Paul Hoffman writes ("RE: FW: IETF copying conditions"):
> Which SDOs that you participate in want to see other SDOs publishing
> *incompatible* versions of their protocols?
The Debian project has published a small (by IETF standards) but
significant body of work specifying the interoperation and behaviour
of the various parts of what they regard as a modern Unix system,
particularly as regards the behaviour of package management systems
and the interoperation between separately-maintained packages.
The Debian standards documents (the core of which I originally wrote
but which have been greatly expanded and enhanced and are now
maintained by others) are released under a licences which permit
modified redistribution with a definite expectation that derivative
systems might want to do things differently.
That a different system might do things differently would not be good
for Debian so we don't encourage it. We would prefer to keep Debian
and its derivatives as close as possible so that we can share
development work (particularly, so that we can all benefit from each
others' improvements).
However, the whole point of Free Software (and thus the point of
Debian) is that people are free to modify it. If that means that they
are free to cause it to run to incompatible standards, so be it. And
that freedom needs to be practically exerciseable collectively as well
as individually, so must include the freedom to properly communicate
within their own project what they are doing. So we do not use the
law to prevent our derivatives from using modified versions of our
standards documents if they regard it as necessary.
Debian is a not insignificant organisation. There are around 1000
members with voting rights. Many of Debian's choices both at a
technical and political level have been influential in the relevant
fields.
Ian.
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