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Re: Should our documentation be free? (Was Re: Inconsistencies in



"Joe Moore" <joemoore@iegrec.org> writes:

> Joe Wreschnig said:
>> If someone adds proprietary code to BSD-licensed code, however, you can
>> later extract the free code (assuming you have access to the code of
>> the now-proprietary program), and use it in something else. Once
>> proprietary (invariant) sections are added to something under the GFDL,
>> that version of the document is forever non-free, because they can't
>> ever be removed.
>>
>> A nice example of a viral license.
>
> If "proprietary" (invariant) sections are added to something under the GFDL,
> you can still fork the (free) version from before those are added.  Similar
> things have happened with software.

But you have to go and find a copy from before the proprietary section
was added.  With a normal combined work, you can just remove the
proprietary code and take the clearly marked (heh) BSD code.

-Brian

-- 
Brian T. Sniffen                                        bts@alum.mit.edu
                       http://www.evenmere.org/~bts/



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