Re: The draft Position statement on the GFDL
Raul Miller wrote:
> On Tue, May 11, 2004 at 02:57:51PM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote:
>> Your copy of the DFSG must be missing clause 3.
>>
>> | 3. Derived Works
>> |
>> | The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must
>> | allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of
>> | the original software.
>
> My copy of the DFSG does not say "The license must allow all modifications
> and derived works, ..."
>
> The issue I've been addressing is the distinction between what the DFSG
> actually says, and how it is interpreted.
>
> What it actually says isn't enough for our purposes -- you could say
> it's too tolerant of licensing problems.
OK. I would interpret it as meaning "must allow most modifications and
derived works".
> Unfortunately, the way that
> we express how it's interpreted is also inadequate -- what we say we do
> is actually less tolerant than what we actually implement.
What we say we do is something like this:
* prohibit most substantive restrictions on the content of derived works
* allow restrictions which appear not to be substantive
* allow requirements which prohibit things which would be illegal even if
the original work were in the public domain
* allow requirements that certain things accompany the distribution of the
derived work, but not (in general) requirements that those things be *in*
the derived work.
* allow requirements that certain accurate legal notices be present in the
derived work, provided that they don't substantively obstruct the ability
to make the derived work serve whatever purpose you want
* allow requirements that certain attributions be present in the derived
work, provided that they don't substantively obstruct the ability to make
the derived work serve whatever purpose you want
Does that sound reasonable?
--
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
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