Re: Amendment: GFDL is compatible with DFSG
On Tue, Jan 24, 2006 at 12:17:24PM +0100, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
> > Well, if you ask the people that use this man-page they will tell.
>
> Uh. You'll have to make a choice here: either the text is the entirety
> of _all_ manpages (in which case you can split off the invariant
> sections and the FDL text to different manpages, but you have to
> consider all of them together in order to decide what the overall
> subject matter is), or the text is one manpage specifically (in which
> case you cannot split off the invariant sections and the FDL text to
> different manpages, but you can consider each of them individually in
> order to decide what the overall subject matter is).
I agree, that was confusing.
We were talking for a document with short technical contents and long
secondary sections. So I imagined a manual distributed in the form of
man-pages where the only technical contents is the description of only
one single command. Acording to the users the overall subject of that
manual will be the description of the command, not the topic of the
secondary sections. Most of the users will not read the secondary
sections at all.
If we talk about a manual describing describe more than one command,
then it is easy to make the technical contents more than 50%.
> > > Note that you even have the freedom to take a license text and modify
> > > it, including any preamble such a license text might have.
> >
> > Not exactly. The BSD-alike licenses allow you do this but other
> > licenses state that "everyone is permitted to copy and distribute
> > verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not
> > allowed."
>
> You're referring to the GPL, right?
No. That was only a remark that not all licenses allow modifications
in their text.
> No. I meant there that I agree that the actual, practical results of a
> license restriction are more important than whether or not they happen
> to be okay according to some DFSG-guideline; but I do still think that
> DFSG3 requires arbitrary modifications.
I don't understand what you mean. GPL does not allow arbitrary
modifications.
> > It does not make the useful types of modification impossible. I
> > already demonstrated why we don't have to put all invariant sections
> > and the full text of GFDL in every single GFDL-covered man-page.
>
> You failed to do so in a logically and legally sound way.
Look at the following two messages from the thread "The invariant
sections are not forbidden by DFSG" in debian-vote:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2006/01/msg00262.html
http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2006/01/msg00267.html
> I was specifically talking about selling printed copies.
OK.
> Oh well. I guess it's clear you won't agree with me, and I'm fed up with
> the same rehash of this very same discussion that's been done for years
> now. It isn't getting us anywhere.
I find our discussion very interesting and usefull. I agreed with
some of your arguments and it seams to me that you agreed with some of
my arguments. Moreover, I think I can create something like a FAQ
about GFDL. Without your help and the help of other opponents I won't
be able to do this. Definitely, our discussion isn't getting us
nowhere and I must thank you.
Anton Zinoviev
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