Re: [was A possible GFDL compromise] documentation eq software ?

[Jeremy Hankins <nowan@nowan.org>]

Mathieu Roy <yeupou@gnu.org> writes:

> I'm even not sure whether it's a problem to have an invariant part
> in documentation. As my main area of work is History, I'm familiar
> with books -some kind of documentation- that I cannot change
> physically but I still can use fully (read, understand... and so
> execute and modify, by writing my own text, as there's no binary
> form involved here).

You're not the only one to have this misconception, so I want to
emphasize this point.

The only way you can write your own text based on the old one is if
the license permits you to do so.  Typically with books that means the
work is in the public domain or you've got explicit permission from
the author.

We're not talking about physical modification (i.e., modification of
the hardware).  We're talking about modification of the information
stream (i.e., modification of the software).

People are perfectly free to mark up (highlight, underline, etc.)
books they own.  Though if they try it on one of mine, I may get a
little pissy.  ;)


(IANAL, but if I'm wrong anywhere in the above, I'm sure I'll be
corrected.)

-- 
Jeremy Hankins <nowan@nowan.org>
PGP fingerprint: 748F 4D16 538E 75D6 8333  9E10 D212 B5ED 37D0 0A03