On Sat, 15 Aug 1998, Marcus Brinkmann wrote: > On Fri, Aug 14, 1998 at 10:26:01AM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
[The next section is Marcus, of course - manoj is double-indented] > My fear is that people will be satisfied with documents belonging in the > "verbatim" section. For example, if software documentation also is allowed > to belong there. I would like to see a proposed definition of the new section > before I express further considerations. I gave a sketchy one a couple of days ago. Certainly documentation is not allowed within. > > > What about > > non-technical documents, like Graphic novels or any of the other > > categories? > > We haven't talked about them yet. Currently, we don't ship such things, do > we? I am undecided about this one, although I think that it's not of paramount importance to us, since we are in the business of creating an OS, not a library. However, that's not to say it doesn't have some relevance - we include magazines and so on.. > > > Actually, I am going to make a stand about our Hypocrisy; > > anything that you have said also applies to Licenses. You want to > > throw things like the FHS and others out of main, you have to throw > > out the DFSG, the social contract, and GPL etc out as well > > > > All the arguments about stadards apply to licenses as well. > > This seems to be your core argument in the current discussion, but it is > wrong or right, however you want to see it. But what is wrong, is the > conclusion that copyright licenses need to be free. > > Reasons why Copyright documents are different from standards. > > 1) Practical reason > > Every piece of software comes with copyright notices. A big deal of Debian > is under the GPL. If we choose we can't ship the GPL, we can't ship those > software. For example, we couldn't ship dpkg :) and all FSF stuff. > > 2) Legal reason > > No copyright can restrict you on what license you choose to put your work > under. This means, whatever license I write, I don't violate a copyright. > This applies mainly to the legal text, of course. So, I can take the legal > text of the GPL (the "terms"), and apply them with whatever changes I want > to my document. This means: > > * Deriving a new license from the GPL using the terms of the GPL is already > granted by common law. * This is the critical point. I was not aware of this fact. If it is true, then we should explain it somewhere (probably on the website, as well as in /usr/doc/copyright/README). Is it true in all jurisdictions that Debian is distributed in? > > 3) Technical reason > > The GPL is not a technical document. The only benefit you can gain from > taking parts of the GPL is taking from the legal text, which is already > granted by point 2 above. This leaves the preamble and the footer, both are > very FSF specific and do not contain any legal or technical text, but > personal opinion and meta-text. Does somebody wants to derive from that? > Maybe. Is it essential and useful? Probably not. > > Shouldn't we ask RMS to make the license of the GPL more free? > > No. Because it alöready is as free as it ever needs to be (see point 2 > above). Essentially, if RMS would change the copyright of the GPL text, he > would probably choose something like this: > > Fictional GPL copyright: > * You may distribute verbatim and modified versions of the legal terms > below, but you have to remove the preambel and the section "How to > apply..." from the derived work. You have to remove any reference to the > FSF and GNU GPL, too * > > This would essentially be a free+(name change, remove non-technical part) > copyright, and it is exactly that what is already granted by law. It is not > necessary to include all permissions already granted by law in the license > text. For example, fair use is also not mentioned in the copyright > documents, but is granted anyway. True. But this hinges on the truth of your above statement. (Which I don't dispute, I just ask whether it's true everywhere). [Sorry about the high ratio of quote to reply here] Now, we just need Raul to speak up for Free Content, and re-open the debate :-) Jules /----------------+-------------------------------+---------------------\ | Jelibean aka | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | 6 Evelyn Rd | | Jules aka | | Richmond, Surrey | | Julian Bean | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | TW9 2TF *UK* | +----------------+-------------------------------+---------------------+ | War doesn't demonstrate who's right... just who's left. | | When privacy is outlawed... only the outlaws have privacy. | \----------------------------------------------------------------------/
