Re: Request for suggestions of DFSG-free documentation licences

["Jordi Gutierrez Hermoso" <jordigh@gmail.com>]

On 26/05/07, Ben Finney <bignose+hates-spam@benfinney.id.au> wrote:
> Jordi, please follow the code of conduct for the mailing lists
> <URL:http://www.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct>.
> Specifically, don't send a separate copy of list messages to me, as I
> haven't asked for that.

Oops, sorry. I forget. Other non-Debian mailing lists have different
codes of conduct.

> "Jordi Gutierrez Hermoso" <jordigh@gmail.com> writes:
[snip]
> > GFDL
[snip]
> > what's the big deal?

On 26/05/07, Ben Finney <bignose+hates-spam@benfinney.id.au> wrote:
> The GPL also requires that any derivative work that one distributes
> must be licensed under the GPL terms.
[snip]
> The document author, by placing only *some* parts of the work under
> the GPL, is essentially determining for the recipient what parts they
> will find useful to combine with other parts of the software.
[snip]
> Further, when parts of a work licensed under GPL are combined into the
> FDL-licensed work, the result is *not redistributable at all*,
[snip]
> Hopefully you now have a better understanding of some of the
> problems.

Kinda, but not really. It seems that Debian's objections against the
GFDL are highly academic and unlikely to arise in practice. I mean,
how many of those objections have actually worked against Wikipedia,
the largest collection of "software" (as Debian calls it) under the
GFDL? In practice, the GFDLed docs can be copied and modified as much
as they need to be; the further modifications Debian claims they need
are not needed; invariant sections are *tiny* in comparison with the
rest of the GNU manuals and relatively as visible as attribution and
copyright clauses that have to go into free software anyways.

Small excerpts (e.g. an Emacs reference card from the Emacs info docs)
are probably covered under Fair Use. I doubt that the FSF would sue
for GFDL compliance because someone made a small Emacs reference card
without the invariant section. Also, it just doesn't make sense to
modify some things, e.g. the news article previously distributed with
Debian's Emacs by permission of the author, but that doesn't mean that
it can't be useful and even freedom-abiding to distribute such
unmodifiable content. And then we have stuff like the GSL docs with
eight pages of invariant sections, six of which are license texts
which are already invariant anyways as previously discussed in this
list (and no, I'm not going to file a bug against gsl-doc-pdf because
two pages out of a total of 490 endorse free documentation; you go
ahead and do it yourself if you wish).

Perhaps the clause intended to work against DRM was vague, but again,
is the FSF going to sue anyone because they encrypt their own hard
drive and just happen to have GFDLed docs in the hard drive?  At any
rate, the GFDL's DRM clause has gotten clarified for GPLv3.

Heck, even OpenBSD, who argue that the GPL isn't free enough to put it
into the OpenBSD kernel and who are strong freedom advocates in their
own way like Debian and the FSF, even OpenBSD thinks that the GFDL is
good enough for distribution alongside with free software. Debian
really is the odd distro out here by considering GFDL docs non-free.

Just as the FSF is accused of endorsing the GFDL so that it can put in
there its invariant sections, I have my own caricature of Debian in
this regard:



                      THE DEBIAN / GFDL FIASCO
        A most lamentable tragedie of Incompatible Philosophies
                            in three ackts

  	     A producktion of the debian-legal players with special
                     collaboration by Jordi G. H.


                             ACKT 1:

    FSF: Here you go! Have a GNU manual. You can give it to anyone
    and you can modify it just like you can modify GNU
    software. We also have it in a format that's comfortable for
    modification, for your benefit.

    Debian: Great! We'll put it in our repositories with the rest of
    the other nifty GNU products. Isn't it fantastic you and I are
    such good friends?


                             ACKT 2:

    FSF: Oh, by the way, free software needs free documentation, here
    is how you can contribute to the GNU project and this is what the
    GNU project is all about. Spread the word!

    Debian: Whoa, wait a minute there, mate. How dare you attempt to
    impose your fascist hippie tree-hugging communist philosophy on
    us? Non-free, non-free, NON-FREE!


                             ACKT 3:

    FSF: Er... Maybe we can work something out?

    Debian: What? Wait, I'm busy... There! Your filthy propaganda has
    been moved to non-free. Ha! Now when users type "man gcc" they
    get "No manual entry for gcc. See 'man 7 undocumented' for help
    when manual pages are not available." That's it, no further
    clarification or explanation as to why what's seemingly an
    essential manpage for an essential package and which should be
    there according to our very own policy manual is missing. None of
    that! Only confused users and essential software
    undocumented. How do you like that, corrupter of youth?

    FSF: Well, I must say --

    Debian: SILENCE, ENEMY OF LIBERTY! You have until the next
    version of your license to make everything under the sun
    modifiable. Until then, we're not talking about this matter any
    further.

                             CURTAIN

Like I said, I don't like Debian's position on the GFDL very much. :-)
- Jordi G. H.