Re: Anton's amendment
On Thu, 2 Feb 2006 16:40:28 +0000, Stephen Gran <sgran@debian.org> said:
> This one time, at band camp, Steve Langasek said:
>> On Wed, Feb 01, 2006 at 07:29:51PM +0000, Stephen Gran wrote:
>>
>> > It does prohibit code reuse, which I think is one of the things
>> > under discussion here. Code under this license can't be mixed
>> > with code under the GPL, as I'm sure you're aware. Similarly one
>> > could say the GFDL does not prohibit modification of the program,
>> > merely of *part of the manual*.
>>
>> The DFSG does not say that permission to modify can be limited to
>> programs. The Social Contract has been amended to say that all
>> works we distribute in Debian need to be held to the same standard.
>> By what standard should it be ok to distribute manuals that we
>> can't modify to taste?
> We already agree to distribute text we can't modify - that is, the
> licenses and attributions and the advertising clauses and so forth.
Err. We distribute some works, with licenses attached to them
that allow us certain rights on the work in question. We are not
legally allowed to modify the license, so it is a good thing it is
not part of the Work. Advertising clauses are not about the work
itself -- they are about ancillary activities, so are a different
issue.
> Additionally, we allow pieces of *code* we can't modify to taste -
> the GPL clause that says 'you must display the license when run
> interactively'.
You have a point about attributions and copyright notices --
but for the most part these are source issues (apart from not
deleting interactive copyright notices). So no, I do not think that
any of these give invariant sections a free pass.
> We also explicitly say in the DFSG that we hold these restrictions
> to still be free, since we explicitly name the GPL and the 4 clause
> BSD as examples of free licenses. Being unable to excise or modify
> a piece of secondary literature is onerous and inconvenient, but I
> am not sure it is sufficiently different to things we already accept
> to make it non DFSG free.
You are also free to explicitly state that the GFDL
restrictions are also to be considered free. Hence, the 3:1
requirement, to allow that statement to be inserted into the DFSG.
manoj
--
Always look over your shoulder because everyone is watching and
plotting against you.
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
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