Re: A possible GFDL compromise
Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:
> > A long message at startup would be very inconvenient, simply for being
> > long, regardless of its meaning. A section of the same length in a
> > manual would not cause any such inconvenience. Nobody is "heavily
> > affected" by a few extra pages in a large manual.
>
> This is not true. Such an addition to the manual prevents taking
> small snippets of the manual and using them in isolation.
>
> The term "heavily affected" is still an exaggeration. In any case,
> the effect is simply due to incompatibility. I posted a long message
> explaining that this sort of thing is a consequence of the existence
> of incompatible free licenses.
No, you've missed the point.
There is *no* license which is free-for-software which would allow the
use of such a manual section in isolation. None. Because, of course,
the FSF's definition of free, as applied to software, doesn't allow
invariant sections.
> The situation is the same with the simple license we used in the past
> for manuals with no invariant sections. Yet nobody is saying that
> that license is non-free. It looks like a double standard is being
> applied.
No, I think the simple license was always GPL compatible, it was
perfectly possible to stick to its terms and also the GPL's in a
combined work. I might have to review it more carefully to be sure.
However, the point is that the simple license, was always compatible
with at least one free software license. For example, one could
easily distribute software under the simple license itself.
Thomas
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