Re: GPL-compatible, copyleft documentation license
On 2004-07-21 11:10:33 +0100 Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de> wrote:
* Andrew Suffield:
I call bullshit. Who said it was designed to be applied to computer
programs?
The license itself mentions "program" several times, the FSF writes on
Actually, it usually mentions "Program" many times, which is defined
in clause 0 to include other things:
0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains a
notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed
under the terms of this General Public License. The "Program", below,
refers to any such program or work, [...]
- from Free Software Foundation's "GNU General Public License" Version
2, June 1991, seen at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
its web pages that the GPL was "originally designed for software" (the
FSF software, like almost anybody outside Debian, uses "software" in a
narrow sense that doesn't include documentation), and I'm sure you can
find statements from RMS or Eben Moglen that say similar things.
Let's have a quote about what software is:
SOFTWARE: no other word so thoroughly connotes the practical and
social effects of the digital revolution. Originally, the term was
purely technical, and denoted the parts of a computer system that,
unlike "hardware," which was unchangeably manufactured in system
electronics, could be altered freely.
- from Eben Moglen's "Anarchism Triumphant", in First Monday issue
4.8, seen at
http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue4_8/moglen/index.html
Ask: why the topic drift in dictionaries? Well, free software is
persuasive and if many people start seeking the freedom to use, adapt
and redistribute non-program software, the dictionary publishers get
shown up pretty early on. Some dictionaires are free software, but a
lot of the "big names" are not.
--
MJR/slef My Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
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