Re: GNU FDL (was Re: Bug#141561: gnu-standards: Non-free =?iso-8859-15?q?software in?= main)
On Tue, Apr 09, 2002 at 02:03:11PM -0400, Dale Scheetz wrote:
> The history section in my book, which is declared invarient in the
> license, was written by Ian M. and has no technical bearing on the rest of
> the book's content, but has every reason to be "protected" from
> modification. These particular words have a value that must be protected.
I would have no complaint against the GFDL if that was all it did.
But it also binds those words eternally to the technical documentation
that they accompany.
> None of these issues force behavior on the reader, like code does for the
> CPU. So no "freedoms" are being infringed upon by forcing the text to
> remain unchanged.
Here, and below, you speak about the freedoms of the reader as if the
reader is merely a consumer and would never ever want to re-use parts
of the work in future works. That view is contrary to what we are
trying to create with free software. Why _should_ documentation be any
different? I'll pull your example up from below:
> Using my book as an example, there have been many patches submitted either
> for spelling or content. I have included all those that were correct ;-)
> I have never seen the book published with changes that were not made by
> me, so it isn't clear to me just what the pressing modification
> requirement is in the first place...
Many authors of non-free software make exactly this argument. They have
a right to think that way, but it does not make their software free.
As a small example, consider that someone might wish to condense part of
your book into a reference card that can be mounted on a mousepad.
Unfortunately, the license will requires that Ian M's history of Debian
be reproduced on this reference card somehow, thereby making it less
useful. Would you still say the reader has all necessary freedoms?
> The freedom of expression of the author is what is being
> protected by this clause. The freedom to express opinion without having
> those statements twisted into something completely different is one of the
> reasons for the creation of the copyright in the first place.
A version of the GFDL that allowed deletion but not modification of such
sections would be perfectly acceptable to me.
Richard Braakman
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