On Wed, 12 Jun 2002, Branden Robinson wrote: > I sympathize with your concerns but I've having difficulty reconciling > '"Also, you can print this out and distribute it" would seem to weaken > the copyleft' with "Hi, your current license means I can't print out the > documentation and give people copies easily, consider this one".
True. It's also an objection I didn't list in my 3. The GPL makes it hard to legally do ad-hoc distribution in non-source form. Making exceptions here doesn't bother me a lot, as printed text is easier to reverse-engineer than an application. It does bring to my mind an issue WRT the virality (aka "copyleftedness", aka protection from non-free forks). Is there a way to keep this feature and not prohibit things like distributing a printed copy that uses a non-free font? > I think we want a license that permits educators to photcopy a > DFCL-licensed document at will and distribute it to their classes, no > matter how large they are (many undergraduate courses in U.S. schools > have hundreds of subscribers, which leaves the GFDL's 100-copy limit in > the dust). I'm with Branden here. If it's distributed to that many folks, it should be made electronically available. I hope that photocopies are used mostly because the original isn't available electronically, which won't be a problem for things under this license. I don't much like the 100-copy exemption, anyway. Free documents should stay free, and that pretty much means electronic. On the edge of the definition, though, a photocopy can become the preferred editing format. If I use liquid paper and ink to change a document, then photocopy it, aren't the images of the pages rather than the text the form I preferred to edit? > Actually, as long as the license is DFSG-free for all licensees, we > *can* do some discrimation. We could, for instance, waive or loosen > the distribution-in-preferred-form-for-changes requirement if the work > is being distributed at no charge. Kind of. We could dual-license things to have one license for some and another for everyone else that have different terms. As long as both are free, we're technically ok. But it's ugly, will cause confusion, and will probably not be used by many (I know I'd recommend people just use one of the licenses). Worse, it violates the spirit of the DSFG. "No discrimination against fields of endeavor" means something. And it's a wierd distinction. You need to specify why you want educators to be able to make 1000 photocopies and NOT allow amazon.com to do so. Why should students not have the ability to modify and distribute the document? -- Mark Rafn [EMAIL PROTECTED] <http://www.dagon.net/> -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
