[csw-maintainers] [POLICY] Policy-team, policy docs, licenses

[Peter FELECAN]

Philip Brown <phil at bolthole.com> writes:

> On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 12:46 AM, Peter FELECAN <pfelecan at opencsw.org> wrote:
>> Philip Brown <phil at bolthole.com> writes:
>>
>>> 2011/2/8 Maciej Bliziński <maciej at opencsw.org>:
>>>> Peter (F) and Phil, since you've volunteered for the policy-team,
>>>> could you review my proposed code change?
>>>>
>>>> http://lists.opencsw.org/pipermail/maintainers/2011-February/013970.html
>>>>
>>>
>>> oh yikes. That brings up another issue... I dont recall that everyone
>>> agreed on a "license" for our docs & policies.
>>>
>>> If you insist on copying things verbatim from the debian one, we may
>>> get theirs imposed on us. the whole viralness of GPL.
>>> If on the other hand, we dont copy, then we are free to choose our own
>>> at a later date.
>>
>> The "viralness" of the GPL is almost FUD --- I say "almost" because
>> IANAL.
>>
>> BTW, what's wrong with GPL concerning the document describing
>> our policies?
>
> Potentially nothing.
> If everyone agrees to it, then nothing.

Alright. If somebody is against using GPL for licensing our policies
document now is the time to speak up.

> It's just wrong to force a choice on people.
> There are some people out there (general public), who have voiced
> unhappiness with the "GNU Free Documentation" license, for one thing.
> They had specific technical reasons why, although unfortunatley I dont
> remember the details.
>
> Maciej writes:
>>What do you suggest doing?
>
> I suggest not copying from debian directly, but putting in our own
> words. Then we dont have to fuss over licensing at all right now.
> I also suggest that we could link to it, when and if long chunks are
> useful, rather than copying.

I think that adapting the Debian policies is a very wise choice. I'm
against dumbing down by a rewrite with "our[you] own words". We don't
have the resources to reinvent this stuff also and we need formal
policies this century.
-- 
Peter