Re: GFDL

[Glenn Maynard <g_deb@zewt.org>]

On Fri, May 07, 2004 at 08:01:44AM +0530, Mahesh T. Pai wrote:
>  > been less or more enlightening if you had the freedom to edit it?
> 
> I would  have got a very  different idea about freedom  if this friend
> had changed either  the FSF's `political speech', or  the Debian PM or
> DFSG and whatever else is in doc-debian and allied packages.

John Doe has a similar opinion of freedom to Richard Stallman, which is
nearly but not quite expressed in one of the FSF's essays, and he might
not have the writing skill to express his opinion in an original essay.
He modifies the existing essay to express his own opinion, renames it and
makes it clear that it's his opinion and not that of the FSF, and releases
it.  You then read it, and get a different idea of freedom.

I don't think this is a problem.  If the goal is to prevent this, then it
seems like an attempt, through licensing, to prevent people from expressing
competing philosophies.  That goal feels extremely non-free.

-- 
Glenn Maynard