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Re: {debian-legal} Re: Final Draft: Interpretive Guideline regarding DFSG clause 3



On Wed, Dec 12, 2001 at 11:19:45AM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote:
> In any event, RMS has asserted that he is not going to change how the
> Emacs Manual is licensed.  We could decree that the GNU Emacs Manual, as
> presently licensed under the GNU FDL, is DFSG-Free, and you *still*
> wouldn't have the right-of-partial-reuse that you seek.  Quote a single
> sentence and be stuck with 10 single-spaced pages of the GNU Manifesto
> (plus some other stuff as well).  That's the license.  (You could
> attempt to assert a Fair Use defense in the event of such a small
> quotation, however.)
> 
> If it walks like something unfree, and quacks like something unfree,
> it's probably unfree.

I agree.

It is somewhat easy to sympathize with the FSF in this matter, since the
invariant text happens to be a free software manifesto, but what if
the invariant text were something else? Do you really want to carry around
invariant sections from everyone that feels like making a statement?
I can imagine that if this were anything but an FSF text, people would
have an entirely different sentiment.

fwiw, I support Branden's ideas on this one.

-drew

-- 
M. Drew Streib <dtype@dtype.org>, Free Standards Group (freestandards.org)
co-founder, SourceForge.net | core team, freedb | sysadmin, Linux Intl.
creator, keyanalyze report | maintnr, *.us.pgp.net | other, see freedom/law

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