Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Anthony DeRobertis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wednesday, Jun 11, 2003, at 09:08 US/Eastern, Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote: I already asked the question here and it seems there is a consensus on that mailing list that a GFDL document without Invariant Sections and Cover Texts is 100 % free. It was a while ago until people noticed the other problems. Personally, I have concerns about the definition of transparent (is that the right word?) copies, and how it forces a text- and image-only worldview. That was my biggest complaint. In particular, I can't distribute things that I create or modify with Lyx or Openoffice. Regards, Walter Landry [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
On Fri, Jun 06, 2003 at 07:13:41AM -0700, Walter Landry [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote a message of 18 lines which said: There are more problems with the GFDL than just the invariant sections. Invariant sections are just the worst problem. Since RMS seems unwilling to change anything, I'd say that _all_ GFDL'd works have to go into non-free. I believe I understand at last the Invariant Sections and their consequences but can you explain what other problems are serious enough for such drastic measures? (Cover Texts excluded, because they have more or less the some problems.) I already asked the question here and it seems there is a consensus on that mailing list that a GFDL document without Invariant Sections and Cover Texts is 100 % free. See URL:http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/debian-legal-200304/msg00246.html for more details.
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
On Wednesday, Jun 11, 2003, at 09:08 US/Eastern, Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote: I already asked the question here and it seems there is a consensus on that mailing list that a GFDL document without Invariant Sections and Cover Texts is 100 % free. It was a while ago until people noticed the other problems. Personally, I have concerns about the definition of transparent (is that the right word?) copies, and how it forces a text- and image-only worldview. I think some other things have been debated as well
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Branden Robinson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Free Documentation that can only be instantiated in a non-Free Document is not Free. You are in a maze of twisty frees, all different.
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
On 2 June 2003 RMS wrote: I've looked at the problems people have reported. Many of them are misunderstandings (what they believe is not allowed actually is allowed), many of these cases have adequate workarounds, and the rest are real inconveniences that shouldn't be exaggerated. [...] It is fairly clear now that Debian and the FSF have different visions of software freedom and, therefore, different definitions of 'free'. The FSF is willing to characterize a document with invariant sections as free because this allows the FSF to use such sections to promote software freedom. Debian is not willing to do the same. Each organization will pursue its own vision of freedom even though their visions are different. Documents with invariant sections will go in non-free, but this shouldn't prevent Debian and the FSF from continuing to work together. -- Thomas Hood -- Thomas Hood [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Thomas Hood [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Documents with invariant sections will go in non-free, but this shouldn't prevent Debian and the FSF from continuing to work together. There are more problems with the GFDL than just the invariant sections. Invariant sections are just the worst problem. Since RMS seems unwilling to change anything, I'd say that _all_ GFDL'd works have to go into non-free. Regards, Walter Landry [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
... Since RMS seems unwilling to change anything, I'd say that _all_ GFDL'd works have to go into non-free. RMS did not say that. He listened to Debian's concerns, and acknowledged that there were GDFL-related issues he had not previously been aware of. He characterized them as *primarily* consisting of license compatibility problems, which was indeed the case. To quote RMS's relevant message: ... the rest are real inconveniences ... Debian should give RMS a chance to think for a while, and consult with others including his legal council and other parties at the FSF, rather than taking hasty action. This is a courtesy we've extended to upstream authors many times before, and it seems unreasonable not to extend it in this case as well.
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Thomas Hood [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] The FSF is willing to characterize a document with invariant sections as free because this allows the FSF to use such sections to promote software freedom. I'm not sure that is accurate. I *think* the FSF position is that free documentation can be contained within a non-free document. Note that FDL stands for Free Documentation Licence, not Free Document Licence. Debian is not willing to do the same. [...] I don't think either group claims that an FDL-covered work is necessarily free software. Debian's social contract is not to include anything that isn't free software, more or less. The definitions of free documentation and free document are currently irrelevant to this discussion. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know. http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ jabber://[EMAIL PROTECTED] Creative copyleft computing services via http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ Thought: Changeset algebra is really difficult.
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
On Fri, Jun 06, 2003 at 09:06:39AM -0600, Barak Pearlmutter wrote: Debian should give RMS a chance to think for a while, He's had over a year. We raised most of these concerns with the GNU FDL 1.1. His response was the GNU FDL 1.2. Perhaps he is counting on our continued lack of action to let the GNU FDL get more entrenched in the community, blindly adopted by people who don't understand its consequences. The fact that GNU Manuals which never had Invariant Sections (of any stripe) before now bear them (case in point, the GDB Manual), makes it clear to me that GNU FDL + Invariant Sections is the new orthodoxy for the FSF. *Someone* needs to be subjecting the GNU FDL to close scrutiny, and insisting that it satisfy the same high standards that the GNU GPL does. To deserve the universal application that the FSF appears to be seeking for it, it must not only technically meet the requirements of freedom, but it must also be a *wise* license. I am not convinced that it possesses either of these attributes. Someone must speak up. If not we, then who? If not now, then when? -- G. Branden Robinson| I am only good at complaining. Debian GNU/Linux | You don't want me near your code. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | -- Dan Jacobson http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | pgp8wRewoCenn.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
On Sun, 1 Jun 2003 12:18:37 +0200, Alexandre Dulaunoy [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: Yes No. For example, a Free Software author wants to warn user for a specific usage of the software. The classical example is a RFID software that can be used as a tool against privacy. He adds a warning note in the documentation, the text is irremovable but other people can comment on the warning but they can't remove the warning. Hmm. If the software is free, I can then change the software to remove the specific behaviour being warned against; but the documentation still contains a incorrect, and irremovable warning. I supppose I can tack on even more irremovable text to counter the warning (perhaps confusing the users). I would consider that not free for other electronic entities; I consider it similarily limiting when it comes to the documentation. manoj -- The way these things go, there are probably 6 or 8 kludgey ways to do it, and a better way that involves rethinking something that hasn't been rethunk yet. Larry Wall in [EMAIL PROTECTED] Manoj Srivastava [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/ 1024R/C7261095 print CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05 CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E 1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
RMS said: I've looked at the problems people have reported. Many of them are misunderstandings (what they believe is not allowed actually is allowed), many of these cases have adequate workarounds, and the rest are real inconveniences that shouldn't be exaggerated. OK... but... I've explained examples of all of these. Actually, that's where you're wrong. You *haven't* explained examples of all of these, and some of those explanations you have given have been found woefully insufficient. (Of course, *you* don't need to do this; I'm sure you're very busy. Any official representative of the FSF would do just fine.) -- I couldn't find a single instance of a 'misunderstanding' explained by you. In a few cases, you claimed that something was allowed by fair use, but you were in fact wrong for at least the UK. -- The only instance of an 'adequate workaround' I saw was a license incompatibility problem, where you claimed that it was 'always better' for a manual to be separate from the code and read by the code. Several people felt that this was not an adequate workaround for the incompatibility, let alone 'better'. -- Pretty much everything else you responded to, you said was an inconvenience being exaggerated, but was not non-free because it was only a 'packaging restriction'. (An interesting point, certainly. Although it took a ridiculous amount of time before we managed to get this statement on why you believed non-removable sections did not render a document non-free; previously we'd been trying to guess your position, which doesn't usually work.) Several people tried to open a debate about the issue of when a restriction is a packaging restriction and when it's a fundamental restriction, since they disagreed. You refused to discuss this. The only real problems seem to come from incompatibility of licenses. I'm glad you recognize those problems. :-) Happiness! Now, does the FSF have plans to do anything about them? If so, great! If not, why not? --Nathanael
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
On Mon, 2003-06-02 at 16:37, Barak Pearlmutter wrote: Sure, and it's also perfectly plausible that RMS is a secret employee of Microsoft and Chinese double agent plotting the use of free software to assassinate the Dalai Lama. But this is debian-legal not debian-wacko-conspiracy-theory. The FSF has already used a copyright assignment against the wishes of the original author of the documentation, who objects to the added invariant sections. This assertion, by the author, has been made publicly on this mailing list. It is in the archive at: http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/debian-legal-200304/msg00256.html Consider the current SCO/IBM brouhaha - it's a shame the FSF doesn't have assignments for the Linux kernel which would put it in a position to stand up for the community against SCO's bullying. Yeah, it's really a shame that instead of the underfunded FSF standing up to SCO its IBM's over-funded legal department[1]. And several other people (like LinuxTag) are taking on SCO, too. The FSF could join in if it felt like it. And --- this just in --- SCO isn't doing to well; they've been ordered to shut up.[0] It is no coincidence that SCO chose to attack something that the FSF doesn't have legal paperwork on. Sure it is. Attacking linux makes more press than attacking gcc or hurd. [0] http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1114885,00.asp [1] If anything, IBM's legal pockets are deeper than Microsoft's, and the company is no stranger to controversial legal entanglements. So far, IBM shows no sign of caving. http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,1115134,00.asp signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Have you simply ignored the explanations... An insulting question like that doesn't deserve a response, but I will answer anyway. I've looked at the problems people have reported. Many of them are misunderstandings (what they believe is not allowed actually is allowed), many of these cases have adequate workarounds, and the rest are real inconveniences that shouldn't be exaggerated. I've explained examples of all of these. The only real problems seem to come from incompatibility of licenses.
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Alexandre Dulaunoy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The (long) debate, as usual, is a matter of terminology. Can we find a solution by having a DFSG for documentation ? You would also need to amend the Social Contract to change 1. Debian will remain 100% Free Software which would no longer be true. The scope of documentation and software seems to not be the same. I'm afraid I still don't see why not. If FSF published a summary of the legal and other consultations that obtained about the FDL, it would surely help justify this. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know. http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ jabber://[EMAIL PROTECTED] Creative copyleft computing services via http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ Thought: Changeset algebra is really difficult.
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
On Sun, 2003-06-01 at 14:58, Barak Pearlmutter wrote: And even the FSF will be bitten by it again, should someone add some text to the GDB manual which the FSF incorporates back into its master copy, and then the FSF decides to modify the that document's invariant parts. No, the FSF will never have a problem, because it demands copyright assignments for all contributions.
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
My understanding is that the FSF requires copyright assignments in order to give themselves the ability to most effectively defend the community against poachers and legal attacks. It would be a drastic misunderstanding to think they do it in order to give themselves an ability to share that they'd deny to others. The FSF's fundemental value is to give everyone the ability to share, even (or perhaps especially) in the absence of copyright assignments. ... the FSF will never have a problem, because it demands copyright assignments for all contributions. Although this might be true it is irrelevant, as given copyright assignments they would not have a problem even if they used a proprietary license. Furthermore, since assignments are just a matter of expedience, under appropriate circumstances the FSF might well incorporate materials without an assignment. That would be their call, but I cannot imagine it is something they'd want to rule out unconditionally. If the GFDL is impeding sharing, there is one thing we can be confident of: that the problem was not anticipated when the GFDL was drafted.
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
On Mon, 2003-06-02 at 11:37, Barak Pearlmutter wrote: My understanding is that the FSF requires copyright assignments in order to give themselves the ability to most effectively defend the community against poachers and legal attacks. It would be a drastic misunderstanding to think they do it in order to give themselves an ability to share that they'd deny to others. Well, it is my understanding that the FSF changed the license of many GNU manuals from its traditional license to the GFDL and even added invariant sections. They did this using the copyright assignments. There is a statement from the author of one of the manuals involved in the debian-legal archives.
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
On Mon, Jun 02, 2003 at 09:37:50AM -0600, Barak Pearlmutter wrote: My understanding is that the FSF requires copyright assignments in order to give themselves the ability to most effectively defend the community against poachers and legal attacks. It seems perfectly plausible to me that the reason you cite was never the sole motivation for this policy, though it may have been the most frequently and publicly articulated one. -- G. Branden Robinson| Debian GNU/Linux | De minimis non curat lex. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | pgpk5GZ8oCjKJ.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
On Sun, Jun 01, 2003 at 12:18:37PM +0200, Alexandre Dulaunoy wrote: The (long) debate, as usual, is a matter of terminology. Can we find a solution by having a DFSG for documentation ? The scope of documentation and software seems to not be the same. Doesn't the GNU FDL invite confusion of the issue by sanctioning the inclusion of, and mandating the retention of, what should objectively be non-documentary functions of written works? The scopes of documentation *per se* and software seems to me to be complementary. The GNU FDL's Invariant Sections are supposed to be used only for Secondary Sections, which are not supposed to serve any documentary function. In fact, they're supposed to be irrelevant from a strictly topical perspective. A Secondary Section...contains nothing that could fall directly within [the] overall subject.[1] Even if Debian had Free Documentation Guidelines, it's likely that (some of) the GNU Manuals would continue to fail them, because what RMS and the FSF want to protect with Invariant Sections isn't documention. [1] GNU FDL version 1.2, section 1 -- G. Branden Robinson| Debian GNU/Linux | kernel panic -- causal failure [EMAIL PROTECTED] | universe will now reboot http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | pgpEm1pKvB3yT.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
My understanding is that the FSF requires copyright assignments in order to give themselves the ability to most effectively defend the community against poachers and legal attacks. It seems perfectly plausible to me that the reason you cite was never the sole motivation for this policy, though it may have been the most frequently and publicly articulated one. Sure, and it's also perfectly plausible that RMS is a secret employee of Microsoft and Chinese double agent plotting the use of free software to assassinate the Dalai Lama. But this is debian-legal not debian-wacko-conspiracy-theory. Given the FSF's highly successful GPL enforcement activities and prescient concern with optimizing the community's legal position, and RMS's track record of both contributing to and founding the community, it seems like Occam's razor dictates taking the FSF's explanation for requesting assignments at face value. Consider the current SCO/IBM brouhaha - it's a shame the FSF doesn't have assignments for the Linux kernel which would put it in a position to stand up for the community against SCO's bullying. It is no coincidence that SCO chose to attack something that the FSF doesn't have legal paperwork on.
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
From: Richard Stallman [EMAIL PROTECTED] This problem is unfortunate, but no worse in the case of two ways of using the GFDL than with a pair of two different free software licenses. True, but this kind of problem never bites people who just use the GPL, while it seems to be biting people who just use the GFDL with alarming frequency. I would note that *even the FSF* has had trouble using the GFDL properly so as to avoid this problem. And even the FSF will be bitten by it again, should someone add some text to the GDB manual which the FSF incorporates back into its master copy, and then the FSF decides to modify the that document's invariant parts. The GFDL with any kind of invariant thing activated seems to largely break the commons property. In effect, each document is an isolated island, with serious transfer of text between documents made quite difficult. (At least, unless the same entity is in a position to relicense them both. In which case even a completely proprietary license would allow sharing, so this isn't a counterexample.) Regardless of whether this is an issue of freedom, it does seem to be a rather serious practical problem. From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Thomas Bushnell, BSG) Let me point out that just as Debian doesn't get to demand that the GFDL be changed, so also the FSF does not have a role in determining the interpretation of Debian's standards. I must take exception to this. Debian does indeed listen to the FSF, take its needs seriously, and listen to its arguments with an open mind and more importantly with an open heart. We are on the same side, working for the same ends. Debian is distributing the FSF's GNU system (plus a bunch of free applications and a kernel), a fact which we insist on acknowledging in the very name of our distribution. We nurture a Debian GNU/Hurd, and our founding documents codify ideas taken from the FSF. All of us were moved and motivated by RMS's eloquent writings on the subject. Debian has very close relations with upstream GNU developers, and strives to work together to solve technical problems and to advance our mutual goals. The same spirit of mutual respect and cooperation has carried through to license issues, where we should continue to strive to listen to and understand each other, and to try to work out any problems so as to together continue to advance the cause of the free software movement. Our cooperation on past license issues (KDE/Qt comes to mind) has been successful. So we do, in fact, have a history of working together to address license issues, both those of freedom per-se and those (like the KDE/Qt issue, and Mozilla as well) of convenience and the health of the copyleft commons.
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
On 31/05/03 18:48 -0700, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: Richard Stallman [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: A political essay is (typically) written by certain persons to persuade the public of a certain position. If it is modified, it does not do its job. So it makes sense, socially, to say that these cannot be modified. This is an argument for invariant text, but not for irremovable text. Yes No. For example, a Free Software author wants to warn user for a specific usage of the software. The classical example is a RFID software that can be used as a tool against privacy. He adds a warning note in the documentation, the text is irremovable but other people can comment on the warning but they can't remove the warning. The (long) debate, as usual, is a matter of terminology. Can we find a solution by having a DFSG for documentation ? The scope of documentation and software seems to not be the same. For the documentation included in the software (in source code), this is software and the DFSG should apply. A software can have two documentation, a built-in and the official 'external' documentation. Just my .02 EUR, adulau -- -- Alexandre Dulaunoy (adulau) -- http://www.foo.be/ -- http://pgp.ael.be:11371/pks/lookup?op=getsearch=0x44E6CBCD -- Knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance --that we can solve them Isaac Asimov pgpXUsBBzHErC.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
In order to just remove it, technically speaking they needed permission from EVERY SINGLE CONTRIBUTOR, That's the same as the situation for any change between licenses. For instance, if Apache wanted to relicense under the GPL, they would need permission from EVERY SINGLE CONTRIBUTOR. That would cause practical difficulties if they ever wanted to merge Apache with some GPL-covered program. Worse practical difficulties, in fact, because that can't be done at all without a license. This problem is unfortunate, but no worse in the case of two ways of using the GFDL than with a pair of two different free software licenses.
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Richard Stallman [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: This problem is unfortunate, but no worse in the case of two ways of using the GFDL than with a pair of two different free software licenses. But no pair of licenses is claiming to create a shared commons. Heretofore, the FSF has been claiming to create a new commons within the GPL/LPGL universe. The GFDL not only does not contribute to that commons, nor can it draw from it, but does not even create a single commons itself. Questions of freeness aside, it is this which most disturbs me about the GFDL: I can't just know that some set of works are all under the GFDL and so assume that I have certain freedoms with respect to them: I need to consider the interactions of Invariant Sections and Cover Texts. Back to the issue at hand: individual documents licensed under the GFDL may be free, but derived works from them may not be useful to the original author: thus, it doesn't seem like a copyleft. Documents under the GFDL can't be freely adapted to my needs. I also don't have freedom to improve such a document and release my improvements alone. You say that the purpose of a political essay is to sway readers to the ideas of the author: I agree, but I assert it is the reader, and not the author, who decides on this purpose. The reader, not the author, corresponds to a person running a program. There are reasons to distribute political essays without license to modify them... but such essays are not Free. Your essays, for example, distributed under invariant-copy licenses, only serve the purpose of readers who wish to be informed as to your views. If distributed under a free license, say the GPL, they might serve those purposes, your purposes in the initial writing, and also enrich the community's political discourse. It's as fine and reasonable for you to be unwilling to contribute to that as it is for many people to be unwilling to contribute to the community's pool of useful software: but neither situation is free. You've probably heard the above arguments before; I know I have. Despite my searching through the FSF's web site, though, I couldn't find any answers to the following questions: 1. Does the FSF consider an invariant-copies-only political essay free? 2. What's the deal with the GPL-incompatible GFDL? What was so important that sacrificing this was worth it? 3. Where's a clear explanation of what I *can't* do with a GFDL'd document? What do I do when I find a badly inconsistent document (non-Secondary Invariant sections, for example)? What happens when a reasonable transformation of a document makes an Invariant Section non-Secondary? 4. Given that the FSF's screwed up use of the GFDL (the GDB manual, for a while), should I trust that this license is understandable by the general public? 5. Why should I make some sections of my document invariant? 6. Perhaps most importantly, what are my alternatives, and why should I prefer the GFDL to each of those for practical or moral reasons (comparing to at least the GPL, MIT license, invariant-copying licenses)? -Brian
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Richard Stallman [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: A political essay is (typically) written by certain persons to persuade the public of a certain position. If it is modified, it does not do its job. So it makes sense, socially, to say that these cannot be modified. This is an argument for invariant text, but not for irremovable text. Thomas
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Richard Stallman [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: This isn't inconsistent--consistency does not make sense here. We all accept various inconveniences to achieve our ends, while rejecting others as not worth while. And each decision depends on the magnitude of the costs and benefits. To choose the same option in all such decisions would be irrational. Here you are arguing that the inconveniences are minor. Have you simply ignored the explanations of specific technical things, reasonable to accomplish (like doc strings) which the GFDL impedes or makes impossible?
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
At least one situation comes to mind where it might happen: If I wanted to publish a collection of HOWTOs, e.g., from the LDP. If every one of them included front and back cover texts, that'd be a mountain. There is no difficulty at all here. This collection would be an aggregate, and here's what the GFDL says about that: If the Cover Text requirement of section 3 is applicable to these copies of the Document, then if the Document is less than one half of the entire aggregate, the Document's Cover Texts may be placed on covers that bracket the Document within the aggregate, or the electronic equivalent of covers if the Document is in electronic form. Otherwise they must appear on printed covers that bracket the whole aggregate. The first alternative would apply here, so each document could have its own covers. Nothing is cumulative for the whole collection. I made an effort to find and resolve such cumulation issues while revising the GFDL for version 1.2.
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Hi RMS,
On Mittwoch 28 Mai 2003 00:40, Richard Stallman wrote:
A political essay is (typically) written by certain
persons to persuade the public of a certain position.
If it is modified, it does not do its job. So it makes
sense, socially, to say that these cannot be modified.
Then, why are there so many political essays under the
GFDL, without invariant sections?
You'd have to ask their authors about that. I won't criticize
their decisions, but I don't see a reason to do it.
I think that my question was not clearly phrased. I do not want
to know why people do something that does not make sense in your
oppinion.
What I am interested in is how you come to the conclusion that it
is more difficult (or even impossible) to persuade the public of
a certain position with a modifyable essay than it would be with
a non-modifyable one. I do not understand the mechanism that is
supposed to make the modifyable text less persuasive.
So, can you construct an example?
cu,
Thomas
}:o{#
--
http://www.bildungsbande.de/~sloyment/
Look! They have different music on the dance floor...
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
On Wednesday, May 28, 2003, at 19:57 US/Eastern, Richard Stallman wrote: In a nightmare one can imagine large numbers of cover texts in one manual, but it isn't likely to happen. Where the BSD advertising clause produced a mountain, the GFDL produces a molehill. At least one situation comes to mind where it might happen: If I wanted to publish a collection of HOWTOs, e.g., from the LDP. If every one of them included front and back cover texts, that'd be a mountain.
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
On Tue, May 27, 2003 at 10:13:26AM -0500, Steve Langasek wrote: Of course, both the FSF and Debian regard the BSD advertising clause as an inconvenience, not as grounds for ruling the license to be non-free; Well, *I* don't think the forced-advertising clause is Free. I do realize that I'm probably in the minority in feeling that way, though. -- G. Branden Robinson|One man's theology is another man's Debian GNU/Linux |belly laugh. [EMAIL PROTECTED] |-- Robert Heinlein http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | pgpl27ZylgAjz.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
On Tue, May 27, 2003 at 01:20:11PM -0600, Barak Pearlmutter wrote: The Wikipedia used the GFDL because it was recommended by the FSF. They used it in its natural way. And then they got burnt. I fetched those pages, anxious that they might have had a serious problem, but when I saw the contents I was relieved. They were just discussing whether they are better off using or not using invariant sections, and how to use them. Words like burnt do not fit the situation. I'm not sure if the gravity of the situation really conveyed itself. RMS already said he didn't think they had a serious problem, and has on multiple occasions accused us of blowing the problems with the FDL out of proportion. Perhaps the best thing to do is contact someone from the Wikipedia and ask them to summarize the situation in a mail to RMS, and relate to him whether or not they felt burnt, or perceived a threat of inconvenience large enough to cripple their project. -- G. Branden Robinson| The greatest productive force is Debian GNU/Linux | human selfishness. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | -- Robert Heinlein http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | pgpm0pdKrAQfI.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Perhaps the best thing to do is contact someone from the Wikipedia and ask them to summarize the situation in a mail to RMS, and relate to him whether or not they felt burnt, or perceived a threat of inconvenience large enough to cripple their project. They can do that if they want, but even supposing that the GFDL turns out to have undesirable results in a certain situation, that doesn't really relate to the issue at hand: whether it is a free documentation license.
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Of course, both the FSF and Debian regard the BSD advertising clause as an inconvenience, not as grounds for ruling the license to be non-free; so while RMS's reasoning may be to some degree inconsistent here (advocating against one inconvenient license and for another), This isn't inconsistent--consistency does not make sense here. We all accept various inconveniences to achieve our ends, while rejecting others as not worth while. And each decision depends on the magnitude of the costs and benefits. To choose the same option in all such decisions would be irrational. The BSD advertising clause produced a large practical inconvenience because it was cumulative for the entire system. An ad would have to mention every contributor in the entire system who had used such a clause, and there might literally not be room in an ad for so many. I carefully designed the GFDL not to have such a space problem if there were many publishers, but such a situation probably won't arise anyway. The GFDL only cumulates for a single manual, not the entire system distribution. In a nightmare one can imagine large numbers of cover texts in one manual, but it isn't likely to happen. Where the BSD advertising clause produced a mountain, the GFDL produces a molehill.
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Hi,
On Sonntag 25 Mai 2003 01:19, Richard Stallman wrote:
A political essay is (typically) written by certain persons to
persuade the public of a certain position. If it is modified,
it does not do its job. So it makes sense, socially, to say
that these cannot be modified.
Then, why are there so many political essays under the GFDL,
without invariant sections?
GNU/Linux -- Milestone on a Way into a GPL Society by Stefan
Merten, GNU/Linux is not a Thing of Value, and that is Fine! by
Stefan Meretz, Free People in Free Agreements by Annette
Schlemm, Stefan Meretz and Joerg Bergstedt, just to name a few.
These and tons more can be found on http://www.opentheory.org
(but unfortunally only in German (I have however a draft
translation of the Milestone text (without footnotes)).).
cu,
Thomas
}:o{#
--
http://217.160.174.154/~sloyment/
Look! They have different music on the dance floor...
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
But why, if you found the old BSD license to be so inconvenient, are you promoting a license which mandates even greater inconveniences upon the end user? I think you make the inconvenience out as more than it is. To have an invariant sections piled on in large quantities is a hypothetical possibility, which may occur sometimes, but that doesn't mean it will happen often. I don't think the overall magnitude of this inconvenience will be very large.
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
The Wikipedia used the GFDL because it was recommended by the FSF. They used it in its natural way. And then they got burnt. I fetched those pages, anxious that they might have had a serious problem, but when I saw the contents I was relieved. They were just discussing whether they are better off using or not using invariant sections, and how to use them. Words like burnt do not fit the situation.
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
David B Harris said: On Sat, 24 May 2003 19:19:50 -0400 Richard Stallman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: A political essay is (typically) written by certain persons to persuade the public of a certain position. If it is modified, it does not do its job. So it makes sense, socially, to say that these cannot be modified. Just to nitpick here, the original essay may not do its job either. You may wish to persuade people to the same view, but you have a different audience than the original author targetted. This brings up an interesting scenario: I'd like to translate a GNU FDL-licensed document into Elbonian. This is clearly creating a derived work under US copyright laws. In order to do this, I must maintain the invariant sections. These invariant sections (written in English) are unreadable to the Elbonians. I could also translate the invariant section to Elbonian, but as everyone knows, a lot gets lost in translation. (For example, there is no Elbonian word for Free as in Freedom, so I had to translate Free Software as no-cost computer instructions) And, of course I mark my translation as invariant, since it's a political statement... --Joe
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
On Tue, 2003-05-27 at 12:46, Richard Stallman wrote: But why, if you found the old BSD license to be so inconvenient, are you promoting a license which mandates even greater inconveniences upon the end user? I think you make the inconvenience out as more than it is. To have an invariant sections piled on in large quantities is a hypothetical possibility, which may occur sometimes, but that doesn't mean it will happen often. I don't think the overall magnitude of this inconvenience will be very large. I can accept that to an extent Richard, but your own arguments against the BSD advertising clause as just as relevant now as then. But perhaps I understand the question you have in mind. If you are asking why the invariant sections provide sufficient freedom to modify, the answer is that people can make whatever substantive changes they wish in the technical functionality of the manual. OK, I can see the logic in that and personally I am in favour of the distribution of the GNU philosophical texts to as wide an audience as possible, but as other list users have argued, certain potential uses of the license could be construed as restricting functional usage in inconvenient ways. Such as the requirement to add a political text to a reference card, or page after page of invariant cover texts which are mandatorily required to be included in all derivative works. I know you feel that fair use would cover the reference cards et al. but as some other list users have pointed out, that in countries such as the UK (where I live) there exists no such provision, and potentially a mean spirited person or organisation could insist on a very literal reading of the license. Perhaps making their functionally useful work of severely limited use to others due to masses of invariant additions. I realise that from your replies to other posts, you feel that such groups would not be worth dealing with, but it leaves us with only the freedom to use or not to use, and completely removes the freedom to modify without hindrance that was previously enjoyed by the community. John H. -- John Holroyd [EMAIL PROTECTED] Demos Technosis Ltd signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
On Tue, May 27, 2003 at 03:29:46PM +, John Holroyd wrote: On Tue, 2003-05-27 at 12:46, Richard Stallman wrote: But why, if you found the old BSD license to be so inconvenient, are you promoting a license which mandates even greater inconveniences upon the end user? I think you make the inconvenience out as more than it is. To have an invariant sections piled on in large quantities is a hypothetical possibility, which may occur sometimes, but that doesn't mean it will happen often. I don't think the overall magnitude of this inconvenience will be very large. I can accept that to an extent Richard, but your own arguments against the BSD advertising clause as just as relevant now as then. Of course, both the FSF and Debian regard the BSD advertising clause as an inconvenience, not as grounds for ruling the license to be non-free; so while RMS's reasoning may be to some degree inconsistent here (advocating against one inconvenient license and for another), it doesn't seem likely that he'll be persuaded on these grounds alone that the GFDL is problematic. Personally, I feel that the difference between a license that's inconvenient and a license that's non-free is largely one of degree. The consensus on debian-legal so far has been that, the *degree* to which the GFDL restricts modification makes it non-free. Clearly, proponents of the license disagree. -- Steve Langasek postmodern programmer pgpjzsrjjOOed.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Richard Braakman wrote: Whoops, I misread the very part I quoted! Yes, I think this says that you may translate Invariant Sections. I was momentarily confused by the phrasing (you may include translations vs. you may translate). Of course, it then makes sense to make your translation an invarient section (since it's also political speach) - sucks if it's a bad translation of the original invarient section. If you're hit by a bus, anyone who wants an accurate translation is either going to have to stick *another* invarient section on, or throw away the work you did. -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
The Wikipedia used the GFDL because it was recommended by the FSF. They used it in its natural way. And then they got burnt. I fetched those pages, anxious that they might have had a serious problem, but when I saw the contents I was relieved. They were just discussing whether they are better off using or not using invariant sections, and how to use them. Words like burnt do not fit the situation. I'm not sure if the gravity of the situation really conveyed itself. With their invariant stuff, the encyclopedia was much less useful. So they had to remove it. But they already had lots and lots of entries, all licensed with that invariant text. In order to just remove it, technically speaking they needed permission from EVERY SINGLE CONTRIBUTOR, since all the contributions had been made using the with-invariant license and needed to be re-licensed with the modified sans-invariant license. If they couldn't get in touch with someone, or that person didn't want to give permission, they should have removed that person's text. If multiple people worked on the same entry they would have had to remove the whole entry, even if it was really long, if they were unable to get in touch with just one person, even if that person's contribution to that entry was relatively minor. Note that their web-based interface makes adding or editing text very easy, for anyone in the world. So they had an army of contributors, and people often fixed typos or added sentences to many many entries. This is the very power of their approach - but it makes contacting everyone, or removing one person's contributions without removing a great deal of adjacent material, extremely difficult. Instead they took a third route: they removed the invariant section without getting everyone's permission. This I'm sure you'll agree is of dubious legality! It is something I'm sure the FSF would not recommend. To summarize: they had a choice. (a) start over (b) contact everyone, maybe have to remove rewrite large fraction of entries (c) just ignore the legalities and relicense without permission If (a) or (b) don't count as getting burned, I don't know what would. Option (c), which is what they took, is not exactly comforting! The FSF has also been in the position of having to modify the invariant clauses of a GFDL document, due to an error. You have the luxury of just re-licensing it though, because you have copyright assignment. You can modify an outdated essay, or remove an invariant section that is no longer useful. But you should be aware that holding all the copyrights gives the FSF a practically unique position. Others without that position also want to contribute to, maintain, and develop free documents. The genius of the GPL is that it allowed this - everyone could use it without fear. This is not true of the GFDL.
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
A political essay is (typically) written by certain persons to persuade the public of a certain position. If it is modified, it does not do its job. So it makes sense, socially, to say that these cannot be modified. Then, why are there so many political essays under the GFDL, without invariant sections? You'd have to ask their authors about that. I won't criticize their decisions, but I don't see a reason to do it.
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Richard Braakman said: On Tue, May 27, 2003 at 05:57:20AM -0600, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In order to do this, I must maintain the invariant sections. These invariant sections (written in English) are unreadable to the Elbonians. I could also translate the invariant section to Elbonian, but as everyone knows, a lot gets lost in translation. You're not normally allowed to translate Invariant sections. From GFDL 1.2, clause 8: Replacing Invariant Sections with translations requires special permission from their copyright holders, but you may include translations of some or all Invariant Sections in addition to the original versions of these Invariant Sections. (although you later noticed your misinterpretation of this section, ...) I _can_ add an additional invariant section with my translation of the original invariant text, but I can't replace the meaningless english gibberish with something that the reader can understand. If I don't make this translation section invariant, then a later contributor could (maliciously or not) improve my translation taking it even further from the intent of the original author. If I do make this translation section invariant, then any mistakes I make in the translation are forever carved in stone^W^W^Wrequired by the license to be included. --Joe
Re: Removal of non-free (was Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long))
On Saturday, May 24, 2003, at 06:54 AM, MJ Ray wrote: Anthony DeRobertis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: No. Wait until the voting GR is over. Then propose the get rid of non-free GR. Is proposing a GR your only version of reconsider? In general, no. In this specific case, since it requires a controversial change to the Social Contract, has been debated extensively in the past to no avail, and has already had a GR proposed and tabled until after the voting GR, yes.
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
On Sunday, May 25, 2003, at 04:38 PM, Dylan Thurston wrote: Actually, I'm a little unclear on the latter point. Yes, it is at least DFSG 3 that I and many others believe invariant sections violate. To what extent are non-functional restrictions OK for Debian? For instance, the GPL's clause 2c (message at an interactive prompt) is uncontroversial, Yes, only because the disclaimer of warranty and copyright notice are legally required for various things; also, note that those are not invariant, you can change the wording, appearance, etc. but the much longer message that the reiserfs utilities printed seemed to be more questionable Mainly because it made the program unusable for people without huge scrollback. (if it were required by the license, Then it would be way more than legally required, and thus I think it'd be a problem. Or is the question whether the restrictions in the GFDL are truly non-functional? Functional vs. non-fuctional changes are not mentioned anywhere in the DFSG. I think there are some border cases where invariant sections can become functional, such as where the scope of the document significantly changes, but that is not my biggest objection.
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
On Sun, May 25, 2003 at 01:49:07PM +1200, Adam Warner wrote: Frankly this claim that it is always better to keep the manual separate--as if it is always better to keep data separate from code--is a shocking and nonsensical claim from someone with such a distinguished Lisp background as yourself. I suppose for your next trick you'll claim ignorance of what Knuth achieved with literate programming. Don't think you can treat us all like fools by glossing over sound methodologies of documentation and software engineering in order to push the mandatory inclusion of your political texts. Your message would have been better without these last two paragraphs. Please try to maintain civility with Richard. I sympathize with your frustration but acerbic remarks like this do not help to remind him that we, as a Project, are on the same side as he in most philosophical battles of relevance to Debian's mission. From a more selfish perspective, remarks like those quoted above make it easier for RMS to be unfairly dismissive of our critiques of his documentation licensing enterprise. When you offer him bait like this, he takes, while leaving more important, point-blank questions about the motivations behind the GNU FDL answered. I've asked these several times[1] and he has yet to address them at all. He just snips them out of my mails, and doesn't reply to messages at all that contain nothing else. An uncharitable interpretation of this phenomenon would be that RMS does not think the community would be supportive of the GNU FDL if he were frank about why he prefers it to the traditional GNU documentation license. However, there are other possible interpretations. [1] for example: http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/debian-legal-200305/msg00508.html -- G. Branden Robinson|There is no housing shortage in Debian GNU/Linux |Lincoln today -- just a rumor that [EMAIL PROTECTED] |is put about by people who have http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |nowhere to live.-- G. L. Murfin pgpqe6gUiGfjA.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Removal of non-free (was Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long))
On Sat, May 24, 2003 at 10:54:13AM -, MJ Ray wrote: Anthony DeRobertis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thu, 2003-05-22 at 00:04, Simon Law wrote: Is it an appropriate time to reconsider its mention in Section 4 of our Social Contract? No. Wait until the voting GR is over. Then propose the get rid of non-free GR. Is proposing a GR your only version of reconsider? The passage of a GR is probably the only means of reconsideration that would be honored by the Project as a whole, when it comes to a subject as laden with flamewar history as this one. -- G. Branden Robinson| Communism is just one step on the Debian GNU/Linux | long road from capitalism to [EMAIL PROTECTED] | capitalism. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Russian saying pgpIwXzZ1pUjT.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
On Sat, May 24, 2003 at 10:55:22PM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote: Well. There are several categories of GNU People. If you mean contributors to FSF-copyrighted projects, then these are the views I've seen: 1. The FDL is repugnantly non-free. We tried to convince RMS, who runs the FSF as his personal fiefdom, and he wouldn't listen. What can we do now? (There are a fair number of us in this category.) Put up a webpage that will serve as a petition. 2. I don't care about documentation licensing. 3. I don't care about documentation at all. 4. I don't care about freedom of software or documentation, as long as I can use it. (This is a surprising collection of people, who simply use GCC or Autoconf, for example, and want to help out, but would probably do the same for Microsoft Windows if they could. Linus Torvalds would belong in this category...) I think the hearts and minds of the above people are what RMS is trying to win over with the GNU FDL. -- G. Branden Robinson|There is no housing shortage in Debian GNU/Linux |Lincoln today -- just a rumor that [EMAIL PROTECTED] |is put about by people who have http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |nowhere to live.-- G. L. Murfin pgp3BktO2WLfu.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Oops, now posting my reply to the list as I originally intended... On Mon, 2003-05-26 at 18:04, Branden Robinson wrote: On Sun, May 25, 2003 at 01:49:07PM +1200, Adam Warner wrote: Frankly this claim that it is always better to keep the manual separate--as if it is always better to keep data separate from code--is a shocking and nonsensical claim from someone with such a distinguished Lisp background as yourself. I suppose for your next trick you'll claim ignorance of what Knuth achieved with literate programming. Don't think you can treat us all like fools by glossing over sound methodologies of documentation and software engineering in order to push the mandatory inclusion of your political texts. Your message would have been better without these last two paragraphs. Please try to maintain civility with Richard. I sympathize with your frustration but acerbic remarks like this do not help to remind him that we, as a Project, are on the same side as he in most philosophical battles of relevance to Debian's mission. From a more selfish perspective, remarks like those quoted above make it easier for RMS to be unfairly dismissive of our critiques of his documentation licensing enterprise. When you offer him bait like this, he takes, while leaving more important, point-blank questions about the motivations behind the GNU FDL answered. I've asked these several times[1] and he has yet to address them at all. He just snips them out of my mails, and doesn't reply to messages at all that contain nothing else. I would welcome keeping out of this Branden (especially if it is of threat to Debian's mission!) since the personal and professional cost of making such acerbic remarks is very high. The fact remains RMS was writing nonsense about a central issue and I highlighted it. I do not accept that I have in any way given RMS bait like this while allowing more important, point-blank questions about the motivations behind the GNU FDL to be left unanswered. As you state RMS is yet to address this. And he is yet to address me. The only bait I have placed is a chance to defend the indefensible. Thank you for your tireless attempts as a prominent Debian developer to highlight and resolve this issue. I suspect Debian is going to have to force the issue before the ignominy of defending non-free/unmodifiable data sinks in. But I leave that in your capable hands. By the way there are numerous situations where only invariant/verbatim transcription of my comments would be acceptable. I could not tolerate the modification of my comments _while still attributing them to me_. We accept that one cannot falsely attribute the works of one person to another and many free software licences make this explicit (e.g. Neither the name of the ORGANIZATION nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.) Yet these free software licences still allow software to be derived and modified. This is the same standard we should use for DFSG documentation. If I want free documentation in Debian I must be prepared to _let my message be distorted_ just as software can be distorted by downstream authors. What we must also do is vigorously defend authors rights not be misrepresented. If the message is changed then one cannot claim the author or organisation represents that position. Such a position would still allow Debian to respect official standards since even if the text could be modified Debian would choose not to do so (because it would misrepresent the organisation's endorsement). Differing texts would be clearly marked as non-official. Likewise, a package in main called fsf-official-position could only reasonably contain a transcription of the FSF's official position. Yet to get into main the FSF would have to accept that someone could modify the text to create their own position just as someone can build upon the shoulders of giants in modifying free software. I need to highlight that this is definitely not an assault upon authors rights to present their position with comprehensiveness and unswerving invariance. But it is simply not enough for them to claim that one cannot modify parts of their text while also seeking inclusion as DFSG data in Debian. The FSF claims that Freedom 3 is The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits. Only the ability to modify text is sufficient to ensure this freedom in general. Distributable but invariant data only satisfies freedoms 0 and 2 (and perhaps 1). Freedom 3/DFSG clause 3 is what Debian aspires to (The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software.) From: http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/free-doc.html The criterion for a free manual is pretty much the same as for free software: it
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], John Holroyd wrote: On Sun, 2003-05-25 at 18:03, Richard Stallman wrote: There are free software licenses that have restrictions that I find annoying and inconvenient. One is the old BSD license. I worked for several years to convince Berkeley to remove the advertising clause, which I called obnoxious. If the Ku Klux Klan or George Dubya Bush had released a program with the old BSD advertising requirement, I might have thought twice about using it, because I would not want to advertise them. But it is still a free software license. But why, if you found the old BSD license to be so inconvenient, are you promoting a license which mandates even greater inconveniences upon the end user? Presumably he blieves that restrictions like those in the BSD license and the GFDL are matters of inconvenience, not of Freedom, and so there is no _moral_ reason not to impose these restrictions, merely practical considerations, which he obviously feels are outweighed by other reasons. Indeed, http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html is rather different from almost all the other essays on the GNU website, since it makes only practical arguments, not moral ones. rms has also explained his reasons for imposing these restrictions: in [EMAIL PROTECTED], he wrote: It was clear from an early stage that companies might package parts of GNU with non-free software and would present the non-free software to the users as something legitimate and desirable. (This problem is getting bigger, not smaller: today, nearly all packagers of GNU/Linux distribute non-free software with it and try to argue it is a good thing.) So we had to search for ways to make sure that our message saying non-free software is wrong would at least be present in the GNU packages that they redistribute. ... I disagree with his position (I believe that Freedom is vitally important for many things, including software and political essays), but I see his point of view. Peace, Dylan Thurston
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Scripsit Dylan Thurston [EMAIL PROTECTED] For instance, the GPL's clause 2c (message at an interactive prompt) is uncontroversial, Not quite. I don't think it would have been accepted today by d-l in a new license if it had not been (effectively) grandfathered in by being part of the GPL. -- Henning MakholmVi skal nok ikke begynde at undervise hinanden i den store regnekunst her, men jeg vil foreslå, at vi fra Kulturministeriets side sørger for at fremsende tallene og også give en beskrivelse af, hvordan man læser tallene. Tak for i dag!
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Richard Stallman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: A number of people have posted long lists of supposed reasons why the GFDL is not a free license. I have not seen one that is valid, but I cannot comment on each point. It takes longer to refute an attack than to make one, and the critics outnumber me. Even supposing I could afford to spend full time on this discussion, I could not keep up with them. The problem is that he then picks the easiest point to address and ignores the others. What we need is a `Slashdot interview' type of rating of the questions to be asked. I am abstaining to send messages to RMS about this issue, leaving others more knowledgeable have the bandwidth. I really liked Barak Pearlmutter's post. The fact that RMS won't address it assures me that the situation will not change. We might as well declare defeat for free software and move the manuals to non-free. Strangely, RMS thinks most DDs will be against this. I hope he is wrong. Peter
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Richard Stallman wrote: Many examples have been given for why this is *false*, and they're pretty much all tied to the *non-removability* rather than the non-modifiability. Should we repeat them again? I've looked at these reasons, and they did not convince me the first time; repeating them won't convince me now. Recently I have started sending mail discussing the issue, explaining why this is too strict a standard. That's good. I think one of the things which most disturbed people was that these complaints have been brought up for over a year, and the apparent response from the FSF for most of that time was to ignore them, rather than to respond to them or rebut them. This is the point on which Debian has consensus and cannot compromise. You seem to be anticipating a decision which has not yet been made. I doubt I can convince you, but I hope I will convince other Debian developers to reject this proposal The decision really has been made, after well over a year of debate on debian-legal. (And incidentally, it's not a proposal, it's an evaluation of freeness.) If you are actually right, however, I am sure that many people will be convinced, and that it can be reversed. I must inform you that over the course of the last year, many Debian developers who originally saw no problems with the GNU FDL have been convinced otherwise by the persuasive arguments given by Branden Robinson and others. Perhaps (although I doubt it) this is simply due to having no counter-arguments coming from the FSF, in which case your reasoned explanations and responses should help convince everyone. I'm a big believer in the power of reasoned argument. If the GNU FDL really is free in the same sense as the GPL, you will be able to convince me that the GNU FDL, properly applied, is always a free license. It looks to me now as if it isn't. (Even if it is, it has the infuriating practical problem of GPL-incompatibility in both directions, but that's a secondary issue.) Thanks for coming to the discussion. --Nathanael Nerode
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Richard Stallman wrote: But that the issue is a moot point, because a reference card would use so little of the text of the manual that it would be fair use. In fact, the very idea that a reference card is derived from the manual in copyright terms seems like an unrealistic idea. UK copyright law includes no fair use provisions. I would be surprised if it's the only part of the world for which this is the case. The conceptually similar fair dealing provisions are significantly more limited than fair use, and the act of producing a reference card from a manual could only fall under them for educational establishments. I am insufficiently aware of the philosophical basis for the existence of fair use in US copyright law to know where else might be affected - does the rest of Europe have general fair use provisions? -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Many examples have been given for why this is *false*, and they're pretty much all tied to the *non-removability* rather than the non-modifiability. Should we repeat them again? I've looked at these reasons, and they did not convince me the first time; repeating them won't convince me now. Recently I have started sending mail discussing the issue, explaining why this is too strict a standard. This is the point on which Debian has consensus and cannot compromise. You seem to be anticipating a decision which has not yet been made. I doubt I can convince you, but I hope I will convince other Debian developers to reject this proposal.
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
But what if I encounter an Invariant Section saying that Social Security is wrong and that old or diseased people should be left alone and not helped by a public service? If I cannot remove this political statement, I cannot really regard the manual as free. And I would not want to distribute such statement, if I produce a modified version of the documentation. I disagree with those statements, and I would think twice about redistributing a manual in which the author says those things. At the same time, I don't think this would mean that said manual is non-free. They are different issues. Free documentation, like free software, refers to specific freedoms. It doesn't mean that you can do absolutely whatever you want to do. (No free software license allows that; some come pretty close, but those are not the ones I recommend.) It means you can redistribute the work, change it (functionally), and redistribute modified versions. It is ok to have requirements on how you can do this, provided they don't prevent you from substantively making the functional changes you want to make. There are free software licenses that have restrictions that I find annoying and inconvenient. One is the old BSD license. I worked for several years to convince Berkeley to remove the advertising clause, which I called obnoxious. If the Ku Klux Klan or George Dubya Bush had released a program with the old BSD advertising requirement, I might have thought twice about using it, because I would not want to advertise them. But it is still a free software license.
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Matthew Garrett wrote: I am insufficiently aware of the philosophical basis for the existence of fair use in US copyright law to know where else might be affected - does the rest of Europe have general fair use provisions? Fair use appears to be a US invention. European copyright laws of course have the right to quote from someone's work, but this is much more restrictive than fair use. Arnoud -- Arnoud Engelfriet, Dutch patent attorney - Speaking only for myself Patents, copyright and IPR explained for techies: http://www.iusmentis.com/
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
On Sun, 2003-05-25 at 18:03, Richard Stallman wrote: There are free software licenses that have restrictions that I find annoying and inconvenient. One is the old BSD license. I worked for several years to convince Berkeley to remove the advertising clause, which I called obnoxious. If the Ku Klux Klan or George Dubya Bush had released a program with the old BSD advertising requirement, I might have thought twice about using it, because I would not want to advertise them. But it is still a free software license. But why, if you found the old BSD license to be so inconvenient, are you promoting a license which mandates even greater inconveniences upon the end user? -- John Holroyd [EMAIL PROTECTED] Demos Technosis Ltd signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Richard Stallman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: But what if I encounter an Invariant Section saying that Social Security is wrong and that old or diseased people should be left alone and not helped by a public service? If I cannot remove this political statement, I cannot really regard the manual as free. And I would not want to distribute such statement, if I produce a modified version of the documentation. I disagree with those statements, and I would think twice about redistributing a manual in which the author says those things. At the same time, I don't think this would mean that said manual is non-free. They are different issues. Oh! I hadn't fully absorbed the following, but it seems then that rms believes that the restriction like that on the Emacs manual (that you must redistribute certain extraneous pieces) does not violate freedom 3 of the FSF's Free Software Definition: * The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this. (whether or not the work in question is documentation), while I believe the Debian people decided early in the discussion that a similar restriction on software would violate point 3 of the DFSG: 3. Derived Works The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software. Actually, I'm a little unclear on the latter point. To what extent are non-functional restrictions OK for Debian? For instance, the GPL's clause 2c (message at an interactive prompt) is uncontroversial, but the much longer message that the reiserfs utilities printed seemed to be more questionable (if it were required by the license, and aside from the fact that it was incompatible with the GPL). Or is the question whether the restrictions in the GFDL are truly non-functional? (I note that FSF's freedom 3 is more focussed on improving the program, i.e., functionality, while DFSG 3 is stated more broadly.) Peace, Dylan Thurston
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
On Sat, 24 May 2003 19:19:50 -0400 Richard Stallman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: A political essay is (typically) written by certain persons to persuade the public of a certain position. If it is modified, it does not do its job. So it makes sense, socially, to say that these cannot be modified. Just to nitpick here, the original essay may not do its job either. You may wish to persuade people to the same view, but you have a different audience than the original author targetted. (I know that further on you say that essays don't do a job for the reader, but I believe that's only accurate if the reader is entirely passive and not interested in spreading that information.) This is surprisingly similar to Free Software; the basic assumption is that people should be free to modify it for their own uses - presumably the original author didn't cater to their uses well enough. There are unfortunate side-effects. If you wish those legitimate changes to be possible, you must also allow changes which you may not believe are correct. For instance, changing your 3D virtual world engine to simulate battlefields within which soldiers train to kill people. Likewise, if you want to let people spread your message as effectively as possible, you need to allow them to cater the message to the intended audience. However, allowing them to do so would let others pervert your message. This is something we've accepted for software - the implicit acknowledgement that people can misuse our work. You can say that political messages within documentation are too important to risk - but that still rules out adapting them to a given individual's circumstances. Whether for good or bad, people can't build upon your work. In my opinion (and in my experience, the opinion of everybody who's read the GNU FDL), this makes Invariant sections non-Free. Since they can't be removed and replaced with something that *can* be adapted to people's needs, that makes the documents which use them non-Free as well. Again, in my opnion :) I have spent many years fighting for freedom, and I continue to stand up for my views. I have stated the above views in speeches many times, though here I have gone further into the reasoning behind them. My views are not the most extreme possible (though my detractors often call them extreme), and it appears you have views that are more radical than mine. I have always tried to be a pragmatic idealist. While I have your ear; much ado has been made about Invariant sections, but I have some other questions about the GNU FDL. I'll just start with one; if the conversation is productive I'll go into the others. I'm not sure I understand 2. VERBATIM COPYING. To quote, You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the copies you make or distribute. Realistically, in the legal system, how would this be interpreted? Specifically, if I stored the document on an encrypted filesystem, for instance, might I be in violation of that clause? (Or were I to transmit it in an encrypted fasion?) This is a real-world scenario for me, and a quick check with some others indicates that it's not just me. There's another scenario; for instance, if I had a Free operating system and Free applications for a low-resource environment (say, a PDA), I may wish to munge the document in some way that's uncommon. A compression routine that wasn't particularily standard, for instance. Would the author of the document be able to convince a court (realistically) that that munging amounts to a technical measure to control the reading of the document? (Yeah, I know, two seperate scenarios - they're also two seperate questions :) Thanks very much for your time. pgpdaJs3HS4mk.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
John Holroyd [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: FWIW I think RMS is right to insist that others cannot modify his political comments, but I think you are right to say that unmodifiable comments and texts (UTs) have no place being mandatorily included in the functional world of Free Software. Personally, I found a lot of the GNU philosophical texts included in emacs to be very interesting and educational, they led me to the GNU and Debian projects, it would be a shame to remove them simply to prove a point when they are fundamental in helping new users to understand the basis of the Free Software movement. Would a possible answer be that distribution of the UTs is not mandatory, so purely functional versions of the package can be distributed, but if the UTs are distributed then they remain unmodifiable? It looks like a sensible compromise to me. A fair number of people (like me) think that this would be a reasonable answer and a sensible compromise. (Although, to be fair, a fair number of others think that philosophical texts demand modifiability to be free.) Unfortunately, RMS has said NO by means of the GNU FDL. So-called invariant sections simply cannot be removed, which is what got our attention in the first place. This is the point on which Debian has consensus and cannot compromise. Unremovable material tied to functional manuals is pernicious. RMS said: These sections are consistent with freedom because practically speaking they don't stop people from making the software do what they want it to do, or the making the manual the manual teach what they want it to teach. Many examples have been given for why this is *false*, and they're pretty much all tied to the *non-removability* rather than the non-modifiability. Should we repeat them again? --Nathanael
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Barak Pearlmutter said: lots of important and correct stuff snipped Simply make the GFDL be GPL compatible, the same way the LGPL was. Add a clause saying that the covered materials can be construed as source code and used under the GPL; and that the invariant sections should, under such circumstances, be regarded as materials simply accompanying the GPLed technical materials but not themselves covered by the GPL, like the essays that accompany the GNU Emacs source code. At the risk of saying Me too, Me too. This solution would deal with the primary, most troublesome problem with the GFDL. (As another example of how it would deal with the problems brought up: the proposed GNU Emacs reference card wouldn't have to include monster invariant sections on the back of the card; it would simply be licensed under the GPL, and distributed only along with a copy of the GPL. The only added text on the card would be the copyright notice and the usual This reference card is free. You can use it under the terms of the GNU General Public license...)
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
When people think that invariant sections cause a practical problem, they tend to be overlooking something--either the scenario is unrealistic anyway, or the problem can be solved. When we make decisions in the GNU Project about what counts as free software, or free documentation, they are based looking at freedom as a practical question, not as an abstract mathematical one. As a practical consequence, I can't make a reference card from the Emacs manual, The invariant sections make no practical difference to this scenario, because the license itself is 6 pages, which already would not fit on a reference card. But that the issue is a moot point, because a reference card would use so little of the text of the manual that it would be fair use. In fact, the very idea that a reference card is derived from the manual in copyright terms seems like an unrealistic idea. nor can I extract bits for online help in Emacs itself. If they were small bits, that too would be fair use. You can use the manual in its entirety, and have Emacs display parts of the manual. That is the best approach technically if you are using a substantial part. Either way, there is no problem. The idea of merging the documentation into the software is in general a purely academic issue--a hoop that there is no reason to jump through. It is always better to keep the manual separate and have the program display it, as in fact Emacs already does in sophisticated ways. More fundamentally, the argument that I can't merge A with B so A is non-free is generally invalid. That criterion is simply wrong, because there are many cases when you can't merge a free program A with a free program B. For instance, you can't merge Emacs with TeX, or TeX with Emacs, because their licenses are incompatible. This is despite the fact that they are both free licenses. Incompatibility of licenses is a significant practical inconvenience, and we have sometimes made changes for the sake of compatibility, but mere inconvenience doesn't make a license non-free.
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
But in more practical terms even, political speech is very functional -- it's meant to persuade and educate. By the same token it can have bugs (typos or poor phraseology), malware (screeds advocating racism, or encouraging people to kill themselves), and can be improved and/or adapted to new purposes. The difference, if there is one, is that it is executed by our minds rather than our computers. Programmers often approach issues by looking for the similarities between a large number of cases, and trying to generalize as far as possible. That is a useful approach for thinking about software, but when applied to ethical questions, it is very likely to miss the point. The differences are often more important than the similarities. Analogies are often irrelevant. A political essay is (typically) written by certain persons to persuade the public of a certain position. If it is modified, it does not do its job. So it makes sense, socially, to say that these cannot be modified. We could imagine an analogous situation for a program: certain persons writing a program to do a job on other people's computers in one particular way and only that way. They could say that if it can be modified, it does not do the job. These situations are analogous, but the ethics of the two situations are different. The essay does not really do a job for the reader. You read it, you think, and then you formulate your own views. If you want to think differently from the authors, you can just do it--a modified essay isn't necessary. No version of that essay is necessary. The situation with the program is different. It runs on your computer, rather than communicating to your mind. If you want your computer to do a somewhat different job, you need to change the program (or else write a new one from zero). I have spent many years fighting for freedom, and I continue to stand up for my views. I have stated the above views in speeches many times, though here I have gone further into the reasoning behind them. My views are not the most extreme possible (though my detractors often call them extreme), and it appears you have views that are more radical than mine. I have always tried to be a pragmatic idealist.
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Richard Stallman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: When people think that invariant sections cause a practical problem, they tend to be overlooking something--either the scenario is unrealistic anyway, or the problem can be solved. When we make decisions in the GNU Project about what counts as free software, or free documentation, they are based looking at freedom as a practical question, not as an abstract mathematical one. As a practical consequence, I can't make a reference card from the Emacs manual, The invariant sections make no practical difference to this scenario, because the license itself is 6 pages, which already would not fit on a reference card. The GFDL is broken in so many ways. That is just one more way. The GPL (and all of the other free licenses that I can think of) allows you to _accompany_ the license with the covered material. The GFDL requires the license to be _included_ in the material. I (and others, I think) raised this point during the comment period for GFDL 1.2, but the license was not fixed. But that the issue is a moot point, because a reference card would use so little of the text of the manual that it would be fair use. In fact, the very idea that a reference card is derived from the manual in copyright terms seems like an unrealistic idea. You obviously haven't looked at reference cards recently. They can be quite dense, with lots of little type, far more than is allowed by fair use. nor can I extract bits for online help in Emacs itself. If they were small bits, that too would be fair use. You can use the manual in its entirety, and have Emacs display parts of the manual. That is the best approach technically if you are using a substantial part. Either way, there is no problem. The idea of merging the documentation into the software is in general a purely academic issue--a hoop that there is no reason to jump through. It is always better to keep the manual separate and have the program display it, as in fact Emacs already does in sophisticated ways. I work on a piece of GPL'd software that has significant amounts of hard-coded online documentation [1]. It also has a GFDL'd manual inherited from the original implementor. I can't improve the manual by including the online documentation, and I can't improve the online documentation by using the manual. Are you saying that I just have to rewrite the manual or online documentation? I thought I was working on free software, where I don't have to jump through these kinds of hoops? This is a real problem for me personally, and I really wish that you would stop encouraging people to use non-free licenses on documentation. I don't understand why you've been so good about ensuring freedom for software and so terrible about ensuring freedom for documentation. It it hadn't been the _GNU_ FDL, this obviously unfree license would have been ignored. Regards, Walter Landry [EMAIL PROTECTED] [1] http://arx.fifthvision.net
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Hi Richard Stallman, The idea of merging the documentation into the software is in general a purely academic issue--a hoop that there is no reason to jump through. It is always better to keep the manual separate and have the program display it, as in fact Emacs already does in sophisticated ways. Would you mind stating for the record that the creation of context-sensitive help and other sophisticated ways of presenting GNU GFDL documentation does not lead to issues with GPL compatibility because it creates no situation of a derived work through dynamic linking with software. A lot of us would be very happy to learn that we can present GNU GFDL documentation in sophisticated ways without any concerns about software licence compatibility with the GFDL. [And this also goes the other way. Please also state for the record that one may annotate vast screeds of GNU GPL code in GNU GFDL documentation and the mere fact the licences are incompatible is no more than a purely academic issue because it is always better to keep a manual separate from code.] Frankly this claim that it is always better to keep the manual separate--as if it is always better to keep data separate from code--is a shocking and nonsensical claim from someone with such a distinguished Lisp background as yourself. I suppose for your next trick you'll claim ignorance of what Knuth achieved with literate programming. Don't think you can treat us all like fools by glossing over sound methodologies of documentation and software engineering in order to push the mandatory inclusion of your political texts. Regards, Adam Warner
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Richard Stallman [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: A political essay is (typically) written by certain persons to persuade the public of a certain position. If it is modified, it does not do its job. So it makes sense, socially, to say that these cannot be modified. This may be true of some political speech; I'm not sure enough in my own mind to give a definitive answer one way or the other. (For example, how much of this is due to conflating the role of the text for the author with the role of the text for the reader? The job of the text for society and the job of the text for the author are not necessarily the same.) But changing political speech is only part of the issue. That political speech is also, in the form of invariant sections, being irrevocably attached to technical, more obviously functional speech. Thus we're also concerned with the ability to modify the documentation itself. One example that was raised in discussions here that you may not have heard, is that of taking documentation for one purpose and combining it into a greater work with a new purpose, such that the invariant texts are no longer secondary. The essay does not really do a job for the reader. You read it, you think, and then you formulate your own views. If you want to think differently from the authors, you can just do it--a modified essay isn't necessary. On an individual level, what you say may be true. But there is still a benefit for society if the work can be modified and redistributed. I have spent many years fighting for freedom, and I continue to stand up for my views. I have stated the above views in speeches many times, though here I have gone further into the reasoning behind them. My views are not the most extreme possible (though my detractors often call them extreme), and it appears you have views that are more radical than mine. I have always tried to be a pragmatic idealist. Certainly, and I didn't mean to give the impression that I doubt that you continue to stand up for your views. But nonetheless I think that invariant sections are a compromise with freedom, and that when more people than just the FSF are adding invariant sections to documents the interests of Free Software will be damaged. -- Jeremy Hankins [EMAIL PROTECTED] PGP fingerprint: 748F 4D16 538E 75D6 8333 9E10 D212 B5ED 37D0 0A03
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
J?r?me Marant said: En r?ponse ? Branden Robinson [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Fri, May 16, 2003 at 09:37:31AM +0200, J?r?me Marant wrote: What is the best way to convince GNU people to change their licenses? (without being pissed of, that is). I'm not sure GNU people need to be convinced. The only person I know of who has come out in vigorous defense of the GNU FDL is Richard Stallman. (Georg Greve does also agree) It seems to be. But if so, why do they seem not to try to convince him? Well. There are several categories of GNU People. If you mean contributors to FSF-copyrighted projects, then these are the views I've seen: 1. The FDL is repugnantly non-free. We tried to convince RMS, who runs the FSF as his personal fiefdom, and he wouldn't listen. What can we do now? (There are a fair number of us in this category.) 2. I don't care about documentation licensing. 3. I don't care about documentation at all. 4. I don't care about freedom of software or documentation, as long as I can use it. (This is a surprising collection of people, who simply use GCC or Autoconf, for example, and want to help out, but would probably do the same for Microsoft Windows if they could. Linus Torvalds would belong in this category...) 5. If RMS says it, it must be right. (Mostly the uninformed. A few others.) 6. Having a legal guarantee that RMS's screeds are attached to the corresponding manuals is more important than the downside. A little tiny bit more important. (This doesn't seem to be many people, and they don't seem to feel too strongly about it.) 7. Invariant sections aren't free, but RMS is so insistent that we shouldn't bother to complain, because it isn't that important. 8. No comment. (I have no idea what these people think.) -- If you mean FSF employees, there aren't very many and they generally defer to RMS, as far as I can tell. If you mean people who operate GNU projects *not* under FSF copyright, I don't know any of their opinions. Sorry. :-) --Nathanael
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Richard Stallman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It makes no sense to apply the same standards to political and legal text as to technical material. Ethically they are different situations. Software and documentation are functional works--they exist to do a job. The users have a right to control the functional material so they can make it do the jobs they want to do. This reason doesn't apply to political statements. I put my political essays under a license that permits only verbatim copying because in my view that's proper for for political essays. That's fine when your political essay is distributed by itself. When you include it and its license into a functional work, don't you agree that you have tainted the functional work? It was clear from an early stage that companies might package parts of GNU with non-free software and would present the non-free software to the users as something legitimate and desirable. (This problem is getting bigger, not smaller: today, nearly all packagers of GNU/Linux distribute non-free software with it and try to argue it is a good thing.) But you are doing the same thing by tainting the free work with non-free content. You are packaging non-free components with free ones. Worse, you have tainted the free work and it can't be separated and become free again. At least I can separate out the GPL'ed bits from the package that a compagny might ship along with non-free parts. So we had to search for ways to make sure that our message saying non-free software is wrong would at least be present in the GNU packages that they redistribute. We did this by putting invariant political statements into programs and manuals. In programs, these statements are included in the license text, in the preamble to the GPL. In manuals, they are separate sections. They still introduce non-freeness into a free work, whether you find the reason justifiable or not. When we make decisions in the GNU Project about what counts as free software, or free documentation, they are based looking at freedom as a practical question, not as an abstract mathematical one. As a practical consequence, I can't make a reference card from the Emacs manual, nor can I extract bits for online help in Emacs itself. Since the Emacs Info interface links into the docs, I wonder whether the combination is allowed under Emacs' license. These sections are consistent with freedom because practically speaking they don't stop people from making the software do what they want it to do, or the making the manual the manual teach what they want it to teach. Yes they do. You can't merge the docs into software and you can't make a reference card from the manual content. Peter
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
On Wed, May 21, 2003 at 02:33:19AM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: On Tue, May 20, 2003 at 09:21:13PM -0700, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: I would point out that the FSF has rewritten its views as well. For example, I protested that the FSF's acceptance of invariant sections contradicted its own reasing in the why free manuals are important document; the result was that the FSF changed the document. Do you have the previous version of the document? I'd like to prepare a word diff of the old and new versions, and preserve it for posterity. You can easily do that using the viewcvs interface to www.gnu.org http://savannah.gnu.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs/?cvsroot=www.gnu.org I've failed to find the document why free manuals are important that Thomas Bushnell refers. Can he point out in viewcvs the two versions where the alleged change of the document occurred and some prove of the correlation with his protest? Regards, Jaime Villate
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Richard Stallman [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: It makes no sense to apply the same standards to political and legal text as to technical material. Ethically they are different situations. Software and documentation are functional works--they exist to do a job. The users have a right to control the functional material so they can make it do the jobs they want to do. This reason doesn't apply to political statements. I put my political essays under a license that permits only verbatim copying because in my view that's proper for for political essays. Philosophically, that speech isn't functional is controversial claim. See (the later works of) Witgenstein, for example, for an interesting view on the subject. But in more practical terms even, political speech is very functional -- it's meant to persuade and educate. By the same token it can have bugs (typos or poor phraseology), malware (screeds advocating racism, or encouraging people to kill themselves), and can be improved and/or adapted to new purposes. The difference, if there is one, is that it is executed by our minds rather than our computers. Just because IBM, Sun, or even MS, release software I like and admire, doesn't mean I should be willing to give up freedom in order to use it. But that is exactly what you're asking us to do by distributing non-free documents tied to documentation (if not to software as well). Frankly, this whole episode saddens me tremendously. I have the utmost respect for you and the work you've done, but I simply can't agree with you on this issue. It has always been very comforting to know that you were out there, fighting for free software, and refusing to compromise. That's gone now, however this issue works out. -- Jeremy Hankins [EMAIL PROTECTED] PGP fingerprint: 748F 4D16 538E 75D6 8333 9E10 D212 B5ED 37D0 0A03
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
On Fri, 23 May 2003 12:01:12 -0400, Jeremy Hankins wrote: Frankly, this whole episode saddens me tremendously. I have the utmost respect for you and the work you've done, but I simply can't agree with you on this issue. It has always been very comforting to know that you were out there, fighting for free software, and refusing to compromise. That's gone now, however this issue works out. While I agree with the stance that this documentation is not, in fact, Free, I'd like to point out that the GFDL does not reflect any change in RMS's stance: the Emacs manual has always been licensed with invariant sections, for instance. Richard Stallman's idea of Freedom might differ from yours, but it hasn't changed very much. Peace, Dylan pgpnvv4X3AyQN.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Jaime E . Villate [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, May 21, 2003 at 02:33:19AM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: On Tue, May 20, 2003 at 09:21:13PM -0700, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: I would point out that the FSF has rewritten its views as well. For example, I protested that the FSF's acceptance of invariant sections contradicted its own reasing in the why free manuals are important document; the result was that the FSF changed the document. Do you have the previous version of the document? I'd like to prepare a word diff of the old and new versions, and preserve it for posterity. You can easily do that using the viewcvs interface to www.gnu.org http://savannah.gnu.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs/?cvsroot=www.gnu.org I've failed to find the document why free manuals are important that Thomas Bushnell refers. Can he point out in viewcvs the two versions where the alleged change of the document occurred and some prove of the correlation with his protest? Well, that document is free-doc.html, so: http://savannah.gnu.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs/philosophy/free-doc.html?cvsroot=www.gnu.org CVS begins Feb 13 2001. The first version is pretty much the same as the first. Did this happens before 2001?
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
On Fri, May 23, 2003 at 12:01:12PM -0400, Jeremy Hankins wrote: Philosophically, that speech isn't functional is controversial claim. It's not functional for Derrida and others of his ilk. For most other people, it certainly is. You'd better hope the speech of, say, air traffic controllers is functional! -- G. Branden Robinson|If you make people think they're Debian GNU/Linux |thinking, they'll love you; but if [EMAIL PROTECTED] |you really make them think, they'll http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |hate you. pgpIoIzZfrwWS.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
On Fri, 2003-05-23 at 19:37, Branden Robinson wrote: Philosophically, that speech isn't functional is controversial claim. It's not functional for Derrida and others of his ilk. For most other people, it certainly is. You'd better hope the speech of, say, air traffic controllers is functional! I do get what your saying, Orwell used his Newspeak to divide this kind of thing into Speech and Technical Speech, one provides material for debate and personal opinion the other provides a functional description of events or actions. It seems to fit right to me. FWIW I think RMS is right to insist that others cannot modify his political comments, but I think you are right to say that unmodifiable comments and texts (UTs) have no place being mandatorily included in the functional world of Free Software. Personally, I found a lot of the GNU philosophical texts included in emacs to be very interesting and educational, they led me to the GNU and Debian projects, it would be a shame to remove them simply to prove a point when they are fundamental in helping new users to understand the basis of the Free Software movement. Would a possible answer be that distribution of the UTs is not mandatory, so purely functional versions of the package can be distributed, but if the UTs are distributed then they remain unmodifiable? It looks like a sensible compromise to me. -- John Holroyd [EMAIL PROTECTED] Demos Technosis Ltd signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Dylan Thurston [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: While I agree with the stance that this documentation is not, in fact, Free, I'd like to point out that the GFDL does not reflect any change in RMS's stance: the Emacs manual has always been licensed with invariant sections, for instance. Richard Stallman's idea of Freedom might differ from yours, but it hasn't changed very much. I realize that. But, at the very least, I wasn't aware of his position before this came out however many months ago. And what's more, I think it's fair to say that he's taking a more obvious stand on the issue than he did before. Not that I'm saying that this is a new agenda on his part or anything, but the licensing of documentation has become a bigger issue than it once was. -- Jeremy Hankins [EMAIL PROTECTED] PGP fingerprint: 748F 4D16 538E 75D6 8333 9E10 D212 B5ED 37D0 0A03
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
On Fri, May 23, 2003 at 03:08:36PM +0200, Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote: So we had to search for ways to make sure that our message saying non-free software is wrong would at least be present in the GNU packages that they redistribute. We did this by putting invariant political statements into programs and manuals. In programs, these statements are included in the license text, in the preamble to the GPL. In manuals, they are separate sections. I'm sure that no Debian developer will object to a blurb about the importance of freedom for software. Noone here will regret his inability to remove that blurb. Uhm, yes we will. Somebody already mentioned the case where you are trying to create a reference card containing excerpts from the documentation, but suddenly have to drag around several pages of extra crud. It's exactly the same practical problem as posed by the old BSD advertising clause. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | Dept. of Computing, `. `' | Imperial College, `- -- | London, UK pgpD9mfCm31n1.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
A number of people have said some intemperate things in this thread, but I really think that this comes down to a matter of 90% miscommunication, and 10% differences in circumstances. I believe that a meeting of minds should be possible, since we share the exact same goal here: WHAT IS BEST FOR FREE SOFTWARE. Debian insists that all which it distributes be free, under a single definition which does not require asking whether a given bit of text is technical or political. Can you help us find a suitable definition for that? It makes no sense to apply the same standards to political and legal text as to technical material. Ethically they are different situations. This issue is, I believe, a red herring. To my mind the question we ask should not be concerning the existence of political essays, or the inappropriateness of people revising them without permission, or even their being carried along in the free software distribution chain. The issue here is subtly different - it is that (as I hope is explained below) in the particular case of the GFDL such invariant essays interfere with the functional freedom of the documentation they accompany. I put my political essays under a license that permits only verbatim copying because in my view that's proper for for political essays. That seems entirely reasonable. (One danger is that essays can become outdated. That is not so bad in a magazine, but is a bit of a PR problem when they enjoy distribution along with source code, eg in the GNU Emacs sources. So---just a suggestion---it might be a good idea to regularly re-evaluate the rhetorical effictiveness and timeliness of such materials.) It was clear from an early stage that companies might package parts of GNU with non-free software and would present the non-free software to the users as something legitimate and desirable. (This problem is getting bigger, not smaller: today, nearly all packagers of GNU/Linux distribute non-free software with it and try to argue it is a good thing.) So we had to search for ways to make sure that our message saying non-free software is wrong would at least be present in the GNU packages that they redistribute. We did this by putting invariant political statements into programs and manuals. In programs, these statements are included in the license text, in the preamble to the GPL. In manuals, they are separate sections. When we make decisions in the GNU Project about what counts as free software, or free documentation, they are based looking at freedom as a practical question, not as an abstract mathematical one. That seems like a good way of looking at these issues. You are trying to make the best possible copyleft for these things. I don't think there's any real disagreement about that goal. There is instead a tactical question, of how free software can be best supported via a copyleft on its free documentation. There are also some practical questions about how documentation can best be copylefted. These sections are consistent with freedom because practically speaking they don't stop people from making the software do what they want it to do, or the making the manual the manual teach what they want it to teach. This is the heart of the matter. They don't stop the FSF in such endeavors, because the FSF holds copyright to the whole ball of wax. So you probably have not encountered, or even thought of, the problems I'm about to describe. After all, they do not affect you. But *as treated by the GFDL* these invariant section do, as a practical matter, dramatically interfere with the freedom of others to utilize the covered materials as free documentation for free software. Here are some xerox printer control software kinds of scenarios that I hope will make the issues explicit. (For each there is an implicit and share the result with my friends, of course.) I wanted to add online help to a GPLed program using text from the GFDLed manual that came with the program ... but I *couldn't* because of the *license*! (Of course *you* can, RMS. But only because you hold the copyright, so you're not bound by the letter of the license. This simple act is forbidden by the GFDL.) I wanted to combine materials from two GNU manuals into a single manual, but it *wasn't allowed* (incompatible cover texts, or the union of the two sets of invariant sections was too burdensome.) I wanted to make a BSD DIFF manual by editing the GNU DIFF manual, but I *couldn't* (cover texts say GNU which wouldn't be accurate). An invariant section was outdated/inappropriate/incorrect but could not be removed. I wanted to snip a long section from a GFDLed manual into my GPLed program debian-bug.el, but I couldn't. (This one actually happened.) I modified the texinfo documentation for GNU Emacs, and now I'm not sure if I can distribute them together (because the info pages and the executable make a single coherent work but the
Re: Removal of non-free (was Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long))
On Thu, 2003-05-22 at 00:04, Simon Law wrote: Is it an appropriate time to reconsider its mention in Section 4 of our Social Contract? No. Wait until the voting GR is over. Then propose the get rid of non-free GR.
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Branden Robinson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, May 20, 2003 at 09:53:25PM -0400, Richard Stallman wrote: The GNU FDL does many other things, but you raised the issue of invariant sections, so my response focused on that issue. Just so you know, the Debian Project is also concerned about: 1) Cover Texts[1] 2) Acknowledgements and Dedications sections, which share the same problem as Invariant Sections 3) the restrictions on copying in quantity; would similar restrictions on copying of software be Free, in your view? 4) the restriction that You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the copies you make or distribute[2] 5) The artificial distinction between opaque and transparent copies. For example, a document licensed under the GFDL can not be converted to use the Lyx or Openoffice format. Regards, Walter Landry [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Richard Stallman [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Finally, would you consider a manual that used the GNU FDL -- or claimed to do so -- which marked a non-Secondary Section as Invariant to be Free as in freedom? No, it is not free. If any GNU package contains such a manual, please send a bug report to the maintainers and CC me. This is a problem with the GFDL, which I hope the lawyers can straighten out. The GPL has the nice property that if you apply it to your work, you can't make mistakes: the result is always free, if you really had the copyright to begin with. The GFDL has the property that you can make mistakes: that there are ways in which, if you apply it to your works, the result is not free (using your more permissive definition of free). Can you see if the lawyers can find a way to redraft it so that an author can be sure that if he applies it to his work, the result will always be free? There are two problems that come from this: First, a free-software-friend might use it but make a mistake, accidentally making something non-free. Second, a nefarious bad person might say our documentation is GFDL, and therefore free, when in fact it's not free because they have marked a non-Secondary section as Invariant. Thomas
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Richard Stallman [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I hope Debian won't adopt your views, but if it does, it won't be the first disagreement between Debian and the FSF. Debian wrote its own definition of free software which is different from ours. We also disagree about Debian's practice of distributing and recommending non-free software. I would point out that the FSF has rewritten its views as well. For example, I protested that the FSF's acceptance of invariant sections contradicted its own reasing in the why free manuals are important document; the result was that the FSF changed the document. Debian insists that all which it distributes be free, under a single definition which does not require asking whether a given bit of text is technical or political. Can you help us find a suitable definition for that?
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Richard Stallman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] We also disagree about Debian's practice of distributing and recommending non-free software. I'm sorry, but can you justify this statement, please? For part of Debian to recommend non-free software is a breach of policy, which says that Debian packages:-- must not declare a Depends, Recommends, or Build-Depends relationship on a non-main package, (from http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-archive.html#s-pkgcopyright) main packages are the only things that are part of Debian. If Debian has Recommends for a non-free software, then it is a bug and must be corrected. As to the Debian infrastructure being used to distribute non-free software, I sympathise and hope that will be changed eventually. I would not be effective if I tried to do so now. Regardless, this is unrelated to FDL, except that some FDL works will probably be using that same infrastructure for distributing non-free software, unless something changes. -- MJR http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ IM: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This is my home web site. This for Jabber Messaging. How's my writing? Let me know via any of my contact details.
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Richard Stallman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Your message repeated over and over that you think the GFDL isn't free, but didn't even try to justify that claim. I continue to believe that the GNU FDL is a free documentation license. This is not the question. Do you believe that the GNU FDL is a free *software* licence? -- MJR
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
On Tue, May 20, 2003 at 09:21:13PM -0700, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: I would point out that the FSF has rewritten its views as well. For example, I protested that the FSF's acceptance of invariant sections contradicted its own reasing in the why free manuals are important document; the result was that the FSF changed the document. Do you have the previous version of the document? I'd like to prepare a word diff of the old and new versions, and preserve it for posterity. -- G. Branden Robinson| Never underestimate the power of Debian GNU/Linux | human stupidity. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | -- Robert Heinlein http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | pgpQZ8ZU2kTMZ.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
On Tue, May 20, 2003 at 09:53:25PM -0400, Richard Stallman wrote: The GNU FDL does many other things, but you raised the issue of invariant sections, so my response focused on that issue. Just so you know, the Debian Project is also concerned about: 1) Cover Texts[1] 2) Acknowledgements and Dedications sections, which share the same problem as Invariant Sections 3) the restrictions on copying in quantity; would similar restrictions on copying of software be Free, in your view? 4) the restriction that You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the copies you make or distribute[2] I therefore did not mention other points about the GFDL which are not relevant to that issue. When you criticize those omissions, you are in effect criticizing me for doing what you asked me to do. I apologize if I gave the impression that Invariant Sections were the only trait of the GNU FDL that the Debian Project finds problematic. This is not the case. Debian has spent much of the last month preparing a document that more exhaustively documents our concerns with the license. Could you offer me some criteria for evaluating the terms pedantic and minor? That would be an unnecessary digression. I used those words to make a particular point, and I think my point was clear enough. I've provided several examples of the pattern of argument I am talking about. (Two in the last message, one above, and this one.) The pattern should be clear. Another applicable term is quibbling. I'm not going to respond to the quibbles. Well, all right, but this makes it more difficult for me to dismiss substantive objections from dismissive or belittling remarks. I don't think invariant sections are wrong, and you haven't convinced me they are wrong. I daresay that's not the issue. Debian doesn't care whether invariant sections are wrong, per se; we primarily care whether or not they are Free. Our answer to date is a pretty confident no. People have cited inconveniences, and I agree they are inconveniences, but not major ones. This is not enough to make the license non-free. You must understand that Debian hears this same sort of argument from all sorts of people who want to get non-free licenses approved as DFSG-free by the Debian Project, and I feel confident that the FSF has no shortage of experience with such assertions as well. Oh, sure, it's a little inconvenient, but it's not incovenient enough to matter. Could you share with us your criteria for what constitutes an onerous, freedom-impairing inconvenience from a non-onerous, non-freedom-impairing one? If you could that would remove a lot of subjectivity from this sort of analysis. I hope Debian won't adopt your views, but if it does, it won't be the first disagreement between Debian and the FSF. Debian wrote its own definition of free software which is different from ours. I must correct you there. As a long flamewar between the Debian Project and the Open Source Initiative made clear, the Debian Project doesn't explicitly have a definition of Free Software at all. What we have are Free Software *guidelines* -- a set of propositions, if you will, which we evaluate in the context of a given license. If a proposition fails, the license is probably not Free. However, even if all the propositions succeed, the license still may not be Free. It may be unfree in a way we didn't think of when drafting the DFSG. The Debian Social Contract is explicit about this approach: We promise to keep the Debian GNU/Linux Distribution entirely free software. As there are many definitions of free software, we include the guidelines we use to determine if software is free below.[3] The Debian Project does not explicitly endorse any particular *definition* of Free Software, however I have argued in the past that the FSF's definition of it is highly useful. I don't know of a more compelling one, though perhaps someday one may be developed. We also disagree about Debian's practice of distributing and recommending non-free software. A lot of people within the Debian Project disagree with it as well. Debian is not a monolithic entity. There have been efforts over the years to try to eliminate the non-free section from our archives, but to date those efforts have failed. If it turns out that the FSF is unwilling to hold its documentation to the same standards of freedom to which it holds its software, some GNU manuals may be moved to the non-free section, which will, I feel sure, not do anything to help the cause of those who'd rather the Debian Project stopped distributing that section. [1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/debian-legal-200304/msg00460.html [2] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2002/debian-legal-200212/msg00061.html [3] http://www.debian.org/social_contract -- G. Branden Robinson| Debian GNU/Linux | If existence exists,
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
On Tue, May 20, 2003 at 09:53:27PM -0400, Richard Stallman wrote: Is the FSF willing to dual-license manuals that previously had no invariant sections at all, such as _Debugging with GDB_, under the GNU FDL and the traditional GNU documentation license simultaneously? I don't see a reason to do so, but I won't absolutely rule it out. Well, frankly, it would be accomodating to the Debian Project. I might be able to offer you more principled reasons to do so if I understood what potential harm you see in dual-licensing manuals that have no invariant sections. I guess the answer to that depends on what valuable traits you see the GNU FDL-without-Invariant-Sections as having over the traditional GNU documentation license. Finally, would you consider a manual that used the GNU FDL -- or claimed to do so -- which marked a non-Secondary Section as Invariant to be Free as in freedom? No, it is not free. If any GNU package contains such a manual, please send a bug report to the maintainers and CC me. (I sent mail to the GDB maintainers to inquire about the GDB manual situation, but I have not seen an answer yet.) As of Version 5 (May 2000), the GDB manual had no invariant sections at all. Now it does: Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the Invariant Sections being Free Software and Free Software Needs Free Documentation, with the Front-Cover Texts being A GNU Manual, and with the Back-Cover Texts as in (a) below. (a) The Free Software Foundation's Back-Cover Text is: You have freedom to copy and modify this GNU Manual, like GNU software. Copies published by the Free Software Foundation raise funds for GNU development. Is it the FSF's policy to add Invariant Sections to GNU Manuals, event those that did not have invariant sections under their previous licenses? Is it the FSF's policy to add Cover Texts to GNU Manuals? -- G. Branden Robinson|People are equally horrified at Debian GNU/Linux |hearing the Christian religion [EMAIL PROTECTED] |doubted, and at seeing it http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |practiced. -- Samuel Butler pgp8cUYg83wfq.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
RMS, There are a few questions from previous mails that I consider important, which you elided from your replies. I am intensely interested in your answers to these questions, and I would greatly appreciate it if you could take some time to answer them. Your answers to my other questions have been, for the most part, quite elucidating. Thank you. [RMS:] I thought about the ethics of this issue long ago, and decided that invariant sections are legitimate. Where is your ethical analysis articulated? It would be particularly helpful if you would explain if and why the arguments presented in http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html do not apply to documentation as they do to software. [RMS:] We want to encourage widespread use of the FDL for two reasons: 1. It leads to a pool of text that can be copied between manuals. 2. It is (or at least ought to be) good for helping commercial publishers succeed publishing free manuals. I do not understand how the traditional GNU documentation license, without their proto-invariant sections, does not achieve either of the above goals. Perhaps there are other reasons, not enumerated above, that you would like to see the GNU FDL widely adopted? Those are our goals for wanting the GNU FDL to be widely used, but those are not our only goals in choosing licenses for our manuals. What are the other goals? -- G. Branden Robinson|It was a typical net.exercise -- a Debian GNU/Linux |screaming mob pounding on a greasy [EMAIL PROTECTED] |spot on the pavement, where used to http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |lie the carcass of a dead horse. pgp8wv8OmCvag.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
On Wed, May 21, 2003 at 02:32:25AM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: Well, all right, but this makes it more difficult for me to dismiss substantive objections from dismissive or belittling remarks. Err, s/to dismiss/to distingush/ I apologize for the error. -- G. Branden Robinson| Never attribute to malice that Debian GNU/Linux | which can be adequately explained [EMAIL PROTECTED] | by stupidity. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | pgp9L4DOwzBQu.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
On Wed, May 21, 2003 at 07:29:46AM -, MJ Ray wrote: Richard Stallman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] We also disagree about Debian's practice of distributing and recommending non-free software. I'm sorry, but can you justify this statement, please? That we distribute it is uncontroversial. I believe RMS has asserted in the past that the very fact that we distribute it constitutes a tacit endorsement, and thus a recommendation. I say this just to save RMS the trouble of addressing the point, if I have characterized his position accurately. In my opinion, there is some merit to the argument that distribution constitutes tacit endorsement, whether RMS personally shares that view or not. -- G. Branden Robinson| There's no trick to being a Debian GNU/Linux | humorist when you have the whole [EMAIL PROTECTED] | government working for you. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Will Rogers pgptwgg5vkJZp.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
On Mon, May 19, 2003 at 10:54:36AM -0400, Richard Stallman wrote: You raised one point that I am concerned about: * Debugging with GDB; GDB version 5 May 2000[1] [1] This manual is an interesting case because it started out with no invariant sections at all, but later adopted the GNU FDL and marked non-Secondary Sections as Invariant[3], which RMS said was not permitted[4]. I will investigate this, and if a non-Secondary section has indeed been marked as invariant, I will make sure that is corrected. To forestall confusion... This has already been investigated and corrected. The GDB manual used to have A Sample GDB Session marked Invariant, and the stabs manual which accompanied it had Stabs Types and Stabs Sections marked Invariant. This was brought to the FSF's attention (including yours, I thought!) during our previous round of discussion about the GFDL, and was corrected soon afterward. Richard Braakman
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
On Fri, May 16, 2003 at 09:37:31AM +0200, Jérôme Marant wrote: What is the best way to convince GNU people to change their licenses? (without being pissed of, that is). I'm not sure GNU people need to be convinced. The only person I know of who has come out in vigorous defense of the GNU FDL is Richard Stallman. -- G. Branden Robinson| There is no gravity in space. Debian GNU/Linux | Then how could astronauts walk [EMAIL PROTECTED] | around on the Moon? http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | Because they wore heavy boots. pgpcVtgIptKuR.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
On Mon, May 19, 2003 at 10:54:36AM -0400, Richard Stallman wrote: Not consistently. The GNU FDL is a licensing initiative that is apparently intended to be used for all FSF documentation. The traditional GNU documentation license did not always include Invariant Sections. In the past, some of our manuals included invariant sections and some did not. Today that is still the case. However, in the past we needed an ad hoc license to have invariant sections. What changed with the GFDL is that it is a single license that covers both cases. The GNU FDL does more than that. There are freedoms people could exercise under the traditional GNU documentation license that people can no longer exercise, even in the absence of Invariant Sections. For instance, the traditional GNU documentation license doesn't say anything about Endorsements, Acknowledgements, Dedications, or special actions that must be taken in the event of copying in quantity. You did not offer very specific rebuttals to any Debian forum of which I'm aware.[2] Arguing with you is not useful. You make many pedantic attacks about minor points. See above for one example; here's a second, from the same message: Could you offer me some criteria for evaluating the terms pedantic and minor? I take freedom very seriously; I do not regard it as a minor issue, nor do I regard disagreements over its exercise as pedantic in general. Also, I admit to distress at your characterization of my questions as attacks. If I have given personal offense, I apologize, and I'd like to know what I can alter in the tone of my messages to stop doing so. I trust that you do not consider a critical analysis of the GNU Free Documentation License as ipso facto an attack, whether on the FSF or you personally. [RMS said:] We want to encourage widespread use of the FDL for two reasons: 1. It leads to a pool of text that can be copied between manuals. 2. It is (or at least ought to be) good for helping commercial publishers succeed publishing free manuals. I do not understand how the traditional GNU documentation license, without their proto-invariant sections, does not achieve either of the above goals. Those are our goals for wanting the GNU FDL to be widely used, but those are not our only goals in choosing licenses for our manuals. What are the other goals? I could respond to all of these pedantic attacks, but it isn't useful. You can always make more of them. You have more time for this than I do. So I decided to spend my time on other things. If you'd enumerate more of the motivations behind the GNU FDL, it might help to better establish the parameters of the discussion. Furthermore, it is possible that some authors of free documentation do not share these as-yet-unstated goals of the FSF. Therefore it might not be a good idea for those authors to adopt the GNU FDL, since to do so might work in furtherance of goals not in their interests. I think it is unwise for authors to adopt software licenses in ignorance, so please tell the community what goals beyond the above two you see the GNU FDL as promoting. You raised one point that I am concerned about: * Debugging with GDB; GDB version 5 May 2000[1] [1] This manual is an interesting case because it started out with no invariant sections at all, but later adopted the GNU FDL and marked non-Secondary Sections as Invariant[3], which RMS said was not permitted[4]. I will investigate this, and if a non-Secondary section has indeed been marked as invariant, I will make sure that is corrected. Is the FSF willing to dual-license manuals that previously had no invariant sections at all, such as _Debugging with GDB_, under the GNU FDL and the traditional GNU documentation license simultaneously? Finally, would you consider a manual that used the GNU FDL -- or claimed to do so -- which marked a non-Secondary Section as Invariant to be Free as in freedom? -- G. Branden Robinson| One doesn't have a sense of humor. Debian GNU/Linux | It has you. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | -- Larry Gelbart http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | pgp3i4VV0PGI4.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
On Sun, May 18, 2003 at 04:56:17PM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote: When some popular enough software becomes non-free, there is very often a free fork which gets maintained. If that happens to some non-free documentation as well, that's fine, but I don't think you will find many volunteers to do that. I'd do it for GCC. Unfortunately, there's no clearly free version of the manual which is even remotely recent, so I'd actually have to write it from scratch, which I'm not up to doing. Actually... given that several GCC contributors aren't happy with the GFDL and invariant sections, maybe we could add up all the parts *we* contributed (since the copyright assignment agreement still gives us the right to use our own works) and see what it adds up to. I wholeheartedly encourage you in this endeavor. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help. -- G. Branden Robinson|Fair use is irrelevant and Debian GNU/Linux |improper. [EMAIL PROTECTED] |-- Asst. U.S. Attorney Scott http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |Frewing, explaining the DMCA pgp0vCP9KRauD.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
En réponse à Branden Robinson [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Fri, May 16, 2003 at 09:37:31AM +0200, Jérôme Marant wrote: What is the best way to convince GNU people to change their licenses? (without being pissed of, that is). I'm not sure GNU people need to be convinced. The only person I know of who has come out in vigorous defense of the GNU FDL is Richard Stallman. (Georg Greve does also agree) It seems to be. But if so, why do they seem not to try to convince him? -- Jérôme Marant
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
On Tue, May 20, 2003 at 02:28:13PM +0200, Jérôme Marant wrote: En réponse à Branden Robinson [EMAIL PROTECTED]: I'm not sure GNU people need to be convinced. The only person I know of who has come out in vigorous defense of the GNU FDL is Richard Stallman. (Georg Greve does also agree) Indeed; I forgot about him, somehow. I stand corrected. -- G. Branden Robinson| To stay young requires unceasing Debian GNU/Linux | cultivation of the ability to [EMAIL PROTECTED] | unlearn old falsehoods. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Robert Heinlein pgp1PsHNlWueU.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
On Tue, May 20, 2003 at 10:16:00AM -0400, Peter S Galbraith wrote: I'm not sure GNU people need to be convinced. The only person I know of who has come out in vigorous defense of the GNU FDL is Richard Stallman. What about the thread you started here: http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/debian-legal-200304/msg00132.html ? Georg C. F. Greve is President of the Free Software Foundation Europe. Yes, see the message I just sent. BTW, your MUA's In-Reply-To handling is broken. -- G. Branden Robinson|Humor is a rubber sword - it allows Debian GNU/Linux |you to make a point without drawing [EMAIL PROTECTED] |blood. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |-- Mary Hirsch pgpeYqRdGjF9J.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Is the FSF willing to dual-license manuals that previously had no invariant sections at all, such as _Debugging with GDB_, under the GNU FDL and the traditional GNU documentation license simultaneously? I don't see a reason to do so, but I won't absolutely rule it out. Finally, would you consider a manual that used the GNU FDL -- or claimed to do so -- which marked a non-Secondary Section as Invariant to be Free as in freedom? No, it is not free. If any GNU package contains such a manual, please send a bug report to the maintainers and CC me. (I sent mail to the GDB maintainers to inquire about the GDB manual situation, but I have not seen an answer yet.)
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
In the past, some of our manuals included invariant sections and some did not. Today that is still the case. However, in the past we needed an ad hoc license to have invariant sections. What changed with the GFDL is that it is a single license that covers both cases. The GNU FDL does more than that. The GNU FDL does many other things, but you raised the issue of invariant sections, so my response focused on that issue. I therefore did not mention other points about the GFDL which are not relevant to that issue. When you criticize those omissions, you are in effect criticizing me for doing what you asked me to do. Could you offer me some criteria for evaluating the terms pedantic and minor? That would be an unnecessary digression. I used those words to make a particular point, and I think my point was clear enough. I've provided several examples of the pattern of argument I am talking about. (Two in the last message, one above, and this one.) The pattern should be clear. Another applicable term is quibbling. I'm not going to respond to the quibbles. I don't think invariant sections are wrong, and you haven't convinced me they are wrong. People have cited inconveniences, and I agree they are inconveniences, but not major ones. This is not enough to make the license non-free. I hope Debian won't adopt your views, but if it does, it won't be the first disagreement between Debian and the FSF. Debian wrote its own definition of free software which is different from ours. We also disagree about Debian's practice of distributing and recommending non-free software.
Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Your message repeated over and over that you think the GFDL isn't free, but didn't even try to justify that claim. I continue to believe that the GNU FDL is a free documentation license. The key question is: is the FSF prepared to abandon its use of non-free licenses for manuals? That question is like Will you stop beating your wife? All it proves is that you are willing to sink low. I'm not going to discuss the issue with you.
