[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Thomas Bushnell, BSG) wrote: > Nearly everything in Debian contains "invariant text", the question > is, when and how is invariant text a problem?
When modification of a work itself is forbidden, then that work is not free. If modification of only part of a work is permitted, that work is still not free. The licensing terms and copyright statement for a work are not a part of the work itself. Allowing for modification of a work's actual license and copyright is like making that work public domain and I would not argue for that -- as long as our copyright system works as it currently does, too keep things free we need to use copyright statements and copyleft licenses that are themselves not copylefted. I think that any work (software or otherwise) that is not free does not belong in Debian. Every work that is part of the Debian system, be it book or image or software program, should be entirely free -- free to modify or sample from, in whole or in part, for any purpose at all.
