Re: Proposed vote on issue of the day: trademarks and free software

On Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 07:39:43PM -0500, Gunnar Wolf wrote:
> Russ Allbery dijo [Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 01:56:32PM -0700]:
> > That's not what I'm arguing.  I'm arguing that we should not take
> > positions on general political matters around free software that don't
> > affect us.  This is for a variety of reasons:

> > * lack of competence (other organizations are better at this, I think)

> Debian's people (i.e. debian-legal and so, even equiped with all the
> TINLA and IANAL disclaimers) are a well regarded and quite well
> informed body in this regard.

Well-regarded by whom?  I consider the current crop of debian-legal
participants to have an average (weighted by posting frequency) legal
knowledge equivalent to the folks who send debian-www letters demanding we
delete evidence of their idiocy from the Internet.

> > * lack of standing (why should someone care about our opinion?)

> Because we are the largest Free Software project there is by many
> metrics, and among the most successful by many others? (yes, label me
> as subjective a person as you want  )

I agree with this point, though; statements from people who *do* things
always carry more weight with me than people whose primary activity is
making statements.

--

-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer                                    http://www.debian.org/
slangasek <at> ubuntu.com                                     vorlon <at> debian.org