Re: GNU FDL 1.2 draft comment summary posted, and RFD
On Wed, 2002-06-12 at 16:51, Branden Robinson wrote:
> I think we want a license that permits educators to photcopy a
> DFCL-licensed document at will and distribute it to their classes, no
> matter how large they are (many undergraduate courses in U.S. schools
> have hundreds of subscribers, which leaves the GFDL's 100-copy limit in
> the dust).
>
> At the same time, there has to be a way to tie the printed copy to the
> preferred form of modification, which is not going to be a piece of
> paper. What we allow teachers and professors to do, we're also going to
> be permitting Microsoft, Amazon, Borders, Barnes & Noble, and the member
> companies of the MPAA and RIAA to do, because we cannot discriminate
> against fields of endeavor.
Here's a clause to consider.
---
Permission to transform this document, in modified or unmodified form,
into a permanent fixed medium is hereby granted as long as one of the
following conditions are met:
- The Source for the document is distributed with the document in a
form that allows for modification.
- An offer is provided in the same form as the rest of the document to
distribute the Source at no charge beyond remuneration for costs, good
for three years from the date of transformation.
- A statement is provided in the same form as the rest of the document
that describes how the Source for this document may be retrieved at no
charge.
Proprietary programs or data required to transform this document into a
permanent fixed medium shall not, for the purposes of this License, be
considered a part of the document unless the program or data used has no
Free alternative for causing the result to be viewed.
---
"Source" is capitalized on the assumption that it be defined elsewhere,
in the spirit of the GPL's "preferred form for modification of the work"
definition. Of course, the Source should be the exact Source for the
document transformed, including modifications. Ditto with "Free"; think
"free speech".
The third condition is a little new. Its intent is to protect people
who are resource-starved; i.e. the tiny school for orphans in Outer
Mongolia photocopying a textbook for student use. They might not be in
a position to guarantee a source delivery service for three years, but
if they got it from the Web, they can handwrite "We got this from
http://www.foo.com/bar"; on the back page or something.
The last paragraph is intended to cover people printing the document
using a non-free Helvetica font and non-free HP printer firmware, while
preventing a malicious person from transforming the whole document into
FrameMaker, making changes, and releasing the result on CD, thus denying
(in theory) the original author from benefiting from the changes without
buying his/her own copy of FrameMaker.
I'm sure my wording above at least is not ideal; perhaps this can be a
place to start working from.
--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-request@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org
Reply to: