Re: GNU FDL (was Re: Bug#141561: gnu-standards: Non-free software in main)
On Mon, 2002-04-08 at 15:21, Glenn Maynard wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 08, 2002 at 10:01:15AM -0500, Jeff Licquia wrote:
> > > Why? What freedoms are important for software that aren't for documentation?
> >
> > Revisionist history, for one. I'm sure the FSF wouldn't appreciate the
> > GCC document being modified to make it look like Linus Torvalds wrote
> > GCC, for example.
>
> That would involve removing names from copyright notices, which isn't
> allowed for text *or* code.
Not necessarily. Imagine part of the README for "licquix", the hot new
free kernel that everyone's raving about:
Copyright (c) 1991 Linus Torvalds.
The Finn gets the copyright because he started it, even though it
wouldn't be half the kernel it is without my obviously brilliant
improvements. He did start the project, after all, even if he hasn't
made a decent contribution in years.
Do you think Linus would have a problem with such a README for this
(fictitious) product?
> Except that a large part of the discussion is exactly whether
> documentation is considered software for the purposes of the DFSG, and
> you and many others are (incorrectly and repeatedly) speaking as if the
> issue is settled.
Hmm. I'm probably guilty of not being clear. That is, indeed, my point
- that there are some issues to resolve here, and they don't seem to be
resolved yet.
> I've yet to see an argument as to why Debian should call a text with the
> GNU Manifesto permanently embedded in it free, when it wouldn't do the
> same for a software license that did the same thing. To me, it seems
> straightforward: understandable, but not free.
Having read lots more on last year's thread, I must confess that this is
the most troubling part of the whole debate.
On the one hand, it doesn't seem totally clear that freedom in
non-active written works necessarily requires modifiability. We can
modify Thoreau (his works are in the public domain), but why would we
want to? Isn't it more honest and more "free" to write your own works,
borrowing from people like Thoreau, but not tarring him with the taint
of our own incompletely understood ideas?
On the other, it also doesn't seem right that a quote of, say, a
paragraph or two of the Emacs manual would require me to embed the whole
of the GNU Manifesto in my manual.
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