"a named appendix or a front-matter section of the Document that deals
*exclusively* with the *relationship* of the publishers or authors of the
Document to the Document's overall subject" (emphasis mine) -- it does not
matter in the slightest if these things can not be changed by anyone but
the
original authors. they are not in the least bit important for the task of
accurately documenting software.(a) That's not how the FSF actually uses
Invariant Sections; "Funding Free Software" inthe GCC manual does not fit
these criteria, for example. In practice, it's used for fairly arbitrary
texts.(b) This prevents the documents from being adapted for another
purpose (suchas documenting ways of funding free software). We have
concluded that this isa fundamental feature of the right to modify, and the
GFDL does not allow it.RMS has, in fact, said that he simply doesn't care
about the right to adaptworks for another purpose; and that he believes
that code and documentationshould be separate and that it is never
technically desirable to have themintermerged. (This is wilful denial of
reality, in which literate programming isbecoming more and more common, and
is despite emacs being the original "*self-documenting*"text editor.)
>these are fundamental ethical principles - censorship is evil, and you do
not
put words in people's mouths.This, of course, is true, and has absolutely
nothing to do with the discussion at hand.(1) Nobody advocates "putting
words in people's mouths".This is discussed clearly under the heading "It's
not about misrepresentation!"at my
page:http://home.twcny.rr.com/nerode/neroden/fdl.htmlThis is becoming an
old tired slander used to attack GFDL opponents.I think it is probably the
most annoying misconception among GFDL supporters.(2) "Censorship" involves
*prohibiting* material from being distributed. There isno censorship
involved in allowing people to make their own cut-down -- "bowlderised",
perhaps -- versions. Misrepresenting such versions as being theoriginal is
of course not acceptable. Attempting to suppress the original is of course
not acceptable. Being allowed to create and distribute such
versions,however, is part and parcel of freedom to modify.In fact, given
that "Invariant Sections" are required to be off-topic, anyhalf-decent
editor would remove them immediately!--Of course, if the Invariant Sections
were copies of Microsoft's libelous andmisleading anti-Linux TCO "study", I
suspect there would be less support for them.Given that they are moderately
good and vaguely on-topic essays, which we wouldlove to include *if* they
were under free licenses, people seem to want to rescue them.Gervase
Markham made an amusing statement in another context which actually is
verytrue -- and seems to often be the situation where some people want to
abandonfreeness:"We're happy to say that Debian doesn't tend to ship
software that sucks - but you want the freedom to do so, and let others do
so. And I understand that. :-)"--Apologies for the brain-dead mailer.
Won't happen again, I hope.