Re: DFSG and fonts [was: Bug#91856: Hello]
Joseph Carter <knghtbrd@debian.org>:
> > > > What are they? They need serious bugs filed against them.
> > >
> > > e.g. doc-rfc ?
> >
> > The GNU General Public Licence itself may not be modified. I hope this
> > doesn't mean ...
>
> Copyright licenses as legal documents may not be modified except by the
> holder of the Copyright under law. As such, NO license is itself able to
> meet the terms of the DFSG and must be excepted.
You have misunderstood me, I think, and your reasoning is incorrect.
Obviously you can't just redistribute someone else's program with a
modified licence, but you might want to distribute your own program
with a modified version of the GPL. But the first paragraph of the GPL
forbids that; you would have to write your own licence from scratch.
Most licences do not have a notice saying whether the licence itself
may be modified and redistributed, but most licences are short enough
that probably nobody cares. The GPL, on the other hand, is a
significant work in its own right (nearly 3000 words), and it does
have its own copyright notice, in the first paragraph. The GPL is not
itself licensed under a free software licence.
Edmund
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