Re: Copyright question

[David Kastrup]

Alan Mackenzie <address@hidden> writes:

> Nearly everybody agrees there are problems with the current GFDL.

This list is not for discussing the GFDL.  Like other projects, it is
inherently a slowly moving target that gets improved over time.

Whether one likes the GFDL or not or whether Debian likes it or not:
that is not really a topic here.  My beef is not with the GFDL per se,
but rather that the _GPL_ demands to distribute a work as a whole under
the GPL.  And the increasing integration of the GFDL manuals (which is a
convenient and useful thing) makes the definition of "whole work"
increasingly arbitrary in a manner where we

a) don't want to set a precedent for people integrating incompatibly
licensed material with GPL software based on a weird "whole work"
interpretation of Emacs

b) don't want to turn the integration of documentation into a privileged
operation not compatible with the "public" in "General Public License".

The current distribution of Emacs with its incompatible GFDL/GPL
combination strains the credulity of the GPL.  And the more we integrate
info manuals into the Emacs work and reference flow, the worse this
gets.  I certainly hope that this will get sorted out in the long run.
A dual licensing of the technical manuals would certainly help.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum