On Fri, Feb 03, 2006 at 11:38:21AM +0200, Anton Zinoviev wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 03, 2006 at 04:31:18AM +0000, MJ Ray wrote:
> > The current opinion of FSF, at least.
> I know the policies of FSF well enough to be confident that this is
> not just "current opinion". This has always been the opinion of FSF.
> > In the past, RMS has worked against advertising clauses far less
> > obnoxious than the FDL ones. You could summarise what's happening
> > today with http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html and doing
> > s/BSD/FDL/g; s/sentence/chapter/g; s/system/manual/g; s/University
> > of California/GNU Manifesto/g and similar
> In 2003 Stallman tried to explain in debian-legal the difference
> between invariant sections and the advertising clause.
> If you use a software with advertising clause then you are obliged to
> say some fixed sentence whenever you are mentioning some features of
> that software. If you write completely independant program and it
> mentions these "features" your program has to display this fixed
> sentence. If you are writing some documentation that mentions these
> "features" you also have to add the fixed sentence.
False. The advertising clause is:
3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
must display the following acknowledgement:
This product includes software developed by the University of
California, Berkeley and its contributors.
Documentation is not "advertising materials".
> Think now what would happen if you use quiet a large number of programs
> that are licensed in this way.
I think I do use quite a large number of programs that are (or were)
licensed in this way, but I'm not in the habit of advertising products using
them in such a way that I have to sprinkle such acknowledgements around.
Obnoxious though it is, the BSD advertising clause is much more like
trademarks in its effect than it is like the GFDL's invariant sections. You
don't need to advertise *anything* in order to use, modify, or copy
software; the advertising clause only comes into effect when you choose to
advertise, in a particular way.
--
Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world.
vorlon@debian.org http://www.debian.org/
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