Martin, There appears to be confusion regarding the intended presence of GNU FDL-licensed works in sarge. On Thu, Aug 21, 2003 at 12:33:31AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: > My next post to -devel-announce will discuss some of these finer details. > In short, some members of the FSF have asked for us to give them some > more time to come up with a GFDL that's DFSG-free before we go all > gung-ho about putting it in non-free and having bigger controversies. > Martin (wearing his DPL hat) talked to me about this at debcamp. However: On Mon, Aug 25, 2003 at 11:21:08AM -0400, Richard Stallman wrote: > First, as far as I have heard, Debian has not yet voted on the > question of which GFDL-covered documents to accept. I have therefore > been trying to convince Debian developers that the GFDL is a free > license and should be accepted. Has Debian actually made this > decision? > > Second, the FSF is not working on changing the GFDL now. We intend to > continue to use invariant sections that cannot be removed, as we have > always done. The only issue being considered (if it is still being > considered) is what decision Debian will make about use of the GFDL. > > To make the GFDL somehow compatible with the GPL would be desirable, > but it is not simple. It would require making a sort of > combined-license with terms like the GPL for software and terms like > the GFDL for documentation. That raises lots of difficult issues. At > this point all we have done is begin to think about it in very general > terms. We won't try to go beyond that until after GPL 3 is ready--and > we're not making much progress on GPL 3 due to lack of manpower. If we are to believe the words of the FSF's founder, there is no rational basis for a belief that the they will "come up with a GFDL that's DFSG-free" in the near future. On Thu, Aug 21, 2003 at 12:33:31AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: > Given there's more ambiguity in whether to apply the DFSG to documentation > than there is in whether the GFDL passes the DFSG, it seemed most > sensible just to exempt documentation from the DFSG for sarge; so that's > the policy. I personally see no ambiguity at all in clause one of Social Contract on this point; everything that is part of the "Debian GNU/Linux Distribution" must be Free Software. The only exception of which I am aware are the contents of legal notices (such as copyright statements, warranty disclaimers, and copyright, patent, and trademark license terms) applicable to the work in question. Can you offer the Project your interpretation of clause one of the Social Contract? If you share my interpretation of it, do you feel it is wise for us to knowingly and deliberately violate our Social Contract with the Free Software community thus? -- G. Branden Robinson | If you make people think they're Debian GNU/Linux | thinking, they'll love you; but if branden@debian.org | you really make them think, they'll http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | hate you.
Attachment:
pgpVOm6ey_f0P.pgp
Description: PGP signature