Re: Poll results: User views on the FDL issue
On Thu, Apr 21, 2005 at 11:35:13PM -0700, foo_bar_baz_boo-deb@yahoo.com wrote:
> I fully agree this sounds crackbrained and radical. It does not have
> precedent in the field of free software, but my thinking here is not
> totally original either, there is some basis for it in other fields.
>
> The place I saw this before is the artists' rights movement in the film
> and music industries. In short, this is the idea that artists have the
> right to see to it that those who receive their content, have received
> a version that is similar in letter and spirit to what the artist
> intended them to get.
>
> I am not totally sure of whether this is something that would be
> valuable to Debian. I am trying to figure out whether it is. In the
> mean time, I wanted to bring this idea into the discussion to see what
> others (who are more involved in Debian that I am) thought of the
> concept.
I think that it's an interesting idea, but one in conflict with Free
Software.
> I think that for things like GNU GFDL invariant sections that have a
> political and philosophical nature to them, there could be merit in the
> idea. Whether there is enough merit to compensate for some loss in near
> total freedom to edit (have to keep the license text of course) is a
> different story.
>
> I think there are times where GFDL protected documents are
> substantially free works, and I can see the value in preserving the
> invariant sections so that their content gets spread widely for
> consideration by all.
If the GNU Manifesto was under a Free license, then Debian would distribute
it, without any coersion; it's being removed expressly due to that coersion.
> I can't see the obvious harm in an occasional GFDL invariant section,
> most of which seem to contain political and philosophical material of a
> higher caliber that often is important to the history of the software
> and might even be its very reason for existence. One could argue users
> have a right to know that information and creators have a right to see
> that it get passed on.
Wikipedia is a real example of how it becomes a problem:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2002-June/002238.html
> If it were part of the license text for the software like the GPL
> preamble, nobody would even be giving the content or its freeness a
> second thought right now. Why is it so hard for people to at least see
> the other side of the coin, even if they don't agree?
Free Software is founded, most fundamentally, on the ability to modify
works. You're telling people that there's something else so important
that it's worth sacrificing some of that--here, that's a very difficult
argument.
> I agree that I have not shown this too well yet. Forgive my
> delinquency. I am trying to show the other perspective on the issue,
> but I did not want to speak prematurely before I had really meditated
> on the issue. Even though it does not seem like it, I am trying to
> avoid pointless time-wasting in my discussion of this topic.
>
> Is the perspective I am elaborating starting to look more clear to you
> now, even if you have a distaste with the principle being espoused?
Yes. I don't have a distaste fundamentally with "letting users see
the original work", but rather with sacrificing other freedoms to do
so, and I don't think that's a goal that can be furthered without such
sacrifices. I don't think the trade is acceptable.
--
Glenn Maynard
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