[Preston] GFDL not free?

[David Farrell]

FREEDOM IS THE FREEDOM TO SAY TWO PLUS TWO EQUALS FOUR

>From www.gnu.org 

http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/copyleft.html

...

The GNU Free Documentation License (FDL) (available in HTML, text and
Texinfo) is a form of copyleft intended for use on a manual, textbook or
other document to assure everyone the effective freedom to copy and
redistribute it, with or without modifications, either commercially or
noncommercially. 

...

Copylefted instructions? So obviously this is making the software free
and making the instructions free. The support will still cost $$$ but
until we overthrow the capitalists what you expects?

But seriously. Stallman is insane - he started coding GNU from His mind
and then when His wrists seized he dictated code to students. That Man
IS free software - no way can He go wrong. And He has by far the biggest
beard I have ever seen. And if you don't like the license, write your
own!!! Is fsf/gnu the controllers of all human freedom (I personally
think most humans might be too stupid to be trusted with their own
freedom - therefore government. Unfortunately most governments fall in
to the earlier group of most humans). Lets start the looseware
foundation. Software can be free, commercial, public domain, private,
but ultimately someone will crack it and we'll all use it anyway?

Debian is not the be all and end all of free software? Give the source
away. If you code it, they will compile it (if it has a use) (any one
want my source for hello.f?)

Anyroad, docs suck. Work out why it don't work on your own. :)

Acceptance by one's peers is not a necessary focus for ones life.

-----Original Message-----
From: preston-bounces at mailman.lug.org.uk
[mailto:preston-bounces at mailman.lug.org.uk] On Behalf Of Matthew T.
Atkinson
Sent: 20 November 2003 21:22
To: PLUG
Subject: [Preston] GFDL not free?

'ellow,

I was hoping to make it to the last meeting but was unable to at the
last minute.  I will try and get to the next one.  Seeing as it was
about shell scripting, I thought I'd mention that I have made a few
scripts over the past few months that may be of use to people on the
list.  I am improving and testing them atm but when they're done I'll
post about it.  One of them is for cleaning out your home directory,
another for changing permissions on large trees of files/dirs.  Anyway,
my post was actually about this...

I have just read a posting by Thomas Bushnell (of HURD fame).  He spoke
out against the GFDL because he believes the licence is essentially not
free (in the GNU sense).  Then RMS ``dismissed'' him as HURD maintainer.

Its not this disagreement per se that made me e-mail about this - it is
that I am now concerned about using the GFDL as a licence for the
documentation I am (and will be) producing to go along with GPL'd
software.

I am concerned because I want my software to go into Debian eventually
but it says in that mail that Debian won't distribute GFDL'd manuals.  I
am not using any ``Invariant Sections'' in my manual so I think it might
not be all that bad, but I don't like the idea that you can't copy code
from a GFDL'd manual into GPL'd software.  The post also mentions
restrictions on the formats you have to produce your manual in, but I
never picked up on that when reading the GFDL.

Here is the posting I read:
http://lists.softwarelibero.it/pipermail/discussioni/2003-November/00846
5.html

I'm just wondering what your thoughts on this are, really.  If any of
you have had much experience (good or bad) with the GFDL I'd like to
know about it.  I have already released some stuff under the GFDL but as
I am the author/copyright holder I don't suppose it would be a problem
for me to re-release under the GPL or some other licence instead.

Sorry to post about what is essentially a news-type story.  I just
thought that a Linux user list would be a good place to get advice on
free licences :-).  Thanks in advance for your views,

bye just now,


-- 
Matthew T. Atkinson <matthew at agrip.org.uk>


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