[Sussex] Distros

[Geoffrey J. Teale]

Steve Dobson <steve at dobson.org> writes:

> Paul
>
> At one time RMS & FSF indorsed Debian as being "free".  However, Debian
> has a "non-free" section which contain useful packages which, while can
> be used at no cost, are not free of all restrictions, like patents or
> "not for commercial use".  It was this area that RMS objected to and 
> why the FSF withdraw there endorsed, although IIRC at the time they
> still said that it was the "most free" of any Linux distro while not
> being completely free.
>
> If you install Debian with out using any packages from "non-free" you
> are garenteed a FSF "free" OS.

No, you are not.

Debians definition of free is not the same as the FSF's.  More than
one Debian package contains portions that are non free according the
FSF's definition (Mozilla is the obvious example).

>  
> No.  The GFDL requires that to take the documentation you *must* take
> all the invariant sections without change.  The GPL allows you to take
> software and remove anything from it (say software that is covered by
> a software patent), and to release the derived work where the original
> can not be legally used because of local patent laws.  

You cannot remove the license though - this is invariant even in the GPL.

> I would agree with that.  The FSF want purity of software but not of the
> documentation that does along with it.  "You can have our software and do
> anything you like with it so long as you give it back.  But you can't
> have the documentation for it unless we can ram our political views on
> you too.

Well, hmm.  Those political views are no more than a restatement of
the conditions of the use of the software if the software is GPL'd.
If it isn't GPL'd it's unlikely the documentation will be GFDL'd.  The
fact that you can't get documentation without seeing those views
expressed is not really the issue.  The issue stated several times is
that the license allows people to abuse that mechanism to some degree
and it make it difficult to maintain some parts of the document.

There are also conditions that restrict the use of DRM in the transfer
and presentation of the document.

-- 
Geoff Teale
CMed Technology            -   gteale at cmedresearch.com
Free Software Foundation   -   tealeg at member.fsf.org

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