Re: REVISED PROPOSAL regarding DFSG 3 and 4, licenses, and modifiable text

[tb@becket.net (Thomas Bushnell, BSG)]

Branden Robinson <branden@debian.org> writes:

> On Tue, Dec 04, 2001 at 05:15:50PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
> > I don't mean a Debian-specific license.  I mean RMS giving the Debian
> > project a copy of the manual, with political sections, but without
> > marking them as invariant, under the understand that Debian would not
> > remove the invariant sections.
> 
> Hrm.  That treads perilously close to being licensing by another name.

It wouldn't infringe the DFSG, because it would be an agreement about
what we would do: distribute a certain package in a certain way; it
wouldn't bind any of our users at all.

> But RMS would, I expect, reject this.  If I were him I'd realize that
> this would mean that some nefarious third party could grab the GNU
> Manuals *from* Debian, which would be licensed without invariant
> sections, and proceed to do things the FSF doesn't want done, like print
> the GNU Manuals without them.

It could mean that possibility, but it's perhaps much less likely,
especially if it's kept more or less quiet. :)

My point here is "this would be OK for Debian, right?"  I intend to
attempt to pull the wool over RMS's eyes (as if I could); just that
this is a possible compromise.  Rather than guess at what RMS would
say, let's see what he actually does say (I've asked him).

Thomas