Re: documentation x executable code
On Thu, Jan 06, 2005 at 05:17:41PM -0500, Dale E. Martin wrote:
> > by insisting on the right to delete/change attribution, and the right to
> > delete/change secondary sections, that is *exactly* what you are
> > demanding - the right to plagiarise and misrepresent.
>
> How can you know why someone else wants to modify an invariant section?
> Maybe they simply want to correct mispellings or something. (Yes, we know
> they can make an addendum to do that.)
>
> Why does documentation have these special needs that software doesn't need.
it doesn't.
software is inherently it's own subject matter. it can not be invariant.
other things distributed with (and required to be distributed with) free
software are "secondary" and may be invariant. e.g. copyright notice and
license text.
> Let's say I had the following program:
>
> // Begin invariant
> int
> main( int, char ** ){
> std::cout << "All hail the zurg! The zurg is supreme commander!" << endl;
> // End invariant
> return 0;
> }
>
> I license it GPL + a clause "sections marked invariant may not be removed,
> physically or logically". (I.e. I can't #if 0 them out.) Now I get hit by
> a bus and you realize "zurg" was supposed to be "zerg".
>
> Do you really think that this solution is acceptable?
no. i never said or implied that it was even remotely acceptable.
> If I'm not supposed to censor or plagarise, then I'm not supposed
> regardless of the licensing, right? Right now I can make GPL programs that
> report the author's name report my name instead. Yet this doesn't seem to
> tbe a rampant problem. Why is documentation different?
because it's part of the culture that you not do these things. it's certainly
unethical, possibly illegal in some jurisdictions, and would result in mass
protest and censure. why should it make any difference whether these cultural
expectations are explicitly spelled out or not? you wouldn't get away with
doing it either way.
in short, declaring the GFDL to be non-free because of it is just pedantic
quibbling of the worst sort.
> > it doesn't matter whether these things are specifically forbiden by a
> > license or not, because they are either unethical or illegal or both,
> > anyway.
>
> Exactly, hence invariants seem unnecessary. They also feel non-free to me
> but I'm still listening to the debate.
>
> > claiming that the GFDL is non-free doesn't make it so. if you make a
> > claim, the onus is on you to prove it.
>
> You keep claiming invariants (and the other issues which seem to be
> considered secondary) are necessary for documentation even though they
> don't seem to be for source code.
no, i am not claiming that they are necessary for documentation.
i am claiming that they don't matter, same as the fact that you can't change
the license doesn't matter.
> The onus is on you to defend this position in this debate. (Bonus
> points for doing it without calling anyone names.) If you've already
> explained this elsewhere a link or cut and paste is fine with me.
you're right, the onus WOULD be on me if that was what i was claiming. but
it's not. i don't claim any such thing and i never have claimed any such
thing.
i've already argued my position on the triviality of invariant sections - in
the message you replied to, and many other times.
what i'd like to see is the anti-GFDL zealots defend their position with
credible argument that the GFDL is non-free, rather than just claim that it
is.
> > we already allow invariant sections in software (particularly software
> > license texts and copyright notices etc) so it's not as if this is some
> > amazingly new and unprecedented exception just for the GFDL - it's a
> > practical necessity to enable us to do our work of producing and
> > distributing a free software distribution.
>
> Copyright notices are a special case. Where else are there invariants?
> There's the "practical necessity" assertion again. Why is it necessary?
not again. it's the first time i've uttered it.
(BTW, i can see why you mistakenly thought i said that invariant sections are
necessary for documentation, when what i said was that it was a practical
necessity for us to ignore them when evaluating software for DFSG-freeness)
but, to answer your question, the practical necessity *for us* (i.e. debian)
is obvious. we wouldn't be able to distribute GPL software at all if we
didn't ignore the fact that the license text is non-free, that the software
distribution contains invariant section(s).
NOTE: "section(s)" is plural because copyright notice and license are two
different things. one is an assertion of copyright. the other is a license to
use/modify/distribute/etc. so there are at least two things that we de-facto
accept as being legitimately invariant.
we also accepted that the GNU Manifesto was *always* required to be
distributed along with the emacs manual, so there is a third invariant section
that we have always regarded as being legitimate - this is not new since the
GFDL, it was always a requirement of the license[1]. this has always annoyed
some people, but it has always been regarded as not important enough to
quibble about. this was the case when we debated and wrote the DFSG years
ago, and has been the case since, but now some zealots are trying to change
that and impose their own insane interpretation.
[1] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-howto-opt.html
"Since the GNU Manifesto presents the principles of the GNU Project,
rather than features of GNU Emacs, we decided that others should not
remove or change it when redistributing the Emacs Manual, and we
wrote that requirement into the license. In effect, we made the GNU
Manifesto into an invariant section, though without using that term."
the only thing that has changed is that the FSF has now produced a formal and
very limited definition of what an invariant section is or may be.
craig
--
craig sanders <cas@taz.net.au> (part time cyborg)
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