Re: [Savannah-hackers-public] GFDL

[David Turner]

On Wed, 2006-02-15 at 11:56 +0000, MJ Ray wrote:
> If you are not lawyerly, is there one on savannah-hackers?
> Many GNU manuals have misapplied FDL so far, including things
> such as designating the licence as an invariant section (thereby
> disabling the upgrade clause) or designating technical sections
> as invariant (GDB).

Please report specific usage bugs to the maintainers of those programs.
The GDB documentation's current notice says:

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.

Neither of these are technical.

> > Also don't confuse preventing addition of 'global
> > warming' statements in derivates versions and accepting such changes
> > in a project manual.
> 
> I'm not aware that any of us are doing that. It is little comfort
> that we are not forced to accept lies into our source if someone
> makes a heavily-enhanced version of our work expressing views
> that odious, or worse (National Front?).  We cannot compete
> with that version on the same terms unless we repeat their lies.

I'm not going to get into a long discussion about the merits of
Invariant Sections here.  But I will note that so far, I know of no
cases where anyone has contributed something useful along with a
pernitious invariant section.  

> > In this regard, I asked what is the preferred way to send concerns
> > about the GFDL in general. address@hidden would be glad to receive
> > comments and use them for work on GFDL revision 3.
> 
> Most of these comments have been made for over 5 years now!
> I have been told that there is a new draft of the FDL ready
> for publication. Please publish it, so we can comment topically.

We're not prepared to release a new draft of the FDL in the middle of
the GPLv3 process.  There are a few reasons for this:

1. We have limited staff resources.

2. Some text from the GPL may be carried over into the FDL.

> > DRM criticism about
> > the GNU GPLv3 draft would probably also be useful in this aim.
> 
> The GPLv3 process is rather closed and difficult to access,
> so I cannot comment at present. I am discussing this with its
> webmasters, but I am frustrated that you direct me to a process
> that I cannot access myself.

Anyone who can send an email can comment.