Re: Results for Debian's Position on the GFDL
On 3/13/06, Glenn Maynard <glenn@zewt.org> wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 13, 2006 at 10:34:16PM -0500, Raul Miller wrote:
> > On 3/13/06, Glenn Maynard <glenn@zewt.org> wrote:
> > > Debian has labelled a license with serious, onerous practical problems free.
...
> > I see two issues mentioned in other messages, the DRM issue (the
> > "technical measures" clause), and the Opaque issue.
> >
> > Are those what you are talking about? Or are there other problems?
>
> Those are the big, simple ones.
But how are they serious?
For the DRM issue to be significant, we'd have to have reason to
believe that a judge would not be familiar with the legal meaning of
the phrase "technical measures" in the context of copyright law.
Other meanings of "technical measures" would lead to ludicrous
conclusions (for example: once we've started giving someone a copy we
must keep spamming copies, never being allowed to stop).
And the Opaque issue only applies when the transparent copies are not
distributed. It's simple enough to include the transparent copies in
any .deb, and it's simple enough to file an RC bug report against any
package with GFDL'd content which doesn't include the transparent
copies.
I can understand the calling these issues, but they need not be
any more serious than any of a variety of other issues which Debian
deals with on a regular basis.
As for the other issues you call out, I don't think this GR really
says much about them: Where these elements are invariant, the
GR doesn't say anything about GFDL licensed documents which
contain them. Where they're not invariant, the restrictions
imposed are not any more obnoxious than practical restrictions
on software for non-legal reasons, or practical restrictions on
patch clause dfsg software.
> The "identify you as the publisher" bit seems to fail the Dissident
> test; at least on a natural reading (perhaps not a legal one), that
> seems to prohibit using an alias. "equally prominent and visible" seems
> to prohibit stylization; preventing me from publishing a modified
> version with a cool stylized title page seems like a patent violation
> of DFSG#3 to me. (I have no idea what the *purpose* of that restriction
> is--it's not like the title can't be changed; on the contrary, 4a mandates
> changing it.)
It's never been clear to me that the Dissident test is a accurate
reflection of the DFSG. I can think of many ways for a dissident to
work around such problems (except for dissidents who more slavishly
follow their government's suggestions than most non-dissidents -- but
I don't think that's a serious issue).
> The degree of some of these problems is debatable (none of this is new),
> but in sum, I can't honestly call this "free". What bothers me almost
> as much is that I havn't seen cohesive responses to these or other problems.
> I can deal with rational disagreement: "this is why we don't think this
> restriction is a problem"--but we don't seem to have that. Instead, we've
> been handed down the result, and we're expected to use IK or something to
> force-fit the DFSG to reach the desired outcome.
Maybe none of this is new, but aside from the Opaque and DRM issues,
none of the proposals or supporting material on vote.debian.org
indicate that any of these issues are to be taken seriously.
--
Raul
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