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Over the topOver the topPosted Jun 2, 2009 4:14 UTC (Tue) by ncm (subscriber, #165)In reply to: Over the top by BrucePerens Parent article: Okular, Debian, and copy restrictions
Bruce, I agree you're being disingenuous, unless you can tell me some practical way to distinguish a "valid defense" from an "affirmative right". Furthermore, nobody has argued that "turning off that flag" is a fair use right. They have argued that their fair use right allows them, in very common cases, to ignore the literal interpretation of the flag's name and the accompanying text in the standard. In other words, that text does not match anyone's rights. I note, further, that I frequently have other rights, beyond fair use, also not reflected in that text.
If you are arguing that some recognition of that flag is advisable, then having only the option to turn it off permanently is, equally, inadvisable. Everyone is motivated to turn it off, and then they never learn that the distributor of any given document turned it on. A reasonable implementation of the standard would display an icon indicating the flag is on, and might, on occasion, post a dialog box with a button to indicate that I know I have the right to perform the action anyhow.
Under not uncommon circumstances I really do have a right to actually turn off that flag in the file. It's neither KDE's nor Debian's business to make it hard for me to exercise that right.
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Over the top Posted Jun 2, 2009 4:42 UTC (Tue) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] The biggest difference between affirmative rights defenses is that you can't sue someone for violating your defense. You can only use it to defend yourself if you get sued.What I am arguing is that we should, if we want to have some role for Open Source in society's future other than supporting locked-down systems, respect other folks rights as we would have them respect ours.
Over the top Posted Jun 15, 2009 5:12 UTC (Mon) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link] What I am arguing is that we should, if we want to have some role for Open Source in society's future other than supporting locked-down systems, respect other folks rights as we would have them respect ours. I dont think anyone disagrees with that. I also dont think it is at all on point. No one has any right to take control of my computer from me, period, end of story. Many people clearly believe they have such a right but they are mistaken. This is not a conflict between my rights and their rights, it's a conflict between my rights and their desires. My rights win. The Okular maintainers are not violating my rights - they are in no way forcing me to use their software, and they have the right to make it however they think right. Although their choice in this situation makes it clear they are dangerous lunatics, that is their right. The same can be said for the Debian maintainers, although it is much more disturbing given the long commitment from Debian to respecting users rights. But in the end, we dont have to use Debian either. But really, if this becomes more than an isolated incident but a harbinger of how Debian looks to move forward, then Debian will die, or morph into some sort of corporate controlled fifth column. I dont want to see either of these things happen.
Over the top Posted Jun 15, 2009 8:44 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Well, given that 'direspect the users' is unlikely to be written into
Debian Policy anytime soon, and that Debian is basically a mass of chaotic independent arguing maintainers except inasmuch as constrained by Policy, I'd say your fear of a (ha!) corporate-controlled Debian is needless.
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