Re: GFDL

[Anthony DeRobertis <asd@suespammers.org>]

On Tuesday, Oct 7, 2003, at 03:01 US/Eastern, Fedor Zuev wrote:

> 	But copyright is not the [only] thing I said about. I said
> not about copyright, but about normal mode of operation, which is
> orthogonal to the copyright itself.

Have you seen Message-Id: <[🔎] 1065348340.5973.24.camel@bohr.local> of 
October 5, where I address this directly?

> 	Plagiarism and|or corruption of social, political and,
> especially religious texts was unanimously considered harmful and
> was punishable a millennia before invention of the first copyright
> law[*]. This was solely in the interest of public, without any
> care about author's revenue.

First, I'm going to mostly ignore religious texts because, quite 
frankly, the historical treatment of religion is nothing to aspire to, 
and can briefly be explained as "wars, executions, and torture[1]." The 
idea that there even exists a "true" version of most religious texts is 
silly; many, such as the bible, were passed down orally for a good part 
of their history, for example. And they always have been treated as a 
plaything by politicians. No one can truly (and provably) claim to have 
the Bible as handed down by God.[0]

Regarding the corruption of texts, the DFSG does not require that. I 
could, for example, release this email (arguably, a political text) 
under a DFSG-free license with the condition that if you modify it, you 
clearly state you have done so, and that you do not imply I endorse 
your modifications. I could even go so far as to demand you release it 
under a different title.

Regarding plagiarism, I can also require that derivative works give me 
proper credit.



[0] Among other reasons, because non-existent entities can't write 
books.
    Sorry, couldn't resist!
[1] incl. the Comfy Chair.