Re: The draft Position statement on the GFDL
> Raul Miller wrote:
> > On Mon, May 10, 2004 at 09:44:27AM -0700, Josh Triplett wrote:
> >
> >>Unless the derived document falls under section 7, "AGGREGATION WITH
> >>INDEPENDENT WORKS" (which requires that more than half of the document
> >>consists of independent work not derived from the GFDLed document), you
> >>must put the covers around the entire derived work, not just part of it.
> >
> > This is a solvable problem.
On Mon, May 10, 2004 at 11:55:28AM -0700, Josh Triplett wrote:
> How would you suggest solving it, given that you should be able to make
> a derived work of the document as a whole without just referencing it?
There are at least three solutions:
[1] Add more original content
[2] Let the document be referenced under its original title.
[3] Strip out more of the bulk from the GFDL document.
> (Also note that even if this "workaround" works and you only need to
> include the Cover Texts and Invariant Sections in an appendix, that
> would still be non-free; this "workaround" only solves the inaccuracy
> problem, not the Freeness problem.)
I agree that this is independent of the freeness issue.
> > Exactly.
>
> A Free license should allow you to create a derivative work of the
> document, instead of just referring to it.
It does.
> For example, you should be
> able to write a manpage for "ls" based on the coreutils documentation,
> without including the entire document in an "appendix" of the manpage,
> or including the Cover Texts on the "front and back covers" of the
> manpage.
Coreutils documentation is not at all structured like a man page.
I think it would be better to copy the ideas and not the content.
> It should also be possible to take the entire GNU coreutils
> manual, and modify it to document a different implementation of the same
> commands, without having to include inaccurate Cover Texts or Invariant
> Sections (or accurate ones either, for that matter).
This line of thought has potential, but a concrete practical instance
(with some specific reference to some DFSG clause(s)) would probably help.
> > Where's the DFSG requirement that requires the license permit distribution
> > without the unpatched sources?
>
> I don't know what the consensus is about licenses that require source to
> accompany the binary in the same package, but even if they were allowed,
> a Free license must still allow derivative works based on those sources
> and some patches, and those derivative works must not be required to
> include the unmodified original work or any particular unmodified
> portions of the original (either large Invariant Sections or small Cover
> Texts).
Ok, but where is the language stating this?
--
Raul
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