Re: Should our documentation be free? (Was Re: Inconsistencies in
Joe Wreschnig said:
> On Tue, 2003-08-05 at 12:55, Joe Moore wrote:
>> > You can extract the BSD-licensed code from the proprietary code, and
>> > use only it. There's no requirement in the BSD-licensed code that
>> > you must distribute proprietary code that it was linked to at one
>> > point.
>> If you know that paragraph X was in the FooWare manual before EvilCo
>> added its invariant section, then you can distribute paragraph X
>> without EvilCo's invariant section.
>
> This is a violation of the license. You received the version of the
> document with the invariant section; that's the *only* version you have
> a license too.
According to the GFDL definition section, you were a licensee of the
original version released under the GFDL without the evil invariant section.
Thus, the problem reduces to "finding an old version".
If you are the original author, this should not be a problem.
If you are not the original author, try www.archive.org, old linux
distributions, or whatever. Try contacting the original author, or other
authors listed before EvilCo in the History section.
If it comes down to a lawsuit, request the original version of the document
from EvilCo's lawyers as part of discovery.
If the document was not publicly available from before EvilCo's changes,
then how do you "know" that paragraph X was there before?
>> The GFDL does not require "you keep the previously free source forever
>> proprietary-linked, once it has become such." You can continue to
>> develop and maintain a free version from the last non-proprietary
>> version.
>
> If you can find it.
Yes, if you can find it. And that is exactly the same as extracting any
other subpart from any other combined work under any other license. You
have to be able to prove that you have a license to distribute the extract.
> (NB - I'm not discussing any of the other problems in the GFDL, not
> because I don't believe they're problems, but because they've been
> discussed already. I don't want people to get the opinion that the only
> thing in the GFDL I'm objecting to is invariant sections. There's a lot
> more, but invariant sections are the most odious to me.)
(NB - I'm not defending the GFDL as a particularly "good" license, and
certainly not as a "Free" license. I don't see it as particularly "viral"
either. There are enough real problems with the GFDL that we don't need to
create FUD about its "viral" nature. All that does is fuel the anti-FS
movement -- (see? all their licenses are viral! ban them!) )
--Joe
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