On Fri, 06 Oct 2006 11:25:52 +0300, Yavor Doganov <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:
> В Thu, 05 Oct 2006 18:41:05 -0400, Hubert Chan написа: >> On Thu, 05 Oct 2006 15:54:05 +0200, Simon Josefsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> said: >>> I believe the license clause is annoying, but, as for OpenSSL, does >>> not make it impossible to use the licensed material freely, and in >>> particular, should not prevent including it in main. >> >> Yes, I agree that it is annoying. I think that RMS also thought it >> was annoying, which makes me wonder why he doesn't mind invariant >> sections in documentation. I'm sure he's answered that question >> before, so if someone has a pointer to where I can look that up, I'd >> be interested. > To better understand the reasoning, I suggest you to read/listen one > of RMS' speeches "Copyright vs. Community in the Age of Computer > Networks"; they're linked from http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/ under > the section "Speeches and Interviews". Thanks. I'll take a look. > To summarize: Documentation is a "functional work" and thus in order > to be free we must have the right to modify it. "Invariant Sections" > are "aesthetic works", not connected with the technical matter that > the manual is about, and represent ethical/political/whatever opinions > of the authors. And as such, I would expect that they should at least be removable, which they are not. > It won't be useful to modify The GNU Manifesto or THE-GNU-PROJECT and > turn these things into something completely different. I disagree. I may want to write a "Hubert Manifesto" and use "The GNU Manifesto" as a starting point. Now whether I should be allowed to do that is a different matter, but you can't say that it "won't be useful" to have such permission. It would be extremely useful for me, especially considering that I'm not a very good writer. And in a distribution like Debian that claims that every bit is modifiable (save for license texts, which I think Aj, or someone, promised we would have a GR to clarify that after etch), such sections should not be allowed. The only way it should be allowed is to change the Social Contract and/or DFSG. > Note that during the last GFDL discussion on -vote (prior to the GR) > Anton Zinoviev and I contacted RMS about some clarifications. He > believes that a manual might be non-free for someone, if it contains a > long enough list with lots of invariant sections, or sections that Well, "long enough" is very subjective. And I would not be comfortable basing freeness on something so subjective. > contain abusive material. That doesn't make the license non-free, > though. > A world where "everything is modifiable" would be an absurd one. -- Hubert Chan - email & Jabber: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.uhoreg.ca/ PGP/GnuPG key: 1024D/124B61FA (Key available at wwwkeys.pgp.net) Fingerprint: 96C5 012F 5F74 A5F7 1FF7 5291 AF29 C719 124B 61FA
