Re: REVISED PROPOSAL regarding DFSG 3 and 4, licenses, and modifiable text
On Tue, 4 Dec 2001, Walter Landry wrote:
> For software it is not even a consideration. Why should we consider
> it for documentation, which is definitely less important?
Damn straight. We hold out for free software, and happily put
distributable-but-nonfree stuff on some of our mirrors. Why on earth
are we considering different standards for some other sequence of bits?
The relative importance of docs vs code doesn't matter much to me. If
it's not free, it's not Debian. Past exceptions can be categorized as
mistakes, IMO.
> > What would you think about requesting the FSF to give Debian a copy of
> > the manual with no such license restriction, but which still included
> > the political commentary, under the understanding that Debian would
> > distribute the normal version?
> However, that would be equivalent to not having Invariant texts in any
> copy of the manual.
Indeed. Either it would break DSFG8, or it would allow everyone and their
brother to use the modified license.
Much as I like and admire RMS, he can't have it both ways. Free is free,
and the ability to change functionality by removing things I don't like is
pretty fundamental.
--
Mark Rafn dagon@dagon.net <http://www.dagon.net/>
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