Re: Intent to mass-file bugs: FDL/incorrect copyright files

[David Schleef <ds@schleef.org>]

On Sun, Nov 21, 2004 at 12:36:14AM -0800, Brian Nelson wrote:
> It makes far more sense to convince upstreams to relicense
> their documentation.  However, the majority of the free software
> community seems to be willing to accept the GFDL as free enough for
> their needs.  I highly doubt it would be possible to convince many
> upstreams to change.

I've found that convincing upstream authors to switch away from the
GFDL is so easy that it is nearly trivial.  Usually the response is
"Wow, I didn't know it allowed/required *that*.  What license do
you recommend?"  (GPL, LGPL, or BSD, of course)  The hardest work I've
had to do was to fix a bunch of typos and misspellings in a package,
create a patch with an invariant section containing the GNU manifesto,
and told the upstream author that in order to use my changes, he had
to include the invariant section.

Of course, the significant portion of remaining GFDL documentation
is owned by the FSF, who do not respond to such tactics.



dave...