Dale Scheetz wrote: > So, in fact, both of these licenses are non-free, as they > contain clauses that can be used, and will be considered > non-free. Your objection is true of the OPL, but RMS argues http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2001/debian-legal-200111/msg00017.html that that is not true of the GFDL because "The GFDL says that invariant sections must cover only topics of how the work relates to the authors or publishers." > I find it ... foolish to declare a license to be free IFF > some clauses of the license are not exercised. Using this > language, any proprietary license becomes free as long as > none of the proprietary sections are inforced by the author... These cases are not the same. A license with unexercised options is very different from a license with proprietary clauses (which don't happen to be enforced). Again, though: Even if the GFDL options are exercised the result is not a non-free license, but a license reasonably similar to other free licenses already endorsed Debian. Although the GFDL differs from the GPL in the way it imposes liberty-enhancing restrictions, the restrictions seem to me to be neither excessive nor unclear nor especially vulnerable to misuse. > If this is the kind of logic that is being used on the > -legal mailing list, I'm glad not to expose myself to such > nonsense. Let this be a recommendation to others to read the debate that already took place on debian-devel. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2001/debian-legal-200111/msg00006.html -- Thomas Hood
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