Re: Results for Debian's Position on the GFDL
On Sun, 26 Mar 2006, Raul Miller wrote:
> If we're going to go into the exact quote game:
>
> You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the
> reading or further copying of the copies you make or distribute.
^^
[...]
> I think it's clear from this context what kind of control it is
> talking about.
[...]
> The clause only applies in the context of copying and
^^^
> distributing the "Document",
This is (one) of the critical errors in this clause. This clause
appears to attempt to control copies that you make even if you don't
distribute them. This occurs because the first sentence talks about
copies which are made and distributed, and the second talks about
copies that are just made and not necessarily distributed.
> We know this both from the immediate context, and from the expressed
> purpose of the license, stated in the preamble:
>
> The purpose of this License is to make a manual, textbook, or other
> functional and useful document "free" in the sense of freedom: to
> assure everyone the effective freedom to copy and redistribute it,
> with or without modifying it, either commercially or
> noncommercially.
>
> When the license disallows you from controlling copies, you have to
> take the expressed purpose of the license into account -- you may
> not impose some other purpose which conflicts with that of the
> license.
The ability for anyone to make a copy of the works that you have
presumably follows directly from the preamble, so either reading of
the clause in question is compatible with it.
[It seems clear that the clause was never intended to cover the
restrictions that it is covering, but nevertheless it appears to do
so. The resolutions to this clause that I've talked about have all
involved actually fixing it instead of claiming that there's no
problem with it.]
Don Armstrong
--
If you have the slightest bit of intellectual integrity you cannot
support the government. -- anonymous
http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu
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