Re: GR proposal: GFDL with no Invariant Sections is free
On Thu, Feb 02, 2006 at 01:49:59PM +0400, olive wrote:
> You seem to say that if a given license has conditions that would best
> be removed to benefit free software then the license is by itself
> non-free. But Debian does not choose the license of a given software; it
> just choose if will include the software in main or not. The question
> becomes if it would benefit free software if the given software is
> included. With this point of view including GFDL manuals in Debian would
> benefit free software since rejecting it would make a lot of free
> software unusable. The GNU project have accepted non ideal free
> software license on the same basis (for example the TeX license).
The choice of whether to include a work is based on whether its license
is free. The definition of "free" is based, ultimately, on whether it
benefits free software or not. You're trying to bypass the process that
determines that, by handwaving wildly and saying "but anyway, who cares,
it would benefit free software to make an exception for this thing and
that thing". Sorry, but you're just not presenting any arguments that
I think are worth spending further time debating. If anyone else thinks
this has substance worth discussion, they're free to jump in, of course.
> Anyway, Debian will most probably continues to include GFDL and other
> non-ideal free licenses; it will just put these softwares in non-free.
> This will encourage more and more people to adopt software in the
> non-free directory (since you are in discordance with both the FSF and
> the open source movement; these people will include people from both
> movements) and will make the distinction between main and non-free
> pointless.
It's unfortunate that you place so little value on free documentation,
but that's your choice. I hope the free software community at large
ultimately disagrees with you.
--
Glenn Maynard
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