Re: The invariant sections are not forbidden by DFSG
Anton Zinoviev <anton@lml.bas.bg> wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 24, 2006 at 07:28:18AM -0500, Nathanael Nerode wrote:
>> Anton Zinoviev wrote:
>> > Derived Works
>> >
>> > 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.
>> >
>> > Notice that DFSG do not say "arbitrary modifications".
>>
>> The general interpretation we've taken of this is "must allow
>> modifications in general, with restrictions allowable if they do not
>> prevent reasonable use cases".
>
> What is the meaning of "modifications in general"? I am just asking.
>
>> "Invariant sections" prevent several reasonable use cases, which is why
>> they're generally considered non-free.
>
> The only example in this and the previous thread about such case is
> the requirement to include the invariant sections and the text of GFDL
> in man-pages generated from info-manuals. I explained why this is not
> necessary.
An other example is a reference sheet to be printed on the front- and
backside of a sheet of paper (autogenerated to always match the current
version) that contains the most important commands, functions or
whatever of the software that the manual documents. For example a cheat
sheet for GNU Emacs.
And I must say that I didn't get your reasoning why it wouldn't be
necessary to include the invariant sections. You talked about whether a
book with 90% non-technical invariant stuff is still technical, but I
missed how you want to explain that I may remove the invariant
sections.
Regards, Frank
--
Frank Küster
Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer (teTeX)
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