On Tue, Mar 05, 2002 at 07:41:51PM +0100, Marcus Brinkmann wrote: > > > I would like to do the same with C99, POSIX, and other standards. > > > > I agree. I've whished more than once that I could just do > > "C-h i m posix". And I also agree that those standards should be > > free. But when is it free? :) > > You don't really want to drag me into a discussion about what freedom means > for software and related technical, generally useful documentation? I never thought that discussion with you were unpleasant. But I don't the rest of Debian wants such a discussion. :) > > To quote the RFC copyright notice from RFC 2026 "Internet Standards > > Process": > > > > This document and translations of it may be copied and > > furnished to others, and derivative works that comment on or > > otherwise explain it or assist in its implmentation may be > > prepared, copied, published and distributed, in whole or in > > part, without restriction of any kind, provided that the above > > copyright notice and this paragraph are included on all such > > copies and derivative works. However, this document itself may > > not be modified in any way, such as by removing the copyright > > notice or references to the Internet Society or other Internet > > organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing > > Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights > > defined in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or > > as required to translate it into languages other than English > > This license is really horrible. It is neither precise nor consistent. > It is definitely non-free. For example, I am not allowed to work in parts > of it into a game documentation that does not implement, explain or comment > on the standard. Although it is a honest attempt at doing the right thing, > it is too restrictive, as it does only foresee some of the possible uses of > the text, and not all. > > It is in so far unusable even for the areas where it does allow usage of > parts of the text and creating derivative works, as it is incompatible with > the GPL and the GFDL, so it is unusable for GNU projects documentation and > source code (comments!) except for reference or quoting (fair use). I agree, but at least they attempt to do the right thing. Now only somebody should tell them what the right thing is and they might do that. :) > > I agree with you that POSIX is non-free (and that should change!), but > > the original dicussion was about the RFC copyright. I still don't see > > how this license really restricts the user, the things you were > > talking are allowed. Enlighten me if I'm wrong. > > It restricts you in a similar way as a license for Mozilla would restrict > you if it would say: "You are only allowed to reuse part of this source > code if you implement software directly related to the world wide web." > > You can probably always try to stretch the definition to include whatever > you want. But that doesn't change that it is horrible in the first place. True, including the thing you don't want for good reasons is better IMHO. (Think about linking with proprietary software, relicensing, etc) > > The problem is that the Debian Free Documentation Guidelines don't > > exist and that documentation is really different from software. > > It is? Well, I clearly see the difference between a computer program and a > book, but I don't think that the differences are in a way that matters to > the DFSG. The problem is that the DFSG talks about programs, source code, that is should not contaminate other software, etc. The idea behind the DFSG doesn't differ for books, but the current implementation does only talk about software. Jeroen Dekkers -- Jabber supporter - http://www.jabber.org Jabber ID: jdekkers@jabber.org Debian GNU supporter - http://www.debian.org http://www.gnu.org IRC: jeroen@openprojects
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