Gentlemen, At <http://www.fsf.org/copyleft/fdl.html>, the following text can be found: "On 7 February 2002, the FSF released a draft of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 for comment. The comment period lasts for three weeks, until 1 March 2002. If you have comments on this draft, please direct them to <fdl-comments@fsf.org> by 1 March 2002. "The FSF always seeks input from the community at large before adopting a new version of our Free licenses. We consider all feedback carefully; however we may not be able to respond to each comment individually. At the end of the comment period, we will post a summary of the most common comments." The comment period concluded a two-and-a-half months ago, and still there is no sign of any public posting of comments received by the FSF, or any summary thereof. I think this lag stretches the meaning of "at the end of the comment period". Several Debian Developers participated in your comment process and we are extremely interested in what perspectives may have been raised by other parties. We are also interested in the FSF's position on the feedback it received, and whether and how the feedback has influenced the forthcoming revision of the GNU FDL. I sent a message regarding this very subject on 1 April[1], and received absolutely no reply of any sort from anyone affiliated with FSF[2]. Please acknowledge your receipt of this message, and advise as to the current disposition of the GNU FDL revision process. The current version of the GNU FDL can be applied in ways that a substantial number of Debian developers regard as non-free[3], and more to the point some GNU Manuals will be impacted by our assessment of the license. If a new version of the GNU FDL is not forthcoming from the Free Software Foundation, then Debian will need to make its evaluations based on the current version; we cannot table these issues indefinitely. Thank you for your attention, and for your encouragement of community participation when making strategic decisions about future versions of the licenses you endorse. [1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2002/debian-legal-200204/msg00002.html [2] Clarification: I did receive a private reply from a person affiliated with the FSF, but who attested that he had nothing to do with the development of the FDL, and appears to be as much of an outsider to the process as Debian is. I received no reply from Richard M. Stallman, Bradley Kuhn, Eben Moglen, or anyone purporting to speak for any person of leadership in the FSF. [3] The GNU FDL and the issues it was designed to address sparked massive discussions within Debian; there is clearly a demand for a copyleft that deals with materials that aren't obviously software. References to the "root nodes" of several discussion threads follow. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2001/debian-legal-200110/msg00096.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2001/debian-legal-200110/msg00126.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2001/debian-legal-200111/msg00000.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2001/debian-legal-200111/msg00006.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2001/debian-legal-200111/msg00063.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2001/debian-legal-200111/msg00094.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2001/debian-legal-200111/msg00100.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2001/debian-legal-200112/msg00001.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2001/debian-legal-200112/msg00007.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2001/debian-legal-200112/msg00010.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2001/debian-legal-200112/msg00052.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2001/debian-legal-200112/msg00250.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2001/debian-legal-200112/msg00276.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2001/debian-legal-200112/msg00336.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2001/debian-legal-200112/msg00358.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2001/debian-legal-200112/msg00361.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2001/debian-legal-200112/msg00394.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2001/debian-legal-200112/msg00450.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2002/debian-legal-200201/msg00250.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2002/debian-legal-200202/msg00114.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2002/debian-legal-200203/msg00009.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2002/debian-legal-200203/msg00054.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2002/debian-legal-200203/msg00104.html Also, several threads contained direct commentary on the FDL 1.2 draft: http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2002/debian-legal-200202/msg00046.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2002/debian-legal-200202/msg00071.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2002/debian-legal-200202/msg00079.html -- G. Branden Robinson | If you have the slightest bit of Debian GNU/Linux | intellectual integrity you cannot branden@debian.org | support the government. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- anonymous
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