Re: Request for GR: clarifying the license text licensing / freeness issue

[Simon Richter <sjr@debian.org>]

Hello,

Nathanael Nerode wrote:

> (There is a special exception for the license texts and similar legal 
> documents associated with works in Debian; modifications and derived 
> works of these legal texts do not need to be allowed.  This is a 
> compromise: the Debian group encourages authors of legal texts to 
> allow derived works.)

Also, most "license licenses" allow you to derive, they just ask you to
give your license a different name, which is IMO a reasonable request in
this case, as it decreases confusion.

For license texts, there is no requirement that one be able to evolve it
further while keeping the same name, in the light of a lot of projects
actually not specifying the actual version used, not being able to fork
the license of a project is a good thing.

Unlike documentation, licenses are not software. :-)

   Simon