On Thu, Apr 21, 2005 at 11:52:17PM -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > --- Glenn Maynard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > The GPL is about making sure everyone that receives the work receives > > permission to do things to it (modify, distribute, and so on), and > > making sure that everyone gets source (so they have the ability to > > do so, as well). > > > > Invariant sections are irrelevant to this. > > That's because free _software_ (in the 'literally computer programs' > sense) has not been used for dissemination of political and > philosophical ideas such as those introduced in GFDL invariant > sections.
To expand: invariant sections are irrelevant to preventing "misappropriation into proprietary software", and there are less onerous ways to prevent "twisting to misrepresent its original intent"--just require that a work not be represented as the original is sufficient for the latter, which is explicitly allowed by DFSG#4. > > > > Free Software is "what's in it for the public", and it is > > > > specifically > > > > not "what's in it for the copyright holder"--that's what > > proprietary > > > > software is about. > > > > > > Not always. Often the copyright holder's concerns factor into > > choice of > > > license. If the copyright holder did not give a damn about his/her > > > concerns, wouldn't he/she always just use the BSD license w/o > > > advertisement and w/o non-endorsement clauses or public domain? > > > > This doesn't contradict what I said, though. Certainly, copyright > > holders have freedom to determine how they release their work, if > > at all, but that's orthogonal to Free Software. > > Not always orthogonal to Free Software. Sometimes a copyright holder's > desire to push the software in certain directions via license choice > (copyleft to prevent hoarding, for instance) is very much in sync with > concerns of the movement collectively. But admittedly, this is a pretty > trivial issue. Sure, authors have a lot of influence on the terms, since Free Software is flexible enough to give a lot of choices; this means that authors are able to choose a license based on "what's in it for them". But that's not "what Free Software is about" (except as far as "the copyright holder" is a member of "the public", of course). In fact, if you're contributing to a GPL-licensed project, as the author of those changes, you have very few options in your licensing: you can either use the GPL, or refrain from releasing the changes at all. > The right is not really being abolished. Invariant sections are a small > percentage of the work. You can still change the rest of the work, or > editorialize on the invariant portions. I don't agree with the extreme > connotation of abolish in this context. But admittedly, this too is > relatively minor. Freedom isn't determined by percentages; a Free work is completely Free. This perspective is based on the knowledge that freedom goes away in little pieces, not big ones; the only way to prevent erosion of freedoms is by extrapolating any sacrifice to the whole work. > I know that perhaps it does not sound this way from the tone of my > writing (I have a way of getting frustrated more easily than I should), > but I am trying my best to keep a cool head and provide some decent > backing for the proposal. Me too. Patience is eroded, too, over the course of a long thread, and can take active maintenance. :) (And I've participated in more of these threads than I can recall ...) -- Glenn Maynard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
