Re: I am ANGRY with Debian.

[Marty <martyb@ix.netcom.com>]

Michael Marsh wrote:
> On 5/30/07, Max Hyre <max@hyre.net> wrote:
> >    _But_, please put anger aside a moment and examine the GFDL with
> > unbiased eyes.  If a document has an invariant section, then you have a
> > file
> >         a) with a lump of lead inside that has to be dragged around
> >            with the document, forever, and
> >         b) whose guts cannot be cut and pasted into other documents
> >            without replicating that lump of lead, no matter how close or
> >            distant the relation between the two documents.
> >
> > You're not allowed to change or discard that lump.  Isn't it at least
> > *understandable* that many believe this document is unfree?
>
> Given one particular invariant section that always appears in FSF/GNU
> GFDL'ed documentation, my preferred analogy is, "You can't skip the
> commercials."

Except that in this case, the "commercial" is from the document's author.  A 
slightly better analogy is the advertising clause of BSD license, which *is* 
considered a free license.  In my opinion, all the analogies fall short because 
documentation is not software, regardless of Debian's dogmatic claims to the 
contrary.