"Georg C. F. Greve" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > 1) The GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) is a free documentation > license; recommended for use in Debian without invariant > sections. > > 2a) Documents without invariant sections go into main.
This seems fairly reasonable -- though I think there are other portions folks have problems with (cover texts, for example). > 2b) Documents with invariant sections are to be reviewed by the > Debian Documentation Project whether the invariant section makes > the document technically unmaintainable. Technical maintainability is important for deciding whether we can put something in non-free (i.e., not part of Debian, but we distribute it nonetheless). But going in main (or contrib) depends on passing the DFSG (as interpreted by debian-legal & ftp masters). (Contrib is for things that depend on non-free packages, but are themselves DFSG free.) > [An example for non-maintainable technical parts would be if the > documentation of a web browser has the description of the key > bindings in an invariant section.] My understanding is that this isn't possible with the GFDL, as invariant sections must not pertain to the subject matter of the document as a whole. In fact, how does that relate to providing a defense against moral rights of authors, since the license doesn't permit certain kinds of invariant texts? > If the invariant sections still allow maintaining the document > technically, it can go into main. This doesn't seem very likely. > That said, I think I've done what I could to explain the situation to > the best of my knowledge and provide a viable solution. So I would > like to put this to rest for now and suggest to maybe reexamine the > situation in half a year, or so. I'm glad you've taken the time to do so; thank you. I think we've been hesitating to do anything about this because moving FSF licensed documents into non-free is a rather big statement, and not one we're eager to make. -- Jeremy Hankins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> PGP fingerprint: 748F 4D16 538E 75D6 8333 9E10 D212 B5ED 37D0 0A03
