Re: Poll results: User views on the FDL issue

[Glenn Maynard <glenn@zewt.org>]

On Wed, Apr 20, 2005 at 11:06:21AM -0700, Adam McKenna wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 20, 2005 at 08:03:48AM -0400, Michael Poole wrote:
> > Proprietary licenses protect the authors' rights even more.  Never
> > publishing the work, and therefore never subjecting it to copyright
> > law, also protects the authors' rights.  Neither of those help freedom
> > or the sharing of information.  Again I ask: How do invariant sections
> > (by themselves) promote sharing of information?
> 
> They promote the sharing of the information in the invariant section.  In
> fact, they require it.  The question is, will less people share the document
> if they are forced to share it with the invariant section attached?  I think
> that only the people with the most extreme views would not.

Ability to modify and reuse a work are absolutely fundamental to a work
being Free.  Promoting the distribution of a work by prohibiting its
modification is not a trade acceptable to free software.

And that's what it does--promotes *distribution*, not *sharing*.  If the
work was being shared, we'd be allowed to change it.  Instead, only the
original author can do anything with it beyond distribution.  The FSF
calls that "software hoarding".

-- 
Glenn Maynard