Re: The draft Position statement on the GFDL
Raul Miller wrote:
>> 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
That's an interesting, if certifiably bad, solution; add more junk to fill
the page count. Ow.
> [2] Let the document be referenced under its original title.
We accept licenses which require retitling. I do not think we can accept a
license which prohibits retitling, as that would require inaccuracy
(again).
> [3] Strip out more of the bulk from the GFDL document.
Only works if there's strippable bulk.
>> (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.
It should allow you to create most any derivative work you want, with very
limited restrictions. These do not seem like limited restrictions. :-P
>> 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.
Fine. To do that, you don't need free documentation; that can be done with
*any* documentation. Ideas are not copyrightable.
Please do this so that we will have a Free coreutils manpage.
For the documentation to be *free*, you need to be able to make a derivative
work.
>
>> 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
How is the one he just mentioned not concrete or practical? Alternate BSD
implementations of most of GNU coreutils exist. I would like to modify the
GNU coreutils manual to document them, but I would have to include these
Cover Texts and Invariant Sections.
> (with some specific reference to some DFSG clause(s)) would probably help.
>
<snip>
--
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
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