Re: Amendment: GFDL is compatible with DFSG
On Mon, Jan 23, 2006 at 07:59:44PM -0600, Peter Samuelson wrote:
>
> That does not follow at all. If the GNOME Foundation chooses to
> license documents as GFDL, it does not mean they believe it is a free
> software license. It can just as easily signify that they do not
> believe documentation should be free software.
They certainly believe the documentation should be free.
> As for "violating its Social Contract", that's just rhetoric. The
> Contract assumes that our users are entitled to free software; if
> certain users who write documentation for other projects decide that
> they don't care about free software, that's beside the point.
Maybe they just don't care about your personal opinion what "free
software" means. ;-)
> > You must either include a machine-readable Transparent copy ALONG
> > WITH each Opaque copy
>
> Yeah, "along with" means "with".
In my dictionary "along" is explained as "in company, in addition"
(the other meanings of "along" are not applicable). So the license
says "include a machine-readable Transparent copy in addition with
each Opaque copy". If you include the transparent copy in the
web-server in addition to the opaque copy, then you are in comply with
the requirements of GFDL.
> > or state IN OR WITH each Opaque copy a computer-network location
> > from which the general network-using public has access to download
> > using public-standard network protocols a complete Transparent
> > copy of the Document, free of added material.
>
> So "free of added material" means that if you want to offer CD images
> for download, you can't just offer source CD images, or even Debian
> source packages - you have to offer individual documents in source
> form.
"A complete Transparent copy of the Document, free of added material"
clearly means that the transparent copy has to be free of added
material, not the CD image.
> For at least a year after you take down the binary CD images from
> your site.
Only if the the transparent copy is not along with the opaque copy.
On Debian servers the transparent copy is always along with the opaque
copy so there is no need to keep any images for a year.
> People should think long and hard about this requirement, independent
> of whether it is DFSG-compliant. Think about the implications for the
> ftp.debian.org mirror network, and for CD and DVD vendors. It's a
> pretty significant added burden for everybody - is it worth it? This
> is about more than DFSG compliance. A lot of things can be
> DFSG-compliant yet could still cause serious practical problems if
> Debian were to ship them.
I would agree with you but the license doesn't require this burden.
> > It is a fact confirmed by Richard Stallman, author of GFDL, and
> > testified by the common practice, that as long as you make the source
> > and binaries available so that the users can see what's available and
> > take what they want, you have done what is required of you. It is up
> > to the user whether to download the transparent form.
>
> I thought that was what RMS said about the *GPL*. Did he also say that
> about the GFDL? When and where?
He said this when I asked him to comment the draft of my proposal. It
is easy to ask him to confirm that publicly but I don't think this is
necessary because this follows from the most natural interpretation of
the preposition "along with".
> Also, what RMS says about the GFDL matters very little when
> distributing material not copyrighted by him or the FSF. What
> matters then is the interpretation by the author of the material.
> This is why it's important to read what a license says, not just
> what someone says a license is supposed to mean.
Do you believe that someone not connected with Debian interprets the
lincense in this peculiar way? The obvious interpretaion allows us to
place the transparent copy along with the opaque copy on a web server
and to distribute them separately without the one-year requirement.
Anton Zinoviev
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