Re: Summary : ocaml, QPL and the DFSG.
On Wed, 2004-07-21 at 13:53, Matthew Garrett wrote: Brian Thomas Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Because privacy is an inherent right of Debian's users. Further, communication with others, and sharing useful information and tools with them, should not have any impact on my privacy from you. Why is privacy an inherent right? Why does personal privacy outweigh the importance of modifications to free software being available to all? Because you'd really think it sucks if we were to post video of you taking a shit on the main Debian web site, and because we haven't seen you volunteering your login information, SSN, bank account #s, etc. to everyone else, either. And even if you are some kind of pervert who likes that kind of publicity, you're outnumbered by about 6 billion to one. I have yet to see anyone arguing against privacy but then agreeing to furnish their banking details to the world. Some form of privacy is therefore desirable, and I fail to see how it is desirable that it NOT be the default. -- Stephen Ryan Digital Rights Management is bad for all of us: http://www.bricklin.com/robfuture.htm
Re: DRAFT: debian-legal summary of the QPL
On Tue, 2004-07-20 at 18:59, Matthew Palmer wrote: One thing that still bothers me about this, and I haven't seen a good rebuttal of it yet, is why we're so keen to use the law to void out a clause in the licence because it's unenforcable. I've mentioned it before and had it danced around, but I still don't see why we shouldn't be honouring the author's wishes as expressed in his chosen licence. Neither do I. Relying on the unenforcability of a license or a clause in a license is foolishness in the extreme; all it takes is a little lobbying from Hollywood for some seemingly unrelated thing, and presto-chango, it's suddenly retroactively an enforcable clause under the new and improved Super-DMCA, and because somebody had this discussion and therefore noticed the clause, that makes it wilful infringement. Now, it may be that the author's wishes may or may not be practical, but nobody is actually required to carry any particular author's works. For myself, I consider forced-distribution clauses of any sort to be of such a nature that I am unwilling to submit myself to them. I can give my friend a CD or DVD full of binaries and corresponding source and discharge my obligations entirely under the GPL and anything else I consider to be Free. YMMV. That CD can even be customized for them, and I've still discharged my obligations. Under the QPL (or GPL 3(b), which I think is equally impractical for such small scale distribution), I've just incurred an obligation for some indeterminate time in the future, when I may or may not be able to discharge that obligation without significant cost. That risk is too great for me to consider participating, and hence, I personally will not touch anything licensed under the QPL. What is acceptable for Debian to distribute is another matter entirely, but I do think that the pass a CD along to a friend model ought to be considered as part of the discussion.
Re: DRAFT: debian-legal summary of the QPL
On Mon, 2004-07-19 at 12:00, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I wouldn't consider a license free if it said, for example, if you modify this program you must add your name to this wiki page as soon as possible. It wouldn't fail the desert island test (as soon as possible might easily mean never) but it would fail the dissident test. But the QPL also fails the dissident test, and has a much less onerous requirement than the Add your name to a wiki license. It's a much more onerous requirement: it has the same effect, that you must contact the original author, who then gets to do what he wants Hey, no, you are wrong on this. The original author has to contact you first, with the request. And i don't buy the idea of a generic call for patches, since nobody can prove that you indeed received that request (think about a TV less dissident, or a guy on a desert island :). And anyway, first upstream need to learn of the patch, which he wouldn't do if the dissident didn't broadly distribute its changes. He doesn't need to learn of the patch first in the case of the generic call. Additionally, the idea is not to help users get away with as much as possible. It is desirable that users be able to do the right thing, abide by the wishes of authors completely, and still have freedom with respect to the software. So we can't just suggest that users pretend they never heard the generic call for patches, or the invocation of a termination clause. Hear, hear! I've heard this crap about it being okay to violate the written terms of the license because of some exceptional circumstance here or there or because a lawsuit against the violation would fail on a legal technicality or nobody will ever find out. I don't care if you think they're little white lies or nobody will ever find out -- descending to that type of argument surrenders the moral high ground in a spectacular fashion, and provides a mile-wide painted target for the opponents of Freedom. DON'T GO THERE! -- Stephen Ryan Digital Rights Management is bad for all of us: http://www.bricklin.com/robfuture.htm
Re: DRAFT: debian-legal summary of the QPL
On Thu, 2004-07-15 at 15:23, Matthew Garrett wrote: Nathanael Nerode [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Matthew Garrett wrote: You could look at it that way. On the other hand, if I release my GPLed code under 3(b) then anyone who receives it can pass on the offer I gave them (under 3(c)). I am then obliged to pass on my modifications directly to people who I never provided binaries to. Is distribution under 3(b) and 3(c) non-free? If those were the only options, it was the loose consensus that that would not be free. Really? Wow. That's insane. Whoa! Just exactly how is that insane? Under 3(b), You promise to be a non-profit global distributor (and philanthropist archiver!) for a minimum of three years. You may only use 3(c) for small scale, unmodified distribution, as there is no offer to pass on for a modified version -- the source code must be for the version of the binary that you distribute. Under 3(b), if you ever distribute something, you must hang on to the source code for it for a minimum of three years. I understand that this isn't a problem for Debian, seeing as how there's only a stable release every 3 years anyway, but it sure is a problem for a small-scale distributor or lone programmer. Under 3(b), you promise to distribute copies of that source code at the cost of distribution for those three years -- your cost of securely storing that source code is irrelevant, and you must eat that cost. Under 3(b), you must undertake to obtain export licenses, if necessary; just because the person requesting the code obtained their binary from a third party who has the appropriate export license doesn't mean that you necessarily do, and there is nothing in the GPL exempting you from having to obtain it. This may be a hassle[0]. Under 3(b), your specific life circumstances are irrelevant; the fact that your life may have turned upside-down in the past three years (I know mine has!) has no bearing on the fact that you still have a legally-binding offer out to the entire world, valid for at least those three years. I'm probably missing a whole bunch of inconveniences incurred by distributing under 3(b), too. 3(b) is a PITA. 3(c) is only an option for noncommercial distribution, and even then, only if no changes have been made. I'm sorry, but anyone who would submit to all the inconvenience of 3(b) just for the privilege of offering a patch to the community is the one who is insane. Freedom that only the insane may take advantage of is not freedom, IMO. 3(a) is salvation, because it allows me to give the source at the same time as the binary and to have no further obligations to anyone -- and this is precisely where Free Software has thrived; if every programmer was also required to be a non-profit distributor, I don't think there would be any code to be having pointless arguments like this about. [0] Understatement of the minute, at least. -- Stephen Ryan Digital Rights Management is bad for all of us: http://www.bricklin.com/robfuture.htm
Re: If DFSG apply to non-software, is GPL*L* incompatible with DFSG?
On Sat, 2004-02-28 at 09:58, Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley wrote: Last year, when the controversy over whether the DFSG applies to documentation (in particular GNU-FDL-ed documentation), I meant to mention to someone (but promptly forgot) that the license under which the text of the FSF's licenses (GPL, LGPL, FDL) are licensed is much stricter than even the FDL so cearly violates the DFSG (if they apply to it). The GPL c are allowed to be copied only in full without any modifications. If the DFSG do apply to non-software -- has a descision been made on this? -- this would I think effectively stop Debian from distributing any GPLed work on a CD which conforms to the DFSG. Uh-huh. This too has been discussed to death, though perhaps not with an appropriate summary. Basically, the law requires that the copyright notice remain intact, and in a prescribed form. Furthermore, the law states that anyone other than the copyright holder who makes a copy of a copyrighted work (other than the poorly defined fair use rights and the backup exemption), is guilty of copyright infringement and subject to statutory damages of up to $150,000 per copy. Your only defense against this is the license granted by the copyright holder; if you alter it, it is no longer the license granted by the copyright holder, and might even be used as evidence of wilful intent to infringe (=maximum damages). Because of this, it is foolish in the extreme not to include the *exact* license text supplied by the original author with *every* copy. It is therefore clear that attempting to apply complete DFSG-freedom to a license is extreme folly; why would you ever want to open yourself up like that? It is clear to me that Debian has been proceeding with something roughly like the following: The legal documents (copyright notice, license) must be retained verbatim in order for all of us to avoid being sued into oblivion. Proper attribution (i.e., not misrepresenting anything about the original author) is the only honest thing to do. Everything else should be modifiable to suit, or else it isn't truly Free. I think it is up to those who would propose that the license texts be DFSG-free as well to provide a proposed benefit that would be worth exposing the project to $150,000 in liability per copy made of each affected package. -- Stephen Ryan [EMAIL PROTECTED] Digital Rights Management is bad for all of us: http://www.bricklin.com/robfuture.htm
Re: If DFSG apply to non-software, is GPL*L* incompatible with DFSG?
On Sat, 2004-02-28 at 16:35, Don Armstrong wrote (quoting the GPL FAQ): I think the key line is this: (You can use the legal terms to make another license but it won't be the GNU GPL.) The legal terms are not copyrightable; this is the FSF admitting that, in a very oblique way. I believe the line is that the protections of the law are too important to be owned by any one entity, and must be available to all. So, legal terms are not copyrightable, and you can use them to make another license if you like. The specific terms as applied by any given author to any given work are not subject to further modification, with substantial penalties for violation. Everything in Debian is copyrighted by someone else (i.e., not the Debian project as a whole) and distributed by Debian. The someone else (even if otherwise affiliated with Debian) is free per above to use any legal terms they like. Legally, Debian must reproduce the given legal terms verbatim; so must everyone who redistributes anything they receive from Debian. The official project stance *must* be that immutable licenses are acceptable, because *every* license in Debian is de-facto immutable. In short, licenses in Debian are already as free as they possibly can be. This should be put into a FAQ and buried for good.
Re: Starting to talk
On Fri, 2003-09-26 at 04:25, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: Stephen Ryan [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: No, you're not the only one with that impression. Personally, I'm ready to killfille [EMAIL PROTECTED] as a bunch of trolls. The only reason I haven't is that I think there are some people worth listening to who are part of gnu, but you'd never know it from listening to this bunch. Please don't. Heck, I'm still [EMAIL PROTECTED] RMS does not speak for GNU developers in general; he has conducted no poll about these issues among GNU developers and has no ability to speak for them. My apologies; I'm well aware of both your contributions and your stance on the subject -- it's just that you haven't been using that address to post to this list. I haven't actually implemented any such block, because it's easier and safer for me to just delete posts from known trolls than it would be to engage in a fingers-in-the-ears exercise for a whole domain (say, in case you did post from that address). I am *hugely* disappointed by the current state of affairs, though, because I learned to value freedom from RMS' writings, and now I find that he only cares about freedom for technical behavior, and all other aspects of the system can take care of themselves. -- Stephen RyanDebian Linux 3.0 Technology Coordinator Center for Educational Outcomes at Dartmouth College
Re: A possible GFDL compromise
On Wed, 2003-08-27 at 07:13, Fedor Zuev wrote: Removing of secondary section from manual can't be count nor as improvement, nor as adaptation of manual. It is, by definition[0], off-topic. Therefore, as any good editor[1] will tell you, it would be an improvement to remove it. [0] Read the GFDL; every Secondary Section is defined as being off-topic. [1] The human kind, who is responsible for making sure that the resulting work is coherent and complete. It is painfully obvious that the so-called Free Software community could *desperately* use the services of many competent editors of this sort. The emacs manual, in particular, is filled with off-topic material, begins with a bunch of legalese that a) belongs at the end, and b) describes in great detail how that emacs as a whole is licensed under a self-incompatible license (GPL+GFDL, since it claims right there that the documentation is part of the editor[2]), contains advertisements (for other systems, no less), and contains a couple of embarrassingly juvenile comments about some of the operating systems it runs on. All in all, an embarrassment to Free Software -- and that's all just in the first page of the index! I'm not an editor by trade, nor am I willing to work on something where I perceive the license to be the height of hypocrisy *and* the license is written in such a way as to ensure that I cannot succeed in my task. I do, however, recognize that the GFDL is a very real limitation on the improvements that can be made to this manual. [2] The electronic kind. -- Stephen RyanDebian Linux 3.0 Technology Coordinator Center for Educational Outcomes at Dartmouth College
Re: SURVEY: Is the GNU FDL a DFSG-free license?
=== CUT HERE === Part 1. DFSG-freeness of the GNU Free Documentation License 1.2 Please mark with an X the item that most closely approximates your opinion. Mark only one. [ X ] The GNU Free Documentation License, version 1.2, as published by the Free Software Foundation, is not a license compatible with the Debian Free Software Guidelines. Works under this license would require significant additional permission statements from the copyright holder(s) for a work under this license to be considered Free Software and thus eligible for inclusion in the Debian OS. [ ] The GNU Free Documentation License, version 1.2, as published by the Free Software Foundation, is a license compatible with the Debian Free Software Guidelines. In general, works under this license would require no additional permission statements from the copyright holder(s) for a work under this license to be considered Free Software and thus eligible for inclusion in the Debian OS. [ ] The GNU Free Documentation License, version 1.2, as published by the Free Software Foundation, can be a license compatible with the Debian Free Software Guidelines, but only if certain restrictions stated in the license are not exercised by the copyright holder with respect to a given work. Works under this license will have to be scrutinized on a case-by-case basis for us to determine whether the work can be be considered Free Software and thus eligible for inclusion in the Debian OS. [ ] None of the above statements approximates my opinion. Part 2. Status of Respondent Please mark with an X the following item only if it is true. [ ] I am a Debian Developer as described in the Debian Constitution as of the date on this survey. === CUT HERE ===
Re: A possible approach in solving the FDL problem
On Wed, 2003-08-13 at 15:37, Sergey V. Spiridonov wrote: Jeremy Hankins wrote: You recommend that we assign values to all the pros cons of a particular license, and call free any license in which the positives outweigh the negatives. Am I understanding you correctly? Yes, exactly. The problem with this* is that what you're really describing is the utility of the license, which is something completely different from the freedom of it. Take the simple case of a license that pays me to accept it -- it may be non-free in many ways, but a lot of people would probably think the positives (free money) outweigh the negatives (no right to modify or redistribute, for example). Unfortunately we do not live in the ideal world. Freedom has a value because it is convenient and useful to be free. Nothing else. There is no need to have a freedom which can't be used, and sometimes we can agree to give away a bit of our freedom, which we can't (or do not want) utilize in exchange for other values. A good example is GPL, which takes away the freedom to use GPL sources in closed sources. We don't want to utilize such a freedom and we exchange this freedom for helping GPL to spread. Note, there still can be special rare cases, where such a freedom is really needed. Another example can be FDL. It takes away the freedom to modify parts that deals exclusively with the relationship of the publishers or authors political statements. Usually, there is no need to modify someones political statement, and we exchange this freedom for helping FDL documentation to spread. Note, there still can be special rare cases, where such a freedom is really needed. You speak as though freedom is a commodity to be bought and sold on the futures market, and as though market share was more valuable than freedom. Freedom which you personally do not have a use for is freedom that can be traded away in exchange for market share or more software or something. You have taken the one sacred cow in the entire place here, and have suggested that it is merely a convenience, and that we should have a barbecue next Friday afternoon. Free enough -- them's fightin' words. You have also suggested that market share or wider distribution is a thing of sufficient value on its own that it is worth sacrificing some freedom to get it. That is clearly nonsense; anyone to whom market share is more valuable than freedom should be standing in Redmond, WA with a job application. I heard they're still hiring up there. Or working for RedHat. Or Sun. Or somebody else like that. What you have missed is that freedom is easily traded away, but only gotten with blood, sweat, and tears. Those who have paid for their freedom in sweat are far less likely to give it away as freely as you wish to. *I* think you have the wrong number. -- Stephen RyanDebian Linux 3.0 Technology Coordinator Center for Educational Outcomes at Dartmouth College
Re: APSL 2.0
On Thu, 2003-08-07 at 06:51, MJ Ray wrote: Adam Warner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Here's a mere consequence: If Debian is persuaded that the APSL 2.0 is DFSG-free then a subsequent revision of the GPL with the addition of a viral electronic service clause would also be DFSG-free. It is expected that GPL-3 will contain something similar to the Affero GPL requirement for remote services to offer users the code. Do you object to that? If so, why? If you are offering interaction with the code via some sort of remote procedure call, you are not using it privately for your own ends and some of the users may want to adapt the software, which is a freedom normally offered by free software. I have a web site on a server that I control. Every piece of software on that server is there to assist in rendering or managing the web site in some way or another. I'm aware that Apache and the Linux kernel are not under an Affero-type license, but suppose with me for a moment that the whole installation was under such a license. I'm now liable to distribute the source code for an entire operating system to every person who manages to obtain a web page from me. I'm also liable to distribute the source code for an entire operating system to every sco'er in the world who manages to send me a spam, because they're using my email service. If such a bit is added to the GPL with no other changes, I either have to deliver the source code with every web page (or spam), or I have to promise to keep it up there for a minimum of three years. All of a sudden, licensing SCO or Windows looks cheap by comparison - at least they only demand the large payment once. Thankfully, this is all hypothetical at this point, and the kernel and Apache are both licensed under a different license (GPLv2 only, and Apache has its own license), but I'm bothered by the fact that this is being put forth as free. As Adam points out, this is a networked world; if I can only afford to exercise my freedom by not being networked (being a hermit), that freedom is *worthless*.
Re: APSL 2.0
On Thu, 2003-08-07 at 10:22, MJ Ray wrote: Stephen Ryan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: the whole installation was under such a license. I'm now liable to distribute the source code for an entire operating system to every person who manages to obtain a web page from me. How does this differ from your current obligation to either provide the source or equivalent offer to that which you obtained the source? Or is your server a 0-user affair? So why wouldn't the offer clause work for you? Has Debian made such an offer? I can only pass along such an offer if I received one in the first place. To my knowledge, Debian has made no such offer on any code. It also does not apply if I make any commercial use of my server (which I do, to the tune of a couple hundred dollars per year). The difference is that I don't currently run a debian mirror on it, and I don't have to, either. The difference is that I currently have to get into the distribution business only if I want to be in the distribution business, whereas such licenses obligate every person who has a computer running such code to be in the distribution business (I'm phrasing this carefully so as to avoid any difficulty over the definition of a user here). Of what use is Free software if nobody is willing to run it?
Re: Open Software License
On Mon, 2003-06-02 at 19:34, Mark Rafn wrote: On Mon, 2 Jun 2003, Joey Hess wrote: The Open Software License v. 1.0 3) Grant of Source Code License. The term Source Code means the preferred form of the Original Work for making modifications to it and all available documentation describing how to access and modify the Original Work. Licensor hereby agrees to provide a machine-readable copy of the Source Code of the Original Work along with each copy of the Original Work that Licensor distributes. ... This is phrased very oddly. I think the intent is for this to apply to derived works, where you becomes licensor and the downstream recipient becomes you. I don't think it's non-free, just hard to follow. 5) External Deployment. The term External Deployment means the use or distribution of the Original Work or Derivative Works in any way such that the Original Work or Derivative Works may be accessed or used by anyone other than You, whether the Original Work or Derivative Works are distributed to those persons, made available as an application intended for use over a computer network, or used to provide services or otherwise deliver content to anyone other than You. As an express condition for the grants of license hereunder, You agree that any External Deployment by You shall be deemed a distribution and shall be licensed to all under the terms of this License, as prescribed in section 1(c) herein. Whee! I haven't changed my mind since the Affero discussion. I personally think it's a non-free use restriction to declare that deliver content to anyone other than You is equivalent to distribution of the software. I agree strongly; in a networked world all software potentially falls under such clauses, and then, the only persons able to use software under such licenses are those who are willing to undertake the obligations of publication. Forced publication requirements have always been a problem before, when they applied to a far smaller set of people, and I don't see why it should be any better that every user is forced to publish the software. In theory, it's a great way to increase the availability of the software, but in practice, it limits the usage to those with the resources and the ability to publish it. If I run such software on a network-accessible port over a dial-up connection, am I in violation of the license for disconnecting when *I'm* done, as opposed to when whoever's downloading the source code off my is done? If I run the software on a network-connected cellphone or PDA where I pay per byte, do I have to offer the source for download through the phone/PDA? If I run an email auto-responder service from behind a NAT firewall, do I have to email the sources, too? Personally, I doubt that any software so useful that it warrants letting this particular camel's nose into the tent; I can see the rest of the camel from here, and it's going to ruin the tent. -- Stephen Ryan [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Bug#189164: libdbd-mysql-perl uses GPL lib, may be used by GPL-incompatible apps
On Fri, 2003-05-23 at 09:52, Brian T. Sniffen wrote: Anthony DeRobertis [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Wed, 2003-05-21 at 11:59, Brian T. Sniffen wrote: I don't. If it makes use of features specific to the GNU version, it should either use the normally part of your OS exception, or if distributed with GNU grep be itself available under the GNU GPL. So every script that Debian distributes that makes use of features only found in GPL tools must be under the GPL (since Debian can't use the normal part of OS exception). Let's take a concrete example: apache-ssl. In particular, it's postint. It uses adduser, which is under the GPL. It also uses update-rc.d, also under the GPL. So, as above, we have to say the postinst is available under the GPL. However, it also uses /usr/sbin/ssl-certificate, which uses OpenSSL. It is well-known that the GPL and the OpenSSL license are not compatible. Is the above legal? If so, why? I'm not a lawyer -- but I think distribution of apache-ssl.postinst must be distributed under the terms of the GPL. As such, it can't be distributed by others without an OpenSSL exception or a license which grants a superset of the freedoms of the GPL. I'm surprised no one else has jumped on this yet. No. The script in question is a derivative of both OpenSSL and of adduser, and the author of the script has no legal standing to relicense either of those. Thus, no script which uses both OpenSSL and adduser may be distributed by anyone under any terms, because it would link OpenSSL with adduser, and they are under incompatible terms. Even though the script itself may offer an exception for OpenSSL, adduser doesn't have that exception, and thus, the work as a whole is undistributable. Wait. Isn't dpkg under the GPL? Now everything on the entire system has to be under the GPL, because you can't even get it installed without the use of dpkg. The other option, of course, is that the kernel exec() function *is* a barrier, Debian *can* be used for real work and not just an exercise in ivory-tower masturbation. -- Stephen RyanDebian Linux 3.0 Technology Coordinator Center for Educational Outcomes at Dartmouth College
Comments on GFDL, may be useful for statement
at least be removed rather than continuing to disseminate incorrect information. Q. But doesn't this mean that the original author will no longer be able to protect his/her views from being misrepresented? A. No worse than the ability to *add* additional things that the original author doesn't agree with causes the original author to be misrepresented. Invariant sections cut both ways, remember; not only are the original author's views cast in stone forever, so are the views of any other person who cares to add them and make them invariant. In any case, one may only assume that the document reflects at most the views of the last author to modify the document. Q. But the GPL itself is marked Verbatim copying only and you distribute that. Aren't you hypocrites? A. First of all, only the preamble of the GPL is so marked; the FSF has stated that you may take the actual content of the GPL and modify it to produce another license, although they strongly recommend against it, in that the modified license *will* be confusing. Additionally, in many jurisdictions, legal texts such as software licenses may not be copyrighted, so as to prevent private monopolies on the law. Finally, as regards the effect of the license, the license must be preserved intact in order for it to have any legal standing. Footnotes - [0] This point is a little tricky; I think that it is clear that if a GFDL document were included into the source code of a GPL application in the form const char * help = GFDL doc with invariant sections; then that would constitute a violation of at least the GPL. Further, when talking about code, the FSF considers dynamic linking of a library to be equivalent to static linking; that is, whether the library is loaded at run-time or included as part of the binary on disk is irrelevant, and the two parts cannot be distributed that way unless the licenses are compatible. Given that precedent, I think it's a stretch to say that an application could load the document as help text dynamically from a file, at run-time, but could not include it as part of the binary, statically linked in. Additionally, context-sensitive help requires that the code know enough about the documentation to know which part to display; this is *not* the same as simply loading a document as raw data, because the application must know about the meaning of the document in order to load the appropriate parts, and furthermore depends on its existence. [1] Yes, that's an insult; Free software is behind the times when it comes to pervasive, integrated online help. Many command line applications are nicely documented by the man pages, but programs with GUI interfaces could benefit greatly from the context-sensitive help facilities which are standard features of commercial proprietary software. It is *not* a beneficial thing to discourage the development of this, either. Being able to point the mouse at something on the screen and ask What is this? is a tremendous help to people unfamiliar with the program. [2] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2002/debian-legal-200212/msg00058.html The error may or may not have been fixed in later releases of that document. That point is irrelevant -- the fact that we have to sit around and wait for the original author to update something wrong is something that we have to do with proprietary software, not with Free software. If I really wanted that, I'd run Windows. [3] Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show did the song Cover of the Rolling Stone, which includes the lines Wanna see my picture on the cover Wanna buy five copies for my mother and We keep getting richer but we can't get our picture On the cover of the Rolling Stone It seemed apropos to me as I was writing this out. Okay, so I'm weird. [4] Yes, I know that the GFDL limits Cover Texts to some small amount, significantly less than the 24 line spew from mkreiserfs, but I bet he could get the whole thing in by having each contributor add a few words from that spew as a cover text. Besides that, I don't intend to pick on him particularly - anybody else's ego trip would be just as ugly. [5] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/debian-legal-200304/msg00455.html -- Stephen RyanDebian Linux 3.0 Technology Coordinator Center for Educational Outcomes at Dartmouth College
Re: query from Georg Greve of GNU about Debian's opinion of the FDL
On Mon, 2003-04-14 at 11:00, Georg C. F. Greve wrote: ... In the special case that you seem to be referring to, which is as author of a specialized help GUI, you could of course jump to the relevant paragraphs/parts of the documentation directly. Um, not without the same type of intimate knowledge required to link a library into the application. So why is it okay to display a help text in a GUI but not to dynamically link a library? Consider: Dynamically loaded Library: --- * Loaded from a separate file at run-time. * Need entry points, names, and API. * Contains information needed to make the software work; use may be optional; output may be visible to the user. * Need to know what the specific part of the library being called does in order for it to be useful. Context-Sensitive Help: --- * Loaded from a separate file at run-time. * Need entry points, section names, and formatting information. * Contains information needed to make the software usable; use may be optional; output definitely visible to the user. * Need to know what the specific part of the documentation says in order for it to be useful. When you explain the differences, please cover why using the technical means of hard-coding printf() statements in the source code would be clearly unacceptable, whereas loading the text from a file at run-time would be acceptable. Then tell us why the same argument doesn't work for dynamically loading libraries vs. copying the source code into the source for the application. That would make the relevant information immediately accessible without requiring to hide or remove any part of the document. Hiding or even removing parts of the documentation doesn't seem necessary for that and in general does not seem like a useful job for the author of a GUI. Information overload is not a feature. Thus Free software must be condemned to carry whatever ill-conceived poorly-edited crap for documentation that is given to it, all because the author of the documentation must be treated as though s/he were bringing the Ten Commandments from on high. Why should I get a copy of the GNU Manifesto when I request help on saving files? All I wanted was to know how to save a file; speaking for myself, I get hostile when I get such blatantly off-topic crap instead of help, and I'm sympathetic to the cause of Software Freedom. I can't imagine how someone not already sympathetic to Freedom in software would react. The decision of what a user wants to read should be made by the user, not by the author of his or her software. I agree. So every time the user asks for help, let's make him scroll through the entire text of the Bible first, so that the user can make the decision to read it or not, and not be limited by the author of the software. Of course, we wouldn't want to be discriminatory, so let's include the Torah and the Koran and . Before you say that the Invariant Sections are different, keep in mind that the license explicitly states that the only sections eligible to be covered as Invariant Sections are off topic to begin with. I think it's really stupid to be enshrining off-topic material as something which must be preserved forever. Would your attitude be the same if the GNU Emacs manual was distributed with some religious texts attached as the Invariant Sections? The Republican Party platform? The Unabomber's Manifesto? Mein Kampf? Something from Al-Qaeda? All of the above, all at once? Anyone may add an Invariant Section; no-one may remove them. Thus, in the limit, every document under such a license will collapse under its own weight. See the FSF statement on the old BSD license for why this is bad. I've heard the argument about needing incentives for authors to write documentation for Free software. I don't buy it. For one thing, that argument should apply just as well to writing the software in the first place. For another, I don't see that there is any benefit to be gained from higher quality documentation that isn't completely lost by the loss of freedom -- and if there is such a benefit, why doesn't it apply to software as well? -- Stephen RyanDebian Linux 3.0 Technology Coordinator Center for Educational Outcomes at Dartmouth College
Re: Dissident versus ASP
On Wed, 2003-03-19 at 14:52, Jeremy Hankins wrote: You may want to go back and reread the message in question, I have a feeling you saw the bit about folks with big pipes and didn't read on about folks with smaller pipes. I gave suggested several ways in which things could be made easier: * If no changes have been made to the source, a URL to upstream may be sufficient. * If changes have been made and upstream incorporates them, a URL may still be sufficient. * If upstream doesn't incorporate the patches, distribution of patches along with the URL of upstream may be enough. * If even distribution of patches is onerous, include a written offer option, ala the GPL. * Going yet farther, a license may include a time delay (of one month, for example) before source distribution is required. I don't see that combination of options an onerous, even for folks with small pipes. Do you? If you think so, tell me who's going to have trouble meeting *any* of these requirements. (I'm assuming we're still talking about a hypothetical future version of the GPL, since people who license under BSD/MIT/X type licenses aren't too likely to care about closing an ASP loophole.) The current GPL doesn't allow anything like these. No URLs, no patches-only, no pointers to someone else hosting the source. You (the party distributing the binaries) must also distribute the *full* source from the same place as the binaries, or you must provide a written offer, valid for at least three years to provide the full source at cost. Providing an ASP is often done commercially because bandwidth and hardware aren't free in either sense of the word, so the pass along option is forbidden to such people. Even if I'm just doing it for some friends and some of them pitch in some money to help cover the bandwidth bill, that probably counts as commercial. This isn't a matter of a few K of patch files. This is a matter of tens to hundreds of MBs of *full source*. The GPL FAQ explicitly states that pointers to upstream URLs are not a valid way of meeting the license demands, and gives (good) reasons as to why patches and pointers to other's copies of the source are not appropriate. -- Stephen RyanDebian Linux 3.0 Technology Coordinator Center for Educational Outcomes at Dartmouth College
Re: The ASP nightmare: a description
On Thu, 2003-03-13 at 15:05, Joe Moore wrote: Jeremy Hankins said: Joe Moore [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Jeremy Hankins said: Take this to the logical extreme where everybody starts doing this and every Free program has several ASP versions, and you have the ASP nightmare. How is this different (from a licensing perspective) from a publicly-accessible shell server? Assume for a minute that all the GPL'd binaries on the server are chmod a-r, so no user can make a copy of the binaries (just to avoid the distribution issue). This is exactly the line of thinking that caused problems with the LPPL 1.2 (where their definition of distribution included making software available on a shared system) I don't know. Is it? Should it be? I'm uncertain. I personally don't see a difference between a public-utility type service that gives CPU resources to remote users by running ASP code and a public-utility type service that gives CPU resources to remote users by running shell code. (at least from a licensing standpoint) I think that so long as the source for these programs are generally available there's no real problem. The problem shows up when someone uses this technique (which could be a web server or a shell server) to make the programs available for use but intentionally restricts access to source binaries. Well, the current (and probably future) version of the GPL requires a lot more than generally available. It requires equivalent access (at least) Good grief! So then any machine I own or control which is going to be accessed by anyone besides myself, who has the possibility of copying any binaries from it (current GPL) or has the possibility of running any binary on it (hypothetical future GPL), said binaries including, say, the network stack which responds to a ping over the network, must have the source code installed on it so that any other user accessing that machine may copy it as well, so as to satisfy equivalent access. But my Zaurus doesn't have enough storage space to even keep the source code on it, so connecting my Zaurus to the 'net where someone else might connect to it, even contrary without my permission, is in violation of the GPL. I looked up public performance on Google, just to see what I could see, and found that public performance is interpreted rather liberally, at least in the context of music, so that public performance is any performance of the work in the presence of persons outside one's immediate family and close acquaintances, including otherwise private members-only clubs. The music industry has long asserted control over public performance, and a few years ago suffered a PR black eye the size of Texas when they sued the Girl Scouts for singing songs around a campfire. This is also why, in family restaurants, the staff sings a house song celebrating the patron's natal anniversary, rather than Happy Birthday when such occasions arise - it's so they don't have to pay royalties every time they sing it. This is just the result of the music industry engaging in a scope creep w.r.t. public performance, and is partly due to the fact that public performance is not very well defined in the law. Personally, I think that the chance is quite high that someone could fall afoul of the public performance clause of the hypothetical GPL-3 just as easily as falling afoul of the public performance clause attached to music. Do we *really* want to call it Free when doing the equivalent of playing the radio too close to customers violates the license? Brett Glass[0] is starting to make sense to me. That is a truly terrifying thought. [0] Moderately well-known anti-GPL troll, often found on ZD-Net boards. All other anti-GPL trolls are small and cute in comparison. -- Stephen RyanDebian Linux 3.0 Technology Coordinator Center for Educational Outcomes at Dartmouth College
Re: The Show So Far
On Wed, 2003-03-12 at 04:12, Anthony Towns wrote: [Much good stuff snipped] I think it would be really nice to be able to justify tests like: (d) can you use it completely naively - without reading, understanding or thinking about the license - without running the risk of violating the license (e) can you modify it to make it useful, then use it similarly naively? on similar technical grounds; since those things do have real benefits to users. I think at least (d) should be a reasonable test. Consider trying to argue the opposite in front of a judge. Well, your honor, I know that the software looks like it's designed to do x, y, and z, and the default installation of the software does x, y, and z as soon as it's installed, but the license clearly states that . This seems far too similar to By reading this message you agree to send me $500 to me. (e) seems to me to be (d) under the assumption that software should be Free(tm). Not having these carries with it the implicit message that freedom is only for those willing to do the equivalent of subscribing to debian-legal, and not at all for the casual user, which just enforces the erroneous thought that Well, I can't program, so having the source isn't any good to me anyway. -- Stephen RyanDebian Linux 3.0 Technology Coordinator Center for Educational Outcomes at Dartmouth College
Re: Barriers to an ASP loophole closure (was Re: OSD DFSG - different purposes - constructive suggestion!)
On Tue, 2003-03-11 at 11:58, Steve Langasek wrote: I find this an acceptable compromise. The GPL already implements something very close to this: if you give someone a copy, they're able to pass it on to a third party who in some cases then has grounds for demanding source from the author. Extending that to letting a PCH demand access to changes if someone tells him about them doesn't seem too much of a stretch. Close; the case in question for the GPL only arises in the case where someone actually makes a written offer valid for at least three years. Have you *ever* seen such an offer? I haven't. Was the entity making that offer still around three years later? Further, it would seem that anyone making such an offer would know about it, since they do have to write it down, and that explicitly states that the offer is valid to any third party. In other words, I can only be screwed over by that clause if I agree to it in writing. Extending to the case where that's a mandatory part of the license is a rather different story. I've been trying to write down my objections to re-classifying public performance (a.k.a. ordinary use w.r.t. server type software) as distribution, and I'm beginning to conclude that GPL'd software is inappropriate for casual copying, even without the added burden imposed by closing the ASP loophole. 3a) requires that I give the complete copy of the source along with the binary; if public performance is classified as distribution, I'd be forced to ship the complete source code for the Linux kernel, Apache, PHP, and who knows what all else with every web page so as to be clearly in compliance with this section. Adding a link to the source on someone else's site would be very hard to defend in court as falling under this section; hosting the source code myself means I've just agreed to become a kernel.org mirror. As an aside, this might mean that binary-only mirrors are in technical violation of the GPL, because the source code must be distributed with the binaries, and distribution of the source code by a different entity probably doesn't count (in the same place, from the comments after section ). 3b) requires that I make a multi-year commitment to being reachable *and* agreeable to working without profit during that time period. I have no control over how far my written offer will be propagated without my knowledge, yet I must honor that written offer, as any weakening of this clause will lead to even larger loopholes than the ASP loophole. If the at cost clause is interpreted strictly, then I'm unwilling to make such an offer, since it means that I have to do charity work while the bank comes in to foreclose on my house. If it is interpreted loosely, then someone from the music or movie industry comes in and says that their costs are very high, and that you'll have to pay a million dollars for the source code. Per file. Either way, I've never seen such an offer, and there's no way that I'll ever agree to make such an offer without having enough cash in hand to ensure that I can survive those three years on at cost work. 3c) requires that some other sucker has agreed to 3b) *and* that that offer has been either made to me or relayed to me. Furthermore, even if I do have such an offer, I may not take advantage of it if I happen to be engaged in commercial activity related to the distribution. Right now, I don't think that's much of a problem, but if public performance is classified as distribution, then I think that it would be far too easy to be engaged in commercial distribution -- e.g., any business web site would be engaged in commercial distribution of Apache under that definition. I haven't yet gotten everything together in my head yet, but I'm afraid that closing the ASP loophole will result in the possibility of being in violation of the GPL-v3 simply by making a machine with too much software on it accessible from the net. Furthermore, if such a change is sloppily written, too much software might mean a bare-bones bootable system, as responding to pings is a service, too, and is hard to distinguish from software-that-cures-cancer as an ASP (technically, that is; both receive network packets and respond to them with other network packets; I am sure that there are other protocols that aren't quite as trivial as ping but still far less than something we'd actually call an ASP that could be used as an example as well). -- Stephen RyanDebian Linux 3.0 Technology Coordinator Center for Educational Outcomes at Dartmouth College
Re: [Discussioni] OSD DFSG convergence
On Tue, 2003-03-04 at 22:36, Russell Nelson wrote: To anybody who think I'm being insincere, or duplicitious, or not listening to you, or impervious to facts, I offer a hearty fuck you, fuck off, and fuck yourself. Right. Rubbery green skin, smells bad, bad hair, obnoxious attitude. Back under the bridge with you! *plonk* -- Stephen RyanDebian Linux 3.0 Technology Coordinator Center for Educational Outcomes at Dartmouth College
Re: PHP4 And GPL mixing, what is linking?
On Fri, 2003-02-07 at 09:04, James Michael DuPont wrote: Dear all, ... What about SQL database, can I prevent non-free software from using the database of a GPled application? I don't particularly know about the rest, but this one is just plain pure evil. Don't do it. Don't think about it. Don't even try it. Leave this one for the Dark Side. There are a couple of minor practical problems in the way you phrased that, but those could probably be overcome with some work. The part that can't be overcome is that you are considering a restriction on usage, rather than on modification or redistribution, and the GPL only considers modification and redistribution, not usage. One thing I'm not clear on is whether the database in question is intended to be a static database supplied with the application and never altered afterwards, or whether said database includes any user input. If the database is built from user input, you have no legal standing to demand that the user may not do as they please with their data. In the GPL, there is an explicit statement that the output of the program is not covered unless its contents constitute a work based on the Program, and whether that is true depends on what the Program does. Such a claim must be made carefully, because otherwise the author of any program capable of writing arbitrary bits to disk could claim copyright over every work written since. Even with the restriction that the output file needs to contain some copyright-able work from the author, Microsoft might be able to claim copyright over every Word document in existence, which would be a poor precedent to support. Do not feed the Cthulhu. I note also that gcc and bison, in particular, disclaim copyright on the output. Whether the database includes user data or not, restricting the fashion in which data may be used fails other things. For instance, may one use a non-free program to back up the data from such a program? What about restoring the data? Restructuring the database for optimal performance / space usage / etc.? Displaying usage statistics or other summaries of the database? May it be stored on a non-free filesystem? May the disk format be checked by a non-free program? May the data be compressed by a non-free archiving program? Written to CD by a non-free program? Transferred by a non-free ftp program? May the network packets containing that data be passed through a non-free network router (the source for most appliance-type routers is very definitely proprietary)? May I write a Free application which simply dumps the data to stdout and provide a hint to the user that the non-free application might do something useful with the output? What if someone else provides the hint? What about two layers of indirection? Three? Obviously, these questions extend to the absurd, and yet some of these show up in actual practice - e.g., I have actually written a backup script for an Oracle database at work which dumps all fields of all tables to a SQL script which would recreate the database. While I was googling for details on some of the licenses, I noticed that you have been asking questions like this for a year; I'm afraid that there are no easy answers to these questions. Obviously, it grates to think that Free software could be subverted into being used by non-Free software, but the act of restricting that would make the (formerly) Free software into something which is less Free than the non-Free. He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. -- Nietzsche -- Stephen RyanDebian Linux 3.0 Technology Coordinator Center for Educational Outcomes at Dartmouth College
Re: Bug#173601: ITP: jpgraph -- OO Graph Library for PHP
On Thu, 2002-12-19 at 12:36, Steve Langasek wrote: Hi Luis, On Wed, Dec 18, 2002 at 02:46:21PM -0500, Luis Bustamante wrote: JpGraph is an OO class library for PHP 4.1 (or higher). JpGraph makes it easy to draw both quick and dirty graphs with a minimum of code and complex professional graphs which requires a very fine grain control. JpGraph is equally well suited for both scientific and business type of graphs. [cc to [EMAIL PROTECTED] I want to package this software because the latest version of acidlab (which hasn't been uploaded yet[1]) requires it instead of phplot like previous version for graphing alert data of an IDS/Firewall. Anyway I'm not sure if we can include it in Debian as it uses QPL 1.0 and the author says in his page: JpGraph is released under a dual license. QPL 1.0 (Qt Free Licensee) For non-commercial, open-source and educational use and JpGraph Professional License[2] for commercial use. Can we include it in non-free despite the restriction it holds for commercial use? (if so acidlab should be in contrib then) References: 1. http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=155212 2. http://www.aditus.nu/jpgraph/jpgprolicense.pdf If the QPL permits redistribution (I haven't read that license in a while), it should be ok for non-free. If acidlab upstream uses JpGraph, then of course you have little choice; but you might be interested to point them towards Vagrant http://vagrant.sourceforge.net/, an imlib-based PHP graphing class available under the GPL that gives very impressive-looking results. Cheers, Waitaminnit. Maybe I'm missing something here, but isn't the QPL a Free Software license? I didn't do that much of a careful search, but I googled for QPL DFSG and found a bunch of hits that make it look like the QPL is considered Free. If so, then why shouldn't jpgraph go into main? The commercial clause is no more obnoxious than a GPL/talk-to-me dual license, as it applies only in the case of closed-source use. What am I missing? -- Stephen RyanDebian Linux 3.0 Technology Coordinator Center for Educational Outcomes at Dartmouth College
Re: linux gpl question
On Thu, 2002-04-25 at 07:15, martin f krafft wrote: [please cc me on responses] hey wise people, i have a question that's stunning us over here. there's someone selling a complete firewall appliance atop a linux kernel. he advertises it as hardened and as super-secure because he patched the kernel here and there, and because he added userland stuff. now my question: the kernel's gpl, so everything using the kernel source must be gpl. that does force this guy to make the source of all his kernel tree patches available, unless he provides binary patches for the kernel, right? in this case, does he have to let people know exactly which patches are applied? I think he needs to provide the exact patched source code. Quoting from the GPL: 2...a) You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you changed the files and the date of any change. and 3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following: a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or, b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or, Section 3. c) does not apply, since he is the upstream for this particular modification. Together, these two sections mean that the complete source code must be provided, and that the modified sections must be marked as such. Unless he can come up with binary-only patches from nothing, his product is a derivative of the Linux kernel source, and therefore must be shipped with *complete* source code. or, can he simply make the kernel source available, but ship it in binary only form with his patches applied? Binaries are fine, but the complete source used to generate those binaries is the source that must be supplied, per 3a) or 3b). IANAL, TINLA, etc. -- Stephen RyanDebian GNU/Linux Technology Coordinator Center for Educational Outcomes at Dartmouth College -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: * WARNING: Crypto software to be included into main Debian distribution
On Mon, 2002-03-04 at 03:09, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I don't know what the right list to bring this issue up is, so I write to all three lists to get to the right people. Here are my views on the crypto on main subject. I suppose there has been debate on this subject before on other debian lists, but as I'm not subscribed to more than 3 and have no idea on where/when it may have sprung... My view is that by including crypto on main, and dissapearing it from non-us, the silly regulations from the US goverment are imposed on the US emargoed countries in an anti ethical way for two reasons: Actually, this has absolutely *nothing* to do with crypto. The trade embargo is (at least for some countries) total, meaning that *nothing* may be exported to those countries or imported from those countries. Not gcc. Not even hello. NOTHING. NADA. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. So the problem arises if you have (supposedly) Free Software on a public Internet site and the United States involved in any way whatsoever. The US embargo may be anti ethical, but it applies regardless. 1. Software in non-us was not developed inside the US Not always. e.g. Kerberos and PGP were both developed inside the US, legally exported and are now available outside the US and can be imported back in. Kerberos is Free, PGP is not (replaced by GPG which is Free). and should not be restricted to 'export' into other countries. It isn't. It just may not be exported FROM the US (and maybe other countries; people who live in other countries need to be aware of the local laws in their countries, and abide by them just as much as people who live in the US need to be aware of the laws in the US and abide by them). 2. As I understand, the Free Software definition does not apply any sort of exception to US embargoed countries. So, either the Free Sofware definition gets reviewed and appends a clause stating that free software is 'free except in US embargoed countries', or Debian should stop saying it is Free software. Period. Nothing in the Free Software definition (or the GPL) requires anyone to violate local law in the process. The worst thing that happens (in the case of irreconcilable contradiction) is that you may not distribute the software at all. Nothing - I repeat, absolutely nothing, in either the Free Software definition or the DFSG or any of the licenses involved, requires me to distribute the software to *anyone*. It only states what must happen *if* and when I do distribute the software. If local law requires that I not distribute the software to certain persons, then I am in violation of that law should I do so and I should rightly expect to have the local law enforcement officials coming to bust my ass if I break that law. A friendly reminder that you should not break the law, and a few steps to make sure that I do not break the law, does not make the software not Free. Free Software does not mean scofflaw - if the developers of Free Software really were scofflaws, then none of us would bother writing Free Software at all - we'd just pirate proprietary software instead [we in a very loose sense of the word, since my personal Free Software contributions are still quite small]. But we don't, because that would be a violation of copyright law. Restricting redistribution to a given country is in my opinion a blatant violation of the GPL which states that no further restrictions should be imposed on the software covered by it. Actually, no. Read section 8 of the GPL, which explicitly *includes* such a clause. There may be a third option which would be to move the main distribution servers of Debian outside the US (they are all within the US right now, aren't they?). Nice idea in theory. Some of the folks I work with have a map which shows worldwide backbone bandwidth. If you cut the US out, you cut out something between 75% and 90% of world-wide Internet bandwidth; furthermore, those servers are donated; you'd have to find equivalent, also donated servers outside the US in order to do that. Servers and bandwidth ain't cheap, but if you do find some, I'm sure the Debian project would be pleased to accept. You'd also have to find developers outside the US to replace all those inside the US, since (as others have already observed) the act of uploading something to a site known to export to an embargoed country could be interpreted as a knowing act of export to that country, and therefore a chargeable offense under US law. Your proposal would just make it more likely that all US developers would have to quit, since every upload would be an export. -- Stephen Ryan Technology Coordinator Center for Educational Outcomes at Dartmouth College
Problems in GNU FDL 1.2 Draft
the copies in covers that carry, clearly and legibly, all these Cover Texts: Front-Cover Texts on the front cover, and Back-Cover Texts on the back cover. Both covers must also clearly and legibly identify you as the publisher of these copies. The front cover must present the full title with all words of the title equally prominent and visible. You may add other material on the covers in addition. Copying with changes limited to the covers, as long as they preserve the title of the Document and satisfy these conditions, can be treated as verbatim copying in other respects. If the required texts for either cover are too voluminous to fit legibly, you should put the first ones listed (as many as fit reasonably) on the actual cover, and continue the rest onto adjacent pages. Hmm this seems familiar. Where have I seen a license before that required large amounts of invariant text to be printed, even if it was inconvenient and required more space, and a well written objection to it? Ah, yes, right here: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html I'm only going to suggest that one should consider pots and kettles *very* carefully, in light of the above referenced commentary on the *BSD license before finalizing the new GNU FDL. Eliminating Invariant Sections as a permitted part of the FDL will also eliminate this potential problem. -- Stephen RyanDebian GNU/Linux Technology Coordinator Center for Educational Outcomes at Dartmouth College
Re: REVISED PROPOSAL regarding DFSG 3 and 4, licenses, and modifiab le text
On 4 Dec, Walter Landry wrote: I've already voted for this. I think that Invariant text is an abomination. It is unfortunate that the GNU manuals may be booted into non-free, but that is what happens when you forcefully interject political commentary into technical documentation. Right on! Between this and Henning's comments on the content of the invariant sections, I think it is important to notice that the GFDL, if used properly, *insists* that the invariant sections be off-topic, and therefore a distraction and a waste of disk space (paper in the case where the documentation is printed) *at best*, so that the absolute very best thing you can get out of an invariant section is a distraction, an off-topic tangent, something that lowers the overall quality of the work. Even though I happen to agree with some of the political commentary in the GNU technical documentation, it remains political commentary and therefore off-topic in technical documentation. Stephen Ryan not a DD but I hope to be one someday when I grow up
