Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
On Sunday, May 25, 2003, at 04:38 PM, Dylan Thurston wrote:
Actually, I'm a little unclear on the latter point.
Yes, it is at least DFSG 3 that I and many others believe invariant
sections violate.
To what extent
are non-functional restrictions OK for Debian? For instance, the
GPL's clause 2c (message at an interactive prompt) is uncontroversial,
Yes, only because the disclaimer of warranty and copyright notice are
legally required for various things; also, note that those are not
invariant, you can change the wording, appearance, etc.
but the much longer message that the reiserfs utilities printed seemed
to be more questionable
Mainly because it made the program unusable for people without huge
scrollback.
(if it were required by the license,
Then it would be way more than legally required, and thus I think it'd
be a problem.
Or is the
question whether the restrictions in the GFDL are truly
non-functional?
Functional vs. non-fuctional changes are not mentioned anywhere in the
DFSG. I think there are some border cases where invariant sections can
become functional, such as where the scope of the document
significantly changes, but that is not my biggest objection.
Reply to: