Re: GFDL freedoms

[Matthew Garrett <mgarrett@chiark.greenend.org.uk>]

Matthew Wilcox <matthew@wil.cx> wrote:

> I approach this primarily from a pragmatic point of view (from a "our
> priorities are our users and free software" PoV if you want to think in
> terms of the social contract).  The GNU manuals are useful and important.
> They have always had the restriction on being able to remove the GNU
> manifesto and it really wasn't a problem until the GFDL put the issue
> in everybody's face.  Of course there is the tension between that and "a
> reasonable licence to pass on to our users".

While I can see your argument about the lack of practical issues over
the GFDL (of course, to some extent it's hard to know how many people
have just dealt with this by violating the license...), it doesn't make
me feel desperately comfortable. I'll try to work out a firmer argument
as to why.

There's one other issue, though - I'm not sure if your section 4 covers
GFDL stuff like cover texts. They're not secondary to the main purpose
of the manual, but they are invariant.

-- 
Matthew Garrett | mjg59-chiark.mail.debian.project@srcf.ucam.org