Re: Gnus Manual License
David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> wrote:
> > If I cannot legally satisfy the conditions of the license,
> > then I cannot redistribute.
>
> But you can satisfy the conditions of the license.
His point was that following the copyright license doesn't mean that you
aren't breaching some other rule.
> > To take a more extreme example,
>
> You are making yourself ridiculous. For one thing, the "victim" of
> the "false claim" is just the FSF, and nobody else. And killing a
> person is a criminal offense actionable by the state. "A GNU Manual"
> would be, at best, a trademark violation. This is not a criminal, but
> a civil offense, and the "damaged" party is the FSF itself.
He did say it was an extreme example...
> If you lose the key to your appartment and let a key service open your
> door, you can't afterwards sue them for breaking the lock: they were
> acting on your behalf and request. Similarly, the FSF can't sue you
> for tacking "A GNU manual" on a publication of yours when they
> requested you to do that.
That's debatable.
> > Or, a different example, if I have two pieces of software, A and B,
> > both copyrighted by the same person, and A is licensed under the
> > GPL, and B is under some proprietary non-free license, then if I
> > want to combine A and B, and release it to the public, then the
> > copyright holder, by releasing A under the GPL, _demands_ that I
> > also release the combined work under the GPL. So would you say that
> > I now have the copyright holder's permission to release the combined
> > work under the GPL, or am I not legally allowed to release the
> > combined work at all?
>
> But we are not talking about this case. But you don't have the
> copyright holder's permission to combine those pieces of software.
That was his point. The fact that the FSF asks you to comply with
something doesn't mean that you can do so legally.
> You are really talking complete nonsense.
>
> > As anyone who has taken a logic course
>
> Which you probably really should.
Take a breath. There's no need to go there.
> >> You asked "Is the FSF OK with this", and yes, they _have_ to be OK
> >> with this since they demanded you put "A GNU Manual" on every work
> >> derived from the GNU Manual.
> >
> > Is this an official statement on behalf of the FSF, or is this just
> > your opinion based on your understanding of the license?
>
> This is far too silly to require an official statement.
Maybe, maybe not.
> >> Then add "(at one time)" after it if that suits you better.
> >
> > (Of course, this puts the FSF in a rather odd situation, if they
> > ever want to take parts of "'A GNU Manual' '(at one time)'" and
> > incorporate it back into their own work.
>
> That is the problem of the FSF, not of yourself. You really are fond
> of purporting to act in the interest of the FSF by not wanting to
> follow the license. It is none of your business to worry about the
> bad effects _to_ the FSF that a demand _from_ the FSF might have.
Discussion isn't allowed? Then what are we doing here...
It's a valid point. The only way they could effectively merge it back
upstream is to ask for copyright assignment. They have traditionally
done so using the argument that the best protection from copyright
infringement was to have a single copyright holder. In this case it
becomes more a matter of necessity, which gives them a edge that
non-copyright-holders don't have.
> > Sorry, by "less free", I meant in terms of guaranteeing continued
> > freedom (and yes, it was a poor choice of words). I don't see the
> > GFDL as providing any more significant protection of freedoms.
>
> The FSF does, and the FSF sets the licenses for the works it has
> copyright for. They accept external input during that process, but at
> the end of the day, it is not your or Debian's business to worry about
> whether a license achieves the particular goal that the FSF wants from
> it. The one thing you need to worry about is whether it conflicts
> with your own goals.
Everyone has to right to question the merits of "free" licenses.
> >> No. The license is something that accompanies _copies_ and is
> >> valid for _copies_. It is not something you can pick off from
> >> anywhere you want to and attach it to some piece of software.
> >
> > Straw man. I'm not talking about picking off a random license and
> > attaching it to whatever you download from Debian. I'm talking
> > about getting permission from the copyright holder, which they have
> > already given you.
>
> Wrong. The copyright holder gives his permissions only to copies he
> distributed himself.
How can you tell where a bit-for-bit identical tar file came from?
> But you can't just say "well, I know somebody who got this under the
> GPL once by paying a lot of money, so I can just tack the GPL onto my
> copy and pretend I got it from him".
I didn't interpret him to be saying that. Only that if the source
distributed by Debian were no longer dual-licensed, but only distributed
under the GPL, then people could still go back to the original
dual-licensed work. We're not presumptuous enough to think that the
only version available anywhere in earth will be the one we managed to
download.
> Your arguments don't hold water, left and right.
You are reading his arguments too literally.
Peter
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