Re: license requirements for a book to be in free section
> Well, we should at least the say that we consider documentation as being
> software,
This is a central point. Some have argued that the DFSG doesn't apply
to documentation, others have argued that it's all we have to go on for
now. That's what I'll do here.
> > Let me try the following: s/printing book/burning CDs/
>
> It's not the same.
>
> Burning CDs is one of the most important method of distributing debian, while
> we didn't do books anyway.
We've had packaged books for a long time.
> Again, if you don't like the printed restriction or other stuff in licences,
> then don't be shy, and state it as such in the DFSG, or write it in a Debian
> free documentation guidelines.
That would be nice.
> Or are you afraid it will not pass the vote,
Not really.
> and prefer to use cabalistic methods to enforce your will ?
Hey, am I part of the cabal? That would be cool.
> > The question becomes: Does O'Reilly wish to allow the possibility that
> > the book will be reprinted for $5 or $10? Probably not before they have
> > made their own money on the sale of the book. So let's acknowledge that
> > the current license is non-free for this reason (unless they would allow
> > a trivial aggregation). When they consider the book to have lost market
>
> The DFSG speaks about software and programs, not about books and
> documentation, and anyway, it speaks about aggregation of several
> programs, not about trivial aggregation. You only want to allow (or
> permit, i am never sure when to use which) trivial aggregation because
> you don't want to take the trouble of doing this the right way, that
> is changing the DFSG so it says, not what it currently says, but what
> you really want. The only problem with that is to know if the whole of
> debian will be of the same mind about it.
No. My specific argument in this paragraph was that selling a printed
version was prohibited. I've always thought this was non-free for books.
Since they are allowing printed versions of aggregate work, and the DSFG
says that's enough, then that part now looks okay to me (I'm not sure
this point was clarified when I initially wrote the above).
> > value, they will consider releasing it under a free license, as they did
> > with 'MH & xmh: Email for Users & Programmers'
> > (http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/mh/) which I packaged for Debian as
> > mh-book.
>
> Yes ...
>
> under what licence ?
GPL.
> And again, this is the problem i feel with this whole discution, you are not
> tryingto help Stefano handle this so he could solve this packaging issue, you
> are fighting a crusade against oreilly on the licencing issue, this is not
> correct with stefano, who is one of our fellow debian maintainer, and should
> be considered as such.
No, I'm not fighting a crusade against O'Reilly. I just think the
no-selling-of-printed-version is non-free. O'Reilly has in the past
allowed the selling of printed versions for books they considered to
have lost market value. So they know there's a difference too.
But they have changed their minds and are allowing the sale of aggregate
printing. So until we change the DFSG, this is okay.
The show stopper is
- commercial products that include this document are themselves
compliant with the DSFG and don't consist of this document only.
for DSFG #9 (License Must Not Contaminate Other Software).
Peter
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