On May 10, 2004, at 16:45, Raul Miller wrote:
"A 'Secondary Section' is a named appendix or a front-matter section
of
the Document that deals exclusively with the relationship of the
publishers or authors of the Document to the Document's overall
subject
(or to related matters) AND CONTAINS NOTHING THAT COULD FALL DIRECTLY
WITHIN THAT OVERALL SUBJECT." (emphasis added)
So?
There's nothing that says that the entire document must be composed
of only secondary sections -- and near as I can tell this point you're
trying to make would only make sense if the entire document could only
be composed of secondary sections.
Let me clarify, then. I'm sorry; I've been far too terse...
1) The GFDL says that if I make a derivative work of a document, I must
include all the invariant sections (as well as, optionally, add my
own).
2) The GFDL says that invariant sections must be secondary sections.
(This seems to confuse people; I believe the -legal archives contain an
instance where the FSF had a non-secondary invariant section. But this
isn't a freeness problem in itself, just a gotcha.)
3) The GFDL says that secondary sections must not fall within the
overall subject of the document.
Now, I want to create a derivative work of the GNU Emacs manual to
advocate free software (look how great emacs is! only free software can
do this! etc.) I have created a derivative work of the emacs manual, so
I must include the invariants from the emacs manual. I believe these
include several FSF and RMS essays about free software and
documentation.
Essays on free software "could fall directly within [the] overall
subject" of advocating free software. Section 4(g) and 4(l) says I must
include them. Section 1 says I must not ("if a section does not fit the
above definition of Secondary then it is not allowed to be designated
as Invariant.")
This is quite inconsistent, and I think that probably makes the
document undistributable. Hence, what I wrote below:
This is the same thing as when a license says "you can't use this code
in nuclear power plants"; its "you can't use this text in a essay on
freedom."
NOTE: Opinions of emacs expressed above aren't my own. I use vim.
