Re: Poll results: User views on the FDL issue
<foo_bar_baz_boo-deb@yahoo.com> writes:
> --- Glenn Maynard <glenn@zewt.org> wrote:
>> On Wed, Apr 20, 2005 at 12:21:38AM -0400, Marty wrote:
>> > By protecting the authors' rights, same as the GPL. You must have
>> > missed by main point.
>>
>> You seem to be confused. The GPL is not primarily designed to
>> protect
>> the author's rights. It's designed to protect *user's* rights, which
>> always come first. A complete prohibition of modification does not
>> protect user's rights; on the contrary, it abolishes them.
>
> Sometimes having invariant sections protects a user's right to see
> the author's work as the author intended it to be seen, which is a
> point I made before that you seem to be sidestepping. Is it
> inconvenient for you to consider it?
Well, the problem is still that if I do a mix of GFDL document, I
might end with a lot of invariant section contain different political
stuff I don't care for (or even I disagree with) that might disagree
with one another, and might contain factual error (such as information
that once were true, but are not anymore), or not revelent anymore
(for example a text about the danger of some law when this law is not
anymore).
>
>> (Your argument would seem to mean that Qmail is free, because its
>> complete prohibition of modification protects its author's rights.)
>>
>> > I'll be disappointed is nobody has come up with a better argument
>> that
>> > off-topic invariant sections can restrict "freedom."
>>
>> I'm quite confused as to how anyone can possibly claim that something
>> which can't be modified at all is "free".
>
> Dude, that's not true. You are making a straw man out of GFDL by saying
> stuff licensed under it "can't be modified at all." The real GFDL is
> not like that. The real GFDL allows for the preservation of the
> integrity of certain important but unrelated special sections of the
> document that have some sort of political importance or benefit to Free
> Software as a whole. It does not cause something to be put into a state
> where it "can't be modified at all."
Not everybody will agree on the importance and benefit of any
document. For example, what will we do of an intersecting document
containing an invariant section saying that debian is (insert any
controversial accusation against debian here)? Should we be forced to
distribute the interesting part of the documentation do distribute at
the same time some accusation against us?
I recently read the blog of an UI expert saying that the online
documentation of Unbutu is too verbose. How could we make a less
verbose documentation from a GFDL documentation without removing
unnecessary stuff like those political discussion?
--
Rémi Vanicat
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