Re: Anton's amendment

[Craig Sanders <cas@taz.net.au>]

On Sun, Feb 05, 2006 at 08:47:54AM -0500, Zephaniah E. Hull wrote:
> I am unconvinced that the DFSG means 'all modifications', I think that
> it really does mean all reasonable modifications.
> 
> But the GFDL fails this, _entirely_.
> 
> Even by the bounds of 'reasonable modifications' the GFDL with _any_
> invariant sections is completely non-free, and how should be fairly
> obvious, but I'll give an extreme example:
> 
> I'll take a large GNU manual, for reasons that could be anything from
> because I'm feeling strange today to because I'm fond of the build
> system they use for producing other formats of the document, I want to
> cut it down.
> 
> So I chop it down until there is nothing _except_ the copyright
> statement and the invariant sections.
> 
> I can no longer make any modifications, I can't change the copyright
> statement because, well, the law where I live forbids me from doing
> that.
>
> And I can't change _anything_ in the document itself, I can add to it,
> but I can't change it.

so, your complaint is that if you delete the contents of the document,
then you can no longer change it?

are you for real? do you seriously take this as credible proof that GFDL
is non-free?

i see it as proof that it IS free - otherwise you wouldn't have to grasp
at straws to find such absurd "proofs".


did you notice that the reason you can only add to the document but
can't change it is because you deleted the contents? that there's
NOTHING there to change? how can you change something that doesn't exist
any more?  you can't, regardless of license.


to reuse your line of argument with a different license: if i delete all
the lines of source code in a GPL program (leaving only the license and
copyright notice) then i can no longer change it. i can add to it, but i
can't change it. therefore the GPL is non-free.

and the same for EVERY other software license, too.

craig

-- 
craig sanders <cas@taz.net.au>           (part time cyborg)