[Excellent Analysis by Stephen Ryan omitted] This all begs the question, why does the FDL exist at all? The rationale given at
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-gfdl.html is that it will encourage commercial entities to fund free documentation. However, it still requires the documentation to be free, and it doesn't seem to have been adopted by any commercial publishers. I am willing to be educated, though. The GPL, on the other hand, has been used by Red Hat to publish their documentation (at least around 5.2 or so) and by New Riders to publish a book on installing Debian. In fact, it seems like the GPL is better worded for this sort of thing. As a specific example of where the GPL is better worded, instead of arbitrarily listing certain formats as Transparent and others as Opaque, it simply refers to "the preferred form for modification." As one person already noted, Postscript is not necessarily opaque. What about Power Point presentations created using Open Office? I would hardly call Open Office a "generic text editor." What about Lyx files? Is anything created using a WYSIWIG interface not free? As another example, the GFDL requires me to include a copy of the license in the documentation. The GPL only requires a copy of the license along with the software. I would be quite annoyed if my MagicPoint presentation (which I can edit with generic text editors) had to have a copy of the license inside it. Also, what if the document is an image? Inserting a copy of the license might be not be possible. Finally, the GFDL has a number of requirements that don't seem to help. It requires me to preserve the network location of where Transparent versions can be found for four years. Even if it is no longer correct, and the original author can not be reached. This is probably not uncommon. This does not raise the quality of free documentation. It also adds a number of clauses about copying in quantity, Endorsements, Title Page, and Cover Texts that unnecessarily confuse anyone who wants to apply the license to their work. These, I suspect from the rationale given in the link above, are to encourage commercial use of the license. The thing is, I don't understand how they actually help. The document can still be replicated without paying anyone anything (which is the whole point). These conditions just confuse the person using the license. There is also the noxious Invariant Sections clause, which has been adequately discussed by others. Overall, I think that the FSF should just get rid of the GFDL, and use the GPL for documentation. There might have to be a clarification of what object code means, but otherwise it's application is straightforward. Regards, Walter Landry [EMAIL PROTECTED]
