Re: GR Proposal: GFDL statement
I suggest a few wording changes and additions to avoid some arguments
against the statement and to make it a little clearer.
I agree with earlier comments about adding the version number.
Anthony Towns <aj@azure.humbug.org.au>
> Within the Debian community there has been a significant amount of concern
> about the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL), and whether it is, in
> fact, a "free" license. This document attempts to explain why Debian's
> answer is "no".
s/"free" license/"free software" license acceptable for Debian's main
archive section/
> It should be noted that this does not imply any hostility towards the
> Free Software Foundation, and does not mean that GFDL documentation
> should not be considered "free enough" by others, and Debian itself will
> continue distributing GFDL documentation in its "non-free" section.
>
> (1) What is the GFDL?
>
> The GFDL is a license written by the Free Software Foundation, who use
> it as a license for their own documentation, and promote it to others. It
> is also used as Wikipedia's license. To quote the GFDL's Preamble:
I would be happier not to quote so much of the Preamble.
Why promote the FSF view of "effective freedom" if we disagree?
> (2) How does it fail to meet Debian's standards for Free Software?
>
> The GFDL conflicts with traditional requirements for free software in
> a variety of ways, some of which are expanded upon below. As a copyleft
> license, one of the consequences of this is that it is not possible to
> include content from a documention directly into free software under
> the GFDL.
s/traditional requirements for/the traditional definition of/
s/from a documentation/from documentation/ OR
s/from a documentation/from GFDL-licensed documentation/
s/GFDL/GPL/ ?
> The major conflicts are:
>
> (2.1) Invariant Sections
>
> The most troublesome conflict concerns the class of invariant sections
> that, once included, may not be modified or removed from the documentation
> in future. Modifiability is, however, a fundamental requirement of the
> DFSG, which states:
>
> 3. Derived Works
> =20
> The license must allow modifications and derived works, and
> must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the
> license of the original software.
>
> Invariant sections create particular problems in reusing small portions
> of the work (since any invariant sections must be included also,
> however large), and in making sure the documentation remains accurate
> and relevant.
This doesn't cover the Encyclopedia Problem. I suggest adding:
Also, Invariant sections must be Secondary sections and contain
"nothing that could fall directly within that overall subject"
(FDL section 1). So, it is possible to prevent reuse of some
documentation in other documentation by including an Invariant
section which covers part of its topic, and the blocking
Invariant section cannot be removed.
[...]
> Unfortunately this alone is not enough, as other clauses of the GFDL
> render all GFDL documentation non-free. As a consequence, other licenses
> should be investigated; generally it is probably simplest to choose
> either the GNU General Public License (for a copyleft license) or the
> BSD or MIT licenses (for a non-copyleft license).
I suggest a small rewording to avoid a "GFDL non-free" argument
and to suggest manuals are put under the program's own licence:
Unfortunately this alone is not enough, as other clauses of the GFDL
mean that no GFDL'd documentation is free software. So, other licences
should be considered: generally it is probably simplest to choose
the same licence as the program being documented, the GNU
General Public License (for a copyleft license) or a BSD- or
MIT/X11-style license (for a non-copyleft license).
> [...] I've put the above draft on the wiki
> [3] so people can tweak it.
> [3] http://wiki.debian.org/GFDLPositionStatement
That page says it is immutable.
Thanks,
--
MJ Ray - personal email, see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html
Work: http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ irc.oftc.net/slef Jabber/SIP ask
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