various opinions on Debian vs the GFDL
We're still clearly a ways from consensus on the topic of Debian's
position on GFDL documents which contain invariant sections. We've gotten
a good first volley of statments from folks, and this is an attempt to
shoehorn the majority of opinions into a smaller number of statments than
the number of posters.
Does anyone feel that their opinion does not roughly fall into one of the
following categories? If so, it would be nice to get a short statment of
opinion which stands on it's own rather than rebutting someone else's
statement.
a) Documents under the GFDL are free, even with invariant sections.
Since documentation is not software, the definition of freedom should be
different. The restrictions on modification which may be imposed under
the GFDL do not make a document unfree.
b) Documents under the GFDL may not be free, but Debian should distribute
some of them anyway. Debian's mission to promote free software is
strengthened by including some non-free non-software.
c) The GFDL would not be free if applied to software, and is not free when
applied to documents. There may or may not be a distinction between the
two, but it is unreasonable to have different standards of freedom or
different standards of whether Debian should distribute them.
d) The GFDL describes non-free documentation, which is distinct from
software. Debian should not distribute non-free non-software.
Note: I tried to keep these as neutral as possible, but my own opinion may
have leaked in. If you consider any of these to be a strawman, please
formulate your own statement. My hope is to collect 3-10 thesis
statements which seem to summarize the majority of opinions.
--
Mark Rafn dagon@dagon.net <http://www.dagon.net/>
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