Re: Gnus Manual License
On Fri, 06 Oct 2006 20:23:35 +0200, David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> said:
> Hubert Chan <hubert@uhoreg.ca> writes:
>> On Fri, 06 Oct 2006 08:35:19 +0200, David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> said:
>>
>>> Hubert Chan <hubert@uhoreg.ca> writes:
>>>> Huh? Are you saying that it's OK to publish some random manual,
>>>> and state on the cover that it is "A GNU Manual", when it is, in
>>>> fact, NOT a GNU manual? Is the FSF OK with this?
>>
>>> If they put on the cover text, they have to bear the consequences.
>>> Certainly.
>>
>> So if I take a GNU manual, and modify it such that it is no longer a
>> GNU manual, and still put on the cover that it is "A GNU Manual",
>> then I'll "have to bear the consequences". Nice.
> This is not what I said. Please reread what I wrote, and reread what
> you wrote. I think it is obvious that "they" refers to the FSF when
> there is no other subject in your sentences which it could possibly be
> referring to.
In that case, what you wrote doesn't make sense to me.
If I make false claims, then the FSF has to bear the consequences?
>>>> Independently of copyright law, there are generally laws against
>>>> using someone else's name to "endorse" your own product without
>>>> their permission.
>>
>>> So what? You do not even have their permission, you have their
>>> _demand_ to put this cover text on.
>>
>> The demand is made under copyright law. I don't see it as a waiver
>> that prevents me from being sued under other laws.
> There is nothing that ever can prevent you from being sued under any
> law. But there are cases that are so clear-cut that there is not a
> chance in hell any judge would rule against you. And if you get sued
> for actually heeding the license conditions, this is one such case.
I do not see the demand made under copyright law to be a waiver that
guarantees that any hypothetical case against me would be thrown out.
> And it certainly is a case that the FSF would not want to engage in,
> anyway, since it would completely undermine their credibility.
In general, I trust the FSF of today. But I'm not going to discount the
possible actions (purely hypothetical) of [insert evil company here] who
take over the FSF and its assets long after RMS, Eben, and the current
administration are gone.
>>> It would be utter license abuse that would lose them a case before
>>> every court if they twisted this into some sort of "you are not
>>> allowed to publish at all" game.
>>
>> Oh, come on. You must really be naive to think that. The courts
>> have made absolutely ridiculous rulings before. Unless the license
>> gives me an absolute guarantee that it is OK, I wouldn't take that
>> chance. And besides, why would anyone want to risk a lawsuit?
> Again: no license whatsoever will prevent you from getting sued ever.
> As you can see with the ongoing SCO/IBM, SCO/Novell, SCO/RedHat cases,
> some companies sue based on fairy mist and pixy dust.
The courts have made ridiculous _rulings_ before. I'm not talking about
cases brought to court. I'm talking about the court's decision.
I see nothing in the license that assures me that the hypothetical case
would be thrown out by a semi-sane judge.
> But the FSF is not such a company: they don't have the money to afford
> such nonsense, and their main asset is credibility.
[...]
> You can act on that once there actually are a zillion texts. You
> decide to act on it when there are just three words,
Three words or a zillion texts, I'm just trying to point out the
situation that it can lead to.
> certainly much less than in the BSD advertising clause. That is
> disingenuous.
I never said that I was OK with the BSD advertising clause.
>>>> At least with the BSD advertising clause, you were never forced to
>>>> state something that was factually incorrect, requiring you to add
>>>> useless text in order to retract the falsehood.
>>
>>> The thing does not become non-GNU by modification,
>>
>> Once it is used to document something that is not a GNU project, or
>> modified for purposes outside of the GNU project, I would argue that
>> it is no longer a GNU manual.
> Then add "changed outside the GNU project" after it, and nobody need
> ever add another line in order to keep it true.
"A GNU Manual" "changed outside the GNU project" -- it still claims to
be a GNU manual.
>>>>> if you deem it necessary. And this requirement becomes active
>>>>> only on mass printed copies, anyway.
>>>>
>>>> Like I've said before: dual license GPL/GFDL. If publishers
>>>> can't/don't want to comply with the GPL, then they can use the
>>>> GFDL. And people who don't care about printed copies can use the
>>>> GPL.
>>
>>> The problem is that they can subsequently restrict redistribution to
>>> just a single license. And that means that the protection is the
>>> minimum of that of GPL and GFDL, not a combination.
>>
>> My understanding is that the combined license "A | B" is DFSG free as
>> long as A or B are DFSG free.
Sorry, I was responding to something else. I'm not sure why I put that
there. What I was trying to say is that Debian would be still free to
distribute under a dual GFDL/GPL and still comply with the DFSG. And if
the documentation was originally distributed under a dual license,
Debian would probably distribute under the dual license, instead of just
distributing it under the GPL.
> Straw man. Why should the FSF be interested in lowering the
> protection it can provide for software and documentation to remain
> free?
I don't see how the GPL is any less free than the GFDL.
>>> For example, GFDL-hostile entities like Debian will be free to
>>> distribute the material GPL-only, meaning that it will become
>>> impossible to reasonably create printed copies.
>>
>> Even in that case, it would only prevent them from creating printed
>> copies if they obtained the document only from Debian.
> Which is the whole point of the GNU public licenses: your source for
> the binaries is the channel responsible for providing the source code.
Of course. But they can still obtain a separate license by other means.
If the documentation is unmodified (which it usually is, in Debian,
except for possibly a few minor Debian-specific things), they still have
the FSF's permission to print it under the conditions of the GFDL.
>> The alternative is that Debian does not distribute the documentation
>> at all, in which case the publisher could not have obtained the
>> documentation from Debian at all. In either case, the publisher
>> would need to obtain the documentation (or at least a license) by
>> other means. So no freedom is lost.
> Because Debian refuses to provide documentation free to print in a
> useful manner anyway, no freedom is lost?
Straw man. Debian does not refuse to provide documentation free to
print in a useful manner.
Anyways, you're missing my point. If the FSF distributed their
documentation under a combined GFDL/GPL license, no freedom would be
lost compared to if the FSF only distributed their documentation under
the GFDL. No freedom is lost in the situation you described above,
because the situation you describe above is impossible under the
alternative scenario.
> If that was something that the FSF was willing to accept, it would not
> ever have created the GPL but rather went with a free-for-all license
> like MIT. The reasoning being that since Microsoft would not provide
> source code anyway, no freedom is lost by handing over all GNU
> software to be embedded in binary only material.
Straw man. You are comparing Microsoft moving free software into
proprietary software, with Debian distributing documentation under a
different-but-still-free license.
> It is a somewhat nice idea. But it has not worked too well for a lot
> of software, and it is certainly not the kind of thinking that made
> the FSF create their public licenses in the first place.
--
Hubert Chan - email & Jabber: hubert@uhoreg.ca - http://www.uhoreg.ca/
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