Re: GR Proposal: GFDL statement
await@genetics.med.harvard.edu wrote:
> I'm
> also working with Wikipedia, CC, & FSF on licensing issues. I'm an
> academic scientist. I run a 70 processor cluster (Debian stable &
> OpenSSI.) I do synthetic biology. I work on Personal Genomics; my
> mentor's article about the work is the cover story for January's
> Scientific American. I hate proprietary academic publishing, so,
> I'd like to see a "pipeline" from Academic Wikis to Academic Journals
> to Wikipedia. That pipeline will almost certainly be GFDL/CC-BY-SA.
> It's really sad to see blood boil over these licenses. Since I am
> talking to people at FSF & CC regularly, I would be more than happy to
> bring Debian concerns to both groups in a, hopefuly, productive
> fashion. If there's a desire for that, just get in touch with me.
I believe we already have a working group working with CC, and according to
them it's going well and CC is totally cooperative; CC-BY and CC-BY-SA should
be free licenses in their next revision, we believe. I have no idea why
these things take so long or are done so secretively, but all's well that
ends well, right?
As for the GFDL, its problems are well documented.
http://people.debian.org/~srivasta/Position_Statement.xhtml
Feel free to add your voice to the many communicating these license "bugs" to
the FSF. Our hope is that we can get the license fixed up so that GFDL docs
*without* invariant sections are DFSG-free, since there doesn't seem to be a
fundamental difference of opinion there. Regarding invariant sections, there
appears to be a fundamental and perhaps irreconcilable difference of opinion
between Debian and RMS (I won't say between Debian and the FSF, because most
GNU contributors I know are on Debian's side here.)
The FSF unfortunately has been less than helpful. Supposedly there is a
secret committee of Debian people talking with the FSF about it, but we have
heard no news of progress. Meanwhile GNU documentation suffers because many
contributors (like me) will not contribute substantial work to
solely-GFDL-licensed documentation.
--
Nathanael Nerode <neroden@twcny.rr.com>
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