The debian-private mailing list leak, part 1. Volunteers have complained about Blackmail. Lynchings. Character assassination. Defamation. Cyberbullying. Volunteers who gave many years of their lives are picked out at random for cruel social experiments. The former DPL's girlfriend Molly de Blanc is given volunteers to experiment on for her crazy talks. These volunteers never consented to be used like lab rats. We don't either. debian-private can no longer be a safe space for the cabal. Let these monsters have nowhere to hide. Volunteers are not disposable. We stand with the victims.
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Re: Social contract - last call

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On Fri, 27 Jun 1997, Bruce Perens wrote:

> 4. Integrity of The Author's Source Code
> 
> The license may restrict source-code from being distributed in modified
> form _only_ if the license allows the distribution of "patch files"
> with the source code for the purpose of modifying the program at build
> time. The license must explicitly permit distribution of software built
> from modified source code. The license may require derived works to
> carry a different name or version number from the original software.
> (This is a compromise. The Debian group encourages all authors to not
>  restrict any files, source or binary, from being modified.)

Before the two last lines of the above paragraph were added, I contacted
Richard Stallman and asked him about gnuplot (which the FSF distributes in
prep.ai.mit.edu as if it were "free").

He first answered that the requirement "Modifications are to be
distributed as patches to released version" is acceptable *for the source
code*, as long as distribution of a modified compiled binary is permitted.

Then I answered him using one of Ian Jackson's ideas, which I share:
maintenance of a piece of free software should not be a monopoly, and
everybody should be able to take it over and release a forked version.

Several days later (yesterday), I received a mail from him saying:

"I agree this is a serious problem, and I've written to the maintainer
of Gnuplot about it."



Of course, Debian and the FSF are separate entities, and we do not have to
think the same way they think, but it would be a pity that we will end up
having a different idea of what free software is, while we consider Debian
as "son of GNU".


Do we really need a "compromise"? I think the *very best* way of
"encouraging all authors to not restrict any files, source or binary, from
being modified" would be moving them to non-free if they are not free
enough. This has already worked in the past with several packages.

BTW: Dan Bernstein, qmail's author (this is one of the packages that does 
not allow direct modification), has a web page describing in detail 
how he set up a server machine, cruncher.math.uic.edu. For the software,
he says:

   I'm not planning to spend any money on software. I set up Debian Linux
   on the machine on 5 November 1996. Writing a Linux driver for the
   Cruncher (rather than running it from DOS) shouldn't be difficult.

[Complete details in  ftp://koobera.math.uic.edu/www/cruncher.html ]

Do you think he would keep the license restrictions after seeing Debian
qmail package in non-free? (Or he would just switch to Red-Hat? :-).


In short: I think we should not make any exceptions. What should be my
vote then? "no"? "Yes, but..."? Are non-boolean votes allowed?

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