Jérôme Marant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Hi,
>
> Why was the gnus manual removed from the gnus package?
>
> According to its license, it does not have any invariant section:
>
> -=-=-=-=-=-=-
>
> Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
> under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
> any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
> Invariant Sections, with the Front-Cover texts being ``A GNU
> Manual'', and with the Back-Cover Texts as in (a) below. A copy of the
> license is included in the section entitled ``GNU Free Documentation
> License'' in the Emacs manual.
>
> -=-=-=-=-=-=-
>
> so it perfectly fits in main.
The vote actually was:
Choice 2. The actual text of the amendment is:
This is the position of the Debian Project about the GNU Free
Documentation License as published by the Free Software
Foundation:
1.
We consider that the GNU Free Documentation License version
1.2 conflicts with traditional requirements for free
software, since it allows for non-removable, non-modifiable
parts to be present in documents licensed under it. Such
parts are commonly referred to as invariant sections, and
are described in Section 4 of the GFDL.
As modifiability is a fundamental requirement of the Debian
Free Software Guidelines, this restriction is not acceptable
for us, and we cannot accept in our distribution works that
include such unmodifiable content.
2.
At the same time, we also consider that works licensed under
the GNU Free Documentation License that include no invariant
sections do fully meet the requirements of the Debian Free
Software Guidelines.
This means that works that don't include any Invariant
Sections, Cover Texts, Acknowledgements, and Dedications (or
that do, but permission to remove them is explicitly
granted), are suitable for the main component of our
distribution.
[...]
The text here differentiates between "invariant sections" and
"Invariant Sections", seemingly calling the Cover Texts, even though
the GFDL permits adding to them, an "invariant section" which happens
not to be the same as an "Invariant Section" defined by the GFDL.
The wording clearly is fuzzy enough to cause confusion, yet I think
that the gist of the resolution is clear: requiring cover texts of "A
GNU manual" and "You are free to copy and modify this GNU Manual." on
mass-printed copies (never mind that the GPL, in contrast, does not
even make mass-printing feasible), as spelled out by the GNU project
maintainer guidelines at
<URL:http://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/html_node/License-Notices.html#License-Notices>
will make Debian consider the documentation non-free and act
accordingly.
Those two sentences are all that it takes to declare the documentation
of every GNU project following the GNU maintainer guidelines
unsuitable for Debian main.
--
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum
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