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sm-users - Re: [SM-Users] pine-{client, imap, pop2, pop3} have been moved to the z-rejected grimoire

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  • From: "Jeremy Blosser (emrys)" <jblosser-smgl AT firinn.org>
  • To: sm-users AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [SM-Users] pine-{client, imap, pop2, pop3} have been moved to the z-rejected grimoire
  • Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 17:56:18 -0500

On Apr 19, Eric Sandall [eric AT sandall.us] wrote:
> Jamie Tomlinson wrote:
> > With the advent of the new FSF licensing model, you could soon find the
> > z-rejected grimoire to be quite full if the FSF model goes through (and
> > depending upon who follows that model).
>
> It's not necessarily only licenses that the FSF approves, but licenses
> that allow redistribution (e.g. can be put on our mirrors), are not
> binary-only, and don't limit your usage (e.g. for non-profit use only).
> The only items that require FSF licensing are our own products (Sorcery,
> Prometheus, etc.).

It's worth noting that the newly amended social contract is fine as far as
it goes toward committing us as a project to release our own software a
certain way, but we now have no solid definition of what can go in the main
grimoires and what has to go in z-rejected. The closest is the last
sentence "we will never make the core system depend on an item of non-free
software", but that defines neither "core system" nor "non-free".

General usage suggests that we are talking about "the entire stable
grimoire" and use some form of the existing FSF or DFSG-style standards;
that is, we only include stuff in the main grimoire that can be
redistributed and modified in binary and source form without limitation on
fields of endeavor beyond a copyleft requirement (we allow licenses that
tell people they can only modify things if they license the modifications a
certain way).

Whatever we mean and require of the "main" grimoire, it should get listed
explicitly somewhere, though it may not belong in the SC. We'll either
have to point to some other org's established definitions or write our own.

I will submit that as a source-based distro we can consider things binary
distros can't; there's no functional difference for us between a license
that requires modifications be distributed as patches (such as pine) and
one that allows direct distribution of modified sources. We're going to
distribute and build it the same way either way, and IMO the patch thing is
a question of convenience only, not freedom.

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