Re: [3.2/3.3/HEAD] Make all the manuals unambiguously DFSG free

[Zack Weinberg <zack at codesourcery dot com>]

Joe Buck <jbuck@synopsys.com> writes:

> Zack, try to watch your tone.  Language like "I am not interested in
> rehashing the debate", or "assertions that there is nothing wrong with the
> status quo will be taken as evidence in *favor*", come across as arrogant,
> and this is not the first time that you have used such an approach.
...
> Under the GCC Project's rules, demonstration of the existence of
> controversy on a "political" matter isn't an argument in favor of a
> change; just the opposite: it means that the SC must vote on the
> issue, and it takes a 3/4 vote to make a change.

I apologize for my tone.  My grouchiness level is elevated at the
moment for reasons totally unrelated to the subject of discussion, and
this bled into the message.  What I was trying to get across was
simply that I don't see a need to reprise the debate over whether the
FDL meets the DFSG here; it's been done to death elsewhere.

The controversy here is external to the GCC Project.  The argument is
strictly speaking between thee Debian project and the drafters of the
FDL.  My belief is that the GCC project should avoid getting into the
argument, and my patch was intended to achieve such avoidance - no
more.

> Nevertheless, if you can talk RMS into a resolution that both he and
> the Debian folks can live with, more power to you.  Come back when
> you've convinced him; I hope you're a patient man.

I have contacted him, but I don't plan to try very hard to convince
him.  If we have some assertion on his part that we can point at if
and when Debian decides that our manuals definitely don't fit their
guidelines, that will hopefully serve my goal (staying out of the
argument) well enough; and if it doesn't, we can worry about it then.

zw