Re: Request for suggestions of DFSG-free documentation licences
Jordi Gutierrez Hermoso <jordigh@gmail.com> wrote: [...]
> Kinda, but not really. It seems that Debian's objections against the
> GFDL are highly academic and unlikely to arise in practice. I mean,
> how many of those objections have actually worked against Wikipedia,
> the largest collection of "software" (as Debian calls it) under the
> GFDL? [...]
Is this a joke?
Have people forgotten Wikipedia unilaterally relicensed without getting
consent from its copyright holders? See near the end of
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/05/msg00565.html
The linked emails now seem to be
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2001-October/000627.html
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2002-June/002251.html
but Wikipedia URIs are not Cool http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI
Perhaps some would call this academic, but then perhaps some call any
copyright infringment which is not prosecuted an academic worry. Should
non-enforcement encourage us to ignore the expressed wishes?
> Small excerpts (e.g. an Emacs reference card from the Emacs info docs)
> are probably covered under Fair Use. [...]
This is England calling. I don't get what USians call Fair Use. The FDL
is a practical problem in several ways, including reference cards,
poison pill invariant sections and inability to fix some sections.
> [...] Debian
> really is the odd distro out here by considering GFDL docs non-free.
Not even RMS or the FSF calls the FDL a Free Software licence.
> [...]
> FSF: Er... Maybe we can work something out?
>
> Debian: What? Wait, I'm busy... There! Your filthy propaganda has
> been moved to non-free. [...]
This is wrong. Debian delayed moving FDL'd stuff to non-free for over a
year after the problem was noticed, waiting on promised FSF cooperation.
I think a full release went out in the meantime. As I understand it,
it was FSF asking us to wait because they were busy with things and then
the GPLv3.
I think the Debian project was more than willing to help resolve this
amicably, but FSF seemed determined to keep the non-free-software aspects
of FDL and was just yanking our chain. Even then, some FDL'd
material got a special approval into main.
Regards,
--
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/
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