Re: [directory-discuss] s/w that requires a middleman to liberate it -- is it free?

[Ineiev]

On Mon, Feb 06, 2017 at 02:31:55PM -0500, Anonymous wrote:
> Ineiev said:
> 
> > > It's a disservice to users to create a mechanism that merely
> > > enables a non-free artifact to masquerade as a "free" one by
> > > riding on the weasel-wording that Ian Kelling and yourself propose
> > > as a workaround to free software.
> > 
> > Please note that this is not just Svetlana's and Ian's position,
> > it's shared by all people on this list who have spoken so far
> > except you,
> 
> Please note that this is a bandwagon fallacy (e.g. "one million
> smokers can't be wrong..").

I don't say we can't be wrong. I say that we don't understand
your points.

> The
> underrepresentation of team GNU-User-Freedom in this hole-in-the-wall
> list does not add merit to the perverse claim that a dictionary advice
> guide supercedes the documentation licensing text.

It doesn't suprecede the licensing text, but when there is a conflict
in license interpretations by different parites, the court asks what
the copyright holder meant.

> > and it's also the position of the GNU project, which has already
> > been pointed out:
> > "The criterion for free software is not about who has “access” to the
> > program; the four essential freedoms concern what a user that has a
> > copy of the program is allowed to do with it."
> > [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html.en#Access]
> > (note "user that has a copy").
> 
> You're recycling an argument that has already been made.  And it was
> already defeated here:

You can't claim it's defeated until your opponents understand your
points, and so far we don't.

>   https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/directory-discuss/2017-01/msg00070.html
...
> The licensing text is *legally binding*.  The "Words to Avoid" guide
> is nothing more than advice.
> 
> Your claim that "the position of the GNU project" does not favor GNU
> user freedom in this case

Please don't attribute to me the clams I've never made.
this is unhelpful.

> doesn't only fail legally, it fails also as
> a philosophy in light of the full treatise on the topic.  The SaaSS
> article was a work devoted to entirely treating the scenario of access
> denial.  BTW, this was also already mentioned in the above-cited post.

In https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/directory-discuss/2017-01/msg00070.html,
I see no reference to any article; could you be more specific?

> > We do distinguish the freedom in use the package and conditions that
> > may apply to any particular channel of its distribution; you seem to
> > mix them. perhaps you could try to explain us why.
> 
> When the "conditions that may apply to any particular channel of its
> distribution" violate the licensing text (and the freedoms that that
> license protects), it is not a "mixing" of concepts that's at issue.
> In fact to claim that conditions imposed by distribution mechanisms
> are somehow separate and therefore exempt from licensing constraints
> is itself a means to confuse.

OK, but I see no violations. please list them again.

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