On 03/06/07, Don Armstrong <don@debian.org> wrote:
On Sun, 03 Jun 2007, Jordi Gutierrez Hermoso wrote: > I have yet to see a practical example of a situation that actually > happened that justifies Debian's concerns against the GFDL. The practical example is the fact that we cannot make extracts of GFDLed documentation even for manpages without including the text of the GFDL and any invariant sections from the manual.
So you're saying that the current gcc*doc* package in non-free that places the invariant sections in a separate manpage is violating the GFDL? Or is placing the invariant pages in a separate manpage not an extract of GFDL documentation? Seems to me that it *is* an extract and that supplying both gcc (1) and fsf-funding (7) adheres to the GFDL. Indeed, this almost the path that OpenBSD has followed too. There's no practical benefit from removing an insignifcantly small invariant section from a large document except for a desire to not distribute FSF propaganda. If you create a small excerpt from a large GFDL document, you can probably omit the invariant section per Fair Use policies. This isn't a real problem. The FSF isn't going to be enacting legal action against OpenBSD or all the other distros who created a gcc manpage from the info docs. Debian decided to make it a problem for itself and for its users. - Jordi G. H.