revert the first hunk of 0026-Clarify-
which-files-are-provided.patch.  Once we hit a time where we are both awake,
I'll get git updated.
I'm preparing an upload of python-defaults to publish this and unless I hear
screams will do it as soon as I can get the package assembled and the
maintainer's blessing (I have worked on this already and don't anticipate a
problem).
Scott K

[Ben Finney]

Post by anatoly techtonik
The policy is under GPL license which is kind of ridiculous to prevent
citing Debian Policy in private talks.

Why is it ridiculous? Is it any more ridiculous to put a policy document
under GPL than any other document?

Post by anatoly techtonik
I imagine people discussing "those folks at Debian. Have you heard -
they've changed you-know-what to make packaging easier". =)

I don't know what this means.

Post by anatoly techtonik
Is there any license that more clearly states reason behind choosing
the license? Seems like GPL in this case was chosen just because
"everything is GPL".

I think that any free-software license that the copyright holders choose
is fine for this work.

Why do you want specific justification for choosing the GPL?

What specific problems do you see from choosing the GPL for a work, and
why should those problems concern us in this case?

Post by anatoly techtonik
What about http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ ?

Are you saying that license preferable to the GPL for this work? How so?

Post by anatoly techtonik
It is compatible with DFSG

As is the GPL.
--
\ “I fly Air Bizarre. You buy a combination one-way round-trip |
`\ ticket. Leave any Monday, and they bring you back the previous |
_o__) Friday. That way you still have the weekend.” —Steven Wright |
Ben Finney

[anatoly techtonik]

Post by Ben Finney

Post by anatoly techtonik
The policy is under GPL license which is kind of ridiculous to prevent
citing Debian Policy in private talks.

Why is it ridiculous? Is it any more ridiculous to put a policy document
under GPL than any other document?

It is in the same ridiculous for other document. It is ridiculous in
the way people want to hide, skip or complicate things. GPL clearly
doesn't suit "works" that are not binary, nor source code, that are
organized for storage in classic real world libraries. GPL text itself
is rather big for comprehension and when you try to apply it to
documentation it creates too many confusing (philosophical) questions
to be useful.

FSF created GFDL to address this issue, but it was not compatible with DFSG.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPL#Use_for_text_and_other_media

Post by Ben Finney
I think that any free-software license that the copyright holders choose
is fine for this work.

Copyright holders are free to choose anything they want. It may not
even make any sense. The criteria is simple. Can you answer the two
questions below?

1. What am I free to do with with GPL'ed policy text?
2. Are you sure about that?

I can't answer positive about the second one, and I suspect that nobody can.

Post by Ben Finney
Why do you want specific justification for choosing the GPL?

Just because I believe it is chosen blindly. Why do you need policy
license at all? If it is decided to limit the usage of this text - it
can be said more clearly - "attribution required", "commercial usage
is not permitted", "derived works are allowed".

Post by Ben Finney
What specific problems do you see from choosing the GPL for a work, and
why should those problems concern us in this case?

One specific problem is that nobody understands what do you mean when
releasing something that is not software under GPL. It can simply be
deemed invalid in court and usual copyright rules apply. In this case
it can be sought like the freedom authors choose to express their
opinions about what did they meant later. You do not license for that.

Post by Ben Finney

Post by anatoly techtonik
What about http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ ?

Are you saying that license preferable to the GPL for this work? How so?

I still have no idea why Policy authors have chosen GPL, but if
everything they meant was that this work requires attribution and
should be distributed under the same license, then CC license says it
way much more clearly.

Post by Ben Finney

Post by anatoly techtonik
It is compatible with DFSG

As is the GPL.

[Ben Finney]

Post by anatoly techtonik

Post by Ben Finney
Why is it ridiculous? Is it any more ridiculous to put a policy
document under GPL than any other document?

It is in the same ridiculous for other document. It is ridiculous in
the way people want to hide, skip or complicate things. GPL clearly
doesn't suit "works" that are not binary, nor source code, that are
organized for storage in classic real world libraries.

It's not clear that the GPL doesn't suit such works. The Debian policy
is software with source code: the DocBook source document.

I don't know what “organised for storage in classic real world
libraries” has to do with the software form of a work, which is all we
need to consider for the license of a work in Debian.

Post by anatoly techtonik
1. What am I free to do with with GPL'ed policy text?

View it, examine its source code, modify it, and/or redistribute it
under the same license terms.

Post by anatoly techtonik
2. Are you sure about that?

Yes. The GPL grants those freedoms.

Post by anatoly techtonik

Post by Ben Finney
Why do you want specific justification for choosing the GPL?

Just because I believe it is chosen blindly.

I believe it is a deliberate choice on the part of the copyright holders
in the work.

Post by anatoly techtonik
Why do you need policy license at all?

Because it is a work covered by copyright. By default, without a
license, recipients of a work covered by copyright have no freedom to
demand source code, modify, and/or redistribute. These freedoms are
necessary for works in Debian, therefore a free-software license is
needed for the work.

Post by anatoly techtonik

Post by Ben Finney
What specific problems do you see from choosing the GPL for a work,
and why should those problems concern us in this case?

One specific problem is that nobody understands what do you mean when
releasing something that is not software under GPL.

The Debian policy is digital information, therefore it is software (as
opposed to hardware).

Perhaps you mean “something that is not a program”.

Post by anatoly techtonik
It can simply be deemed invalid in court and usual copyright rules
apply. In this case it can be sought like the freedom authors choose
to express their opinions about what did they meant later. You do not
license for that.

I don't know what would lead you to think the GPL would be deemed
invalid for the Debian policy more than any other software work.

Post by anatoly techtonik
I still have no idea why Policy authors have chosen GPL

Perhaps, then, you should not assert they have chosen the GPL blindly.

Post by anatoly techtonik
"This manual is free software; you can redistribute it..."
so this *manual* is free *software*. Really?!

Yes. Software is digital information. Manuals, stored as digital
information, are software.

The GPL has terms that are specific to executable software, but works
fine as a license for software that happens not to be executable.


Now, in the absence of a specific problem with applying the GPL to the
software work that is the Debian policy, I don't think there's any more
need to call for changing it.
--
\ “People are very open-minded about new things, as long as |
`\ they're exactly like the old ones.” —Charles F. Kettering |
_o__) |
Ben Finney

[anatoly techtonik]

Given that people are tired of discussing things they've already
decided for themselves I CC this to debian-legal.

The Debian policy is software with source code: the DocBook source document.

It is not clear why GPL notice doesn't stay in the source then and
instead appear in "binary form", but it seems ok.

BTW, where is the link to Debian Python Policy source in
http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/python-policy/ ? Shouldn't
it be mentioned in documentation?

Post by anatoly techtonik
1. What am I free to do with with GPL'ed policy text?

View it, examine its source code, modify it, and/or redistribute it
under the same license terms.
From your words it sounds like I can do just anything about it -

remove authors, sign under my name and sell for a big money without
distributing source code. Is that right?

Post by anatoly techtonik
2. Are you sure about that?

Yes. The GPL grants those freedoms.

Post by anatoly techtonik

Post by Ben Finney
What specific problems do you see from choosing the GPL for a work,
and why should those problems concern us in this case?

One specific problem is that nobody understands what do you mean when
releasing something that is not software under GPL.

The Debian policy is digital information, therefore it is software (as
opposed to hardware).
Perhaps you mean “something that is not a program”.

I mean that "documentation for software" is not software
itself.Software can render documentation or process it. Documentation
can be printed and still remain documentation. Software is not.

Post by anatoly techtonik
It can simply be deemed invalid in court and usual copyright rules
apply. In this case it can be sought like the freedom authors choose
to express their opinions about what did they meant later. You do not
license for that.

I don't know what would lead you to think the GPL would be deemed
invalid for the Debian policy more than any other software work.

Considering your argument that policy source is DocBook and .html is
"compiled binary software" I am beaten. However, most people won't get
that without lengthy discussion.

Post by anatoly techtonik
I still have no idea why Policy authors have chosen GPL

Perhaps, then, you should not assert they have chosen the GPL blindly.

I still can't see the reasons why they couldn't choose GPL blindly. At
the time when original author was forced to choose license there could
not be other choice. All others are just followed. Now there are many
more clear suitable licenses, that's why I ask. Maybe authors would
like to choose non-copyleft license at all?

Now, in the absence of a specific problem with applying the GPL to the
software work that is the Debian policy, I don't think there's any more
need to call for changing it.

While nobody understands what does it all mean, let's leave it alone. =)

[W. Martin Borgert]

Post by anatoly techtonik
Given that people are tired of discussing things they've already
decided for themselves I CC this to debian-legal.

Addendum: Given that some Debian documents are released under the
terms of the GPL (e.g. our release notes), this discussion has only
little relation to Python. Please drop debian-python from it. TIA.

[Bastian Venthur]

Post by Ben Finney

Post by anatoly techtonik
The policy is under GPL license which is kind of ridiculous to prevent
citing Debian Policy in private talks.

Why is it ridiculous? Is it any more ridiculous to put a policy document
under GPL than any other document?

Quoting the second paragraph from the copyright notice:

"This manual is free software; you can redistribute it..."

so this *manual* is free *software*. Really?!

For me this wording shows clearly that this license does not fit to
documentation since it was obviously made for software.


Cheers,

Bastian

[Omer Zak]

Post by Bastian Venthur

Post by Ben Finney

Post by anatoly techtonik
The policy is under GPL license which is kind of ridiculous to prevent
citing Debian Policy in private talks.

Why is it ridiculous? Is it any more ridiculous to put a policy document
under GPL than any other document?

"This manual is free software; you can redistribute it..."
so this *manual* is free *software*. Really?!
For me this wording shows clearly that this license does not fit to
documentation since it was obviously made for software.

The policy prescribes procedures to be followed by people who package
Python packages for Debian, isn't it so?
Couldn't we then consider it to be software, to be executed by the
people who perform the packaging (to be considered as hardware, for this
purpose alone)?

Now that we put aside the philosophical issues, I'd like to clarify what
can people do and what they cannot do with the policy document?
As long as people can freely copy it, execute it (i.e. build packages
according to its instructions), and modify it - I don't see why it
should matter which license is chosen. It is not as if there are any
commercial uses or whether we care about proprietary&closed derivatives
of the procedures.
--- Omer

[Bastian Venthur]

Post by Omer Zak

Post by Bastian Venthur

Post by Ben Finney

Post by anatoly techtonik
The policy is under GPL license which is kind of ridiculous to prevent
citing Debian Policy in private talks.

Why is it ridiculous? Is it any more ridiculous to put a policy document
under GPL than any other document?

"This manual is free software; you can redistribute it..."
so this *manual* is free *software*. Really?!
For me this wording shows clearly that this license does not fit to
documentation since it was obviously made for software.

The policy prescribes procedures to be followed by people who package
Python packages for Debian, isn't it so?
Couldn't we then consider it to be software, to be executed by the
people who perform the packaging (to be considered as hardware, for this
purpose alone)?

I wouldn't go so far and see documentation as software. Apart from that
I agree that it is important to clarify what one can do with this
documentation (quote, modify, redistribute, etc.) and under which rules
this has to happen. For example, when I quote a paragraph of the
documentation in an email, do I have to provide a copy of the GPL along
with the quote? Because technically I redistribute parts of that work.


Cheers,

Bastian

[Adam]

Post by Bastian Venthur
I wouldn't go so far and see documentation as software. Apart from that
I agree that it is important to clarify what one can do with this
documentation (quote, modify, redistribute, etc.) and under which rules
this has to happen. For example, when I quote a paragraph of the
documentation in an email, do I have to provide a copy of the GPL along
with the quote? Because technically I redistribute parts of that work.

This is a topic for debian-legal not debian-pyhton. Discuss it with them
(after looking at the archive), as they are the experts. If there are
problems (= results) that can be brought here again.

--Adam


P.S.: the GPL can be used for any type of work:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLOtherThanSoftware

P.P.S. (Terminology):
Software = not Hardware
Software != Executable

[anatoly techtonik]

Post by Adam
This is a topic for debian-legal not debian-pyhton. Discuss it with them
(after looking at the archive), as they are the experts. If there are
problems (= results) that can be brought here again.

The point is to make Python Policy clear without additional consulting
from Debian lawyers. I understand that most of us do not want to deal
with these issues, but it will only do good if people won't have any
questions after reading the policy.

Questions like "Debian Python Policy is all about GPL. Do I have to
release my Python package under GPL?". Most people (as you clearly
expressed) don't care, so upstream maintainers would just avoid Debian
packaging and let it do by someone else.

[Christoph Egger]

Post by anatoly techtonik

Post by Adam
This is a topic for debian-legal not debian-pyhton. Discuss it with them
(after looking at the archive), as they are the experts. If there are
problems (= results) that can be brought here again.

The point is to make Python Policy clear without additional consulting
from Debian lawyers. I understand that most of us do not want to deal
with these issues, but it will only do good if people won't have any
questions after reading the policy.
Questions like "Debian Python Policy is all about GPL. Do I have to
release my Python package under GPL?". Most people (as you clearly
expressed) don't care, so upstream maintainers would just avoid Debian
packaging and let it do by someone else.

CC-By-Sa as you have suggested is a copyleft license as well so why
would one not ask "Do I need to publish my python stuff now under
CC-By-Sa" if one isn't sure about GPL? And having read both licenses I
fail to see where the CC license is easier to read (in the relevant
legalcode) as the GPL

[anatoly techtonik]

On Sun, Dec 13, 2009 at 12:41 AM, Christoph Egger

Post by anatoly techtonik
Questions like "Debian Python Policy is all about GPL. Do I have to
release my Python package under GPL?". Most people (as you clearly
expressed) don't care, so upstream maintainers would just avoid Debian
packaging and let it do by someone else.

       CC-By-Sa as you have suggested is a copyleft license as well so why
would one not ask "Do I need to publish my python stuff now under
CC-By-Sa" if one isn't sure about GPL?

Because CC-By-Sa doesn't mention word "software" and doesn't try to
argue with common sense trying to tell that "software documentation is
software itself". I chose CC-By-Sa as a closest alternative to GPL,
but Debian Policies may permit non-copyleft licenses as well.

And having read both licenses I
fail to see where the CC license is easier to read (in the relevant
legalcode) as the GPL

CC has authoritative human-readable summary that is just 1k long and
easy to spot. It is just what 95% of people need to answer their
questions. GPL doesn't have such summary, so you either need to study
17k lawyers spell by yourself or seek the truth from biased comments
on the web.

[Piotr Ożarowski]

please move your discussion to private or -legal

[Scott Kitterman]

Post by anatoly techtonik
Hello,
The policy is under GPL license which is kind of ridiculous to prevent
citing Debian Policy in private talks. I imagine people discussing
"those folks at Debian. Have you heard - they've changed you-know-what
to make packaging easier". =)
Is there any license that more clearly states reason behind choosing
the license? Seems like GPL in this case was chosen just because
"everything is GPL".
What about http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ ? It is
compatible with DFSG
http://wiki.debian.org/DFSGLicenses#CreativeCommonsAttributionShare-Alike.28CC-BY-SA.29v3.0

This is not a recent change. It's been GPL for as far back as I can find
the history. If you feel the license should be changed, my recommendation
is that you take this up with the copyright holder.

Scott K