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Re: Which license for a documentation?



* Måns Rullgård <mru@kth.se> [040608 09:14]:
> > Nothing at all is wrong with that, and anyone who characterizes the
> > Debian Project as asserting this is wrong, and may be being deliberately
> > deceptive.
> 
> That was not what I meant to say.  However, someone did suggest that
> such a request would make the program non-free.

Well, placing adding requirements removes freedom from the user. Thus it
can make things non-free. (Note that the author has the freedom to
deny this freedom, but we have the duty to not call free what is not
free).

> > There is a distinction between asking for credit for one's work, and
> > requiring that those who use your work pay homage to in you some
> > particular way.
> 
> Definitely.  I still think a one-line mention of the author is a
> rather low price for quality software.  I understand that it could be
> an inconvenience, but that inconvenience is for the author of the
> program, not the users. 

Sorry, I do not seem to understand what you mean. Are you talking about
some form of advertising clause or about the author who has to write
his name correctly in the work?

> If the author is willing to deal with it, he
> should have the choice, calling anything else freedom is hypocritical
> at best.  

???

> If you would like to distribute a modified version, but are
> unable to comply with the requirements you will simply have to refrain
> from doing it.  This may seen non-free, but if the program was not
> even allowed to exist you would still not be able to distribute your
> modifications, there being nothing to modify.  Allowing the existence
> of the program will give you more options, which you may or may not
> choose to use.

This looks like you are confused that even things beeing non-free can
be more free than other things beeing non-free.

> I can understand that a distribution like Debian can desire to only
> include software meeting some criteria for freedom, but this is
> entirely separate from the question of allowing or disallowing
> software failing some of these criteria.

Sorry, I cannot find any sense in this sentence.

Hochachtungsvoll,
  Bernhard R. Link

-- 
Sendmail is like emacs: A nice operating system, but missing
an editor and a MTA.



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