[Sussex] GFDL

[Geoffrey J Teale]

Simon Huggins <huggie at earth.li> writes:

> Hiya,
>
> Woo, I actually agree with most of what you've written here even if I'm
> not entirely sure we're talking about the same thing.  So I'll apologise
> for the spin doctor remark as that's clearly not where you were going.

That's quite alright, appology accepted.  As I hope I said early on in
this thread, the important thing is that people debate and understand
the freedom.  Part of that is understanding that freedom isn't a
clear cut thing in the world we live in today.

The real value of a wholly free distro (either the FSF definition or
the Debian one) is that it makes people aware that such a thing is
a different entity that just any old Linux distro.  That's also why
RMS pushes so hard for that "GNU" that debian is gracious enough to
insert infront of the "Linux".  It's not just RMS looking for credit,
it's promoting the principle and reminding people that freedom isn't
about price alone (or at all) but about rights.

I'm always happy to debate an issue like the GFDL, and it's likely
that I will take the FSF's side for obvious reasons, but I'm not so
blind as to think that it's a perfect license.

> Right but what I'm trying to say is that the FSF is pushing it for
> things like the Emacs and autotools documentation for users.  Which will
> only really ever be useful online and will be freely published in
> various ways online and doesn't need to be restricted for print
> publication.

Yes.  I see why that's a problem.  The GNU Emacs manual problem you
quoted David Kastrup on earlier is an example where it's difficult to
justify it.  The reality of this situation is, as you suggest, that
there is a two fold driver:

0. The emergence of DRM systems (the GFDL protects content from DRM).
1. The feeling that message is being lost in the utility (that is that
many distributors of GNU Emacs don't drive home the philsophy under
which it is licensed and distributed).  

> Right but manpages/info documents etc don't need to be printed nor are
> they standards.

See above.  RMS is got burned once before with emacs, the GPL was the
result of that.  The GFDL is perhaps a little OTT for these uses but I
doubt the consensus required to change it can be achieved.

> Only if you redistribute the book ;)

Which is what I meant by passing it on.  It's a silly point, but a
real one.

> But yeah that's a legal edge case that noone can really take seriously.

:-)


> Sure, but I worry about the acceptance of most upstream authors that
> using an FSF license is fine and good and right and proper for
> documentation - online docs like manpages, reference manuals etc - that
> should be as widely distributable and modifiable as the software itself.

Duly noted.  In practical terms I imagine the GFDL is less of a
problem than it looks, but you can equally make the case to the DFSG - touche.
 
-- 
Geoff Teale
Free Software Foundation