Re: A possible GFDL compromise
Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote:
> > Another form of tangent is citing practical inconveniences, often
> > shared with many other accepted free licenses, as if they were
> > reasons to consider a license non-free.
>
> This is incorrect. Practical inconveniences are precisely the point
> in deciding whether a restriction is insignificant or not.
>
> It takes more than just inconvenience to make a license non-free. In
> effect, you are chosing to ignore the distinction. If so, it is
> natural your conclusions will disagree greatly with the GNU Project's
> conclusions.
"Other users consider proprietary manuals acceptable for the same reason
so many people consider proprietary software acceptable: they judge in
purely practical terms, not using freedom as a criterion. These people
are entitled to their opinions, but since those opinions spring from
values which do not include freedom, they are no guide for those of us
who do value freedom.
>From the above, I won't judge Invariant Sections on practical terms, but
using freedom as a criterion. They are the very opposite of free. So
I reject them (_both_ in terms of our principles, and in terms of
multiple practical inconveniences). So you see, trying to convince me
that the inconveniences are not so great is almost doomed to fail, since
I also disagree with them in principle.
Since you strongly believe in these same principles for software, please
don't be disappointed with Debian developers for believing these
principles as strongly when they apply to that software's documentation.
Perhaps then you will understand us better and decide whether you wish
for us to distribute free FSF software manuals.
It's very unlikely that Debian will lower standards.
Thanks for your time,
--
Peter S. Galbraith, Debian Developer <psg@debian.org>
http://people.debian.org/~psg
GPG key 1024/D2A913A1 - 97CE 866F F579 96EE 6E68 8170 35FF 799E
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