Re: Inconsistencies in our approach
Brian T. Sniffen wrote:
>> Not quite. I *do* think Debian should remove the GPL's
>> Invariant-but-removable Preamble, distributing only the legal text.
>> The FSF says
>> <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLOmitPreamble>, but since
>> the requirement for future distribution is only "under the terms of
>> the GPL," Debian could distribute the "Debian GPL" containing only the
>> legal terms, and without the invariant Preamble.
John Goerzen wrote:
>Nope, that doesn't fly; almost all copyright statements using the GPL
>say "under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
>the Free Software Foundation". The GPLOmitPreamble citation says that
>the preamble may not be omitted, which is consistent with the text in
>the GPL itself. Therefore, we can't substitute the preamble-less
>"Debian GPL" alternative license.
OK, I see the argument here.
Take a work specified to be usable "under the terms of
the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software
Foundation". The preamble is *not* one of the terms (Brian T. Sniffen's
point). Then we can distribute it under the *terms* of the
GPL, and the license we distribute it under can consist solely of the
*terms* of the GPL. However, the *terms*, specifically term 1, say
that you must "give any other recipients of the program a copy of this
License," where "this license" presumably refers to the GNU GPL
*including* the preamble. This means we have to distribute the GPL with
preamble.
John Goerzen wrote:
>That still leaves us with a non-free Preamble.
OK. How about a GR saying "We will not accept anything non-free in
main, except for the preamble of the GPL. We make this exception
because we feel that the downside of excluding it (i.e. excluding all
GPLed software) far outweighs the cost of having a single short piece of
non-modifiable text in Debian. However, this should not set a
precedent; other non-modifiable text will not be admitted. We do not
want this to be the 'nose in the door' which allows an arbitrary amount
of non-modifiable text into Debian. We would certainly be happier if
the Free Software Foundation eliminated the non-modifiability of this
text."
There. I'd be satisfied. ;-)
--
I bet a lot of people would be satisfied by the following more general
statement as a GR. This seems to correspond to the viewpoint I've seen
taken about license texts.
"License texts, copyright notices, warranty disclaimers, and other
legal notices, are not a particularly desired part of any software
distribution. (Have you ever heard of a user saying "Yes, I want to
download lots of legal notices?") However, they must be distributed
with the software for legal reasons.
"We allow these specific texts to be less free than other software as
a practical decision: there is very limited value in requiring them to
be fully free software; disallowing them would prevent the distribution
of a tremendous amount of otherwise free software; and in many countries,
legal text is freely modifiable and redistributable by law, regardless
of what the authors may claim.
"This only applies to legal texts as they apply to a particular piece
of software; not to legal texts distributed for their own value as
reference works, which must be fully free."
--
Nathanael Nerode <neroden at gcc.gnu.org>
http://home.twcny.rr.com/nerode/neroden/fdl.html
Reply to: