Re: Not inherently free, but inherently non-free?

[Walter Landry <wlandry@ucsd.edu>]

Martin Schulze <joey@infodrom.org> wrote:
> I wonder if all documents licensed under the GNU Free Documentation
> License[1] are inherently non-free with regards to the Debian Free
> Software Guidelines[2].
> 
> I thought that if no invariant sections were used the document would
> still be considered free.  However, if invariant sections were used
> for anything other than the license, the document would become
> non-free.  Since we don't require licenses to be altered I guess that
> the same would apply to an invariant section, I guess.
> 
> There seems to be some confusion about whether the GNU FDL renders
> every document non-free or only those that include invariant
> sections.  The result is that... er... I am confused as well...
> 
> Could somebody enlighten me?

When the GFDL was originally inspected, the conclusion was that the
GFDL was free as long as there were no invariant sections (and maybe
some other sections).  Since then, other problems have been discovered
that make all GFDL documents non-free.

Regards,
Walter Landry
wlandry@ucsd.edu