After suggestions by Glenn Maynard, I rewrote most of the document to make it simpler and remove redundancies that were repeated over and over ;-))))
I repeat my point: repeated exposure to American legal texts is bad for non-native speakers ;-))) The first two questions were merged into a single one. The question about credits was deleted as it is probably too hard to answer in a FAQ (and it is not frequent at all, anyway). The end-result is two questions shorter than the original, and much easier to read (I hope). I'm still unhappy with the length of the second question (the question itself, not the answer). The current text: http://jacobo.tarrio.org/Documentation_licensing_FAQ Full document history is available by clicking on the "historial" tab, in case you want to compare or recover something. If you do not understand Spanish, you can use the Wikipedia page as a reference (the software I use is Wikimedia). You cannot edit any pages; direct your comments here. Q: Why does Debian apply the DFSG to documents? A: Debian applies the same standards of freedom to all works it distributes; some of these standards are written down in the DFSG. No good reasons have been provided to use a different standard with documents than with programs. Even if we were to treat software and documentation differently, first we would need to have a clear way to tell documentation apart from software. Many works, like source code annotated with Javadoc comments or Postscript files, are software and documentation at the same time, so it is easy to see that there is no such clear division. Q: Some documents need to have some parts which must not be modified. For example, RFC or other standards documents should not be modifiable at all. Or a piece may contain the author's opinion on something, and nobody should be allowed to misrepresent the author's position by modifying that piece. Isn't this a restriction that should be allowed in documents and not in programs? A: Mainly, for three reasons: such a restriction is unnecessary, it is useless and it is not true that it would be less appropriate for software than for documentation. First, misrepresentation can be prevented without forbidding anyone to modify the work, by requiring all modified works to not claim that they are the original work or that they were written by the original work. Furthermore, a clause in a copyright license would not stop anyone from misrepresenting the work or its authors. For example, I might create a new, original document titled "RFC 2821, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol" with a distorted description of SMTP, and with this action I would not be contravening the license of the IETF's RFC 2821. The proper defense against this are the various laws dealing with libel, fraud and impersonation. Finally, if there were any reasons to allow such a restriction in documents, these reasons would allow it in programs too. For example, qmail's license forbids distributing modified versions of it, since its author believes that his reputation might suffer if someone distributed a version of qmail with bugs not introduced by him. If restrictions on modification of documents were allowed to save an author's reputation, they would be allowed on programs; this would make qmail free, but due to the DFSG it isn't, so these restrictions cannot be allowed. Q: I think that some "Debian Free Documentation Guidelines" should be created as an alternative to the DFSG for documentation. What should I do to have them adopted? A: First, you must write them; most people never manage this part. Next, for every license restriction permitted by your new guidelines that isn't allowed by the DFSG, you must give satisfactory answers to these three questions: 1. How do we distinguish between packages where this restriction should and should not be allowed? 2. Why should the restriction be allowed in for these packages? 3. Why shouldn't the restriction be allowed in for every other package? Note that the answers to (2) and (3) should not involve special pleading or otherwise be contradictory. "Because it's documentation" is not a valid answer, and the answer to (3) should not apply to the packages in question. You'll need to discuss your proposal on debian-legal and debian-project to work out any problems with your proposal and to gather support for it. Finally, you'll have to propose a General Resolution to amend the Social Contract, and convince a 3:1 supermajority of your fellow Debian developers to vote for it. Q: If the DFSG are to be applied to documents as well as to programs, why is the text of the GPL included in Debian, if it says that it cannot be modified at all? A: Because the verbatim text of the license must be distributed with any work licensed under its terms. This is not specific to the GPL; almost all free licenses require that their text be included verbatim with the work. As a compromise, Debian distributes copies of the GPL and other licenses under which the components of Debian are covered. This compromise will not be extended to other types of works. (Note that according to the FSF, which is the author of the GPL, you're actually allowed to modify the text of the GPL and create a derived license if you remove the preamble and you do not call the results "General Public License". See the GNU GPL FAQ (http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#ModifyGPL) for more information.) Contributors to this FAQ Jacobo Tarrío, Andrew Suffield, Doug Jensen, Francesco Poli, Anthony DeRobertis, Raul Miller, Evan Prodromou, Ben Finney and Glenn Maynard. -- Jacobo Tarrío | http://jacobo.tarrio.org/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]