Anton Zinoviev wrote: > Hereby I am proposing an amendment to the GR about GFDL opened by > Anthony Towns [Sun, 01 Jan 2006 15:02:04 +1000] > > I wish to thank everybody who will support this amendment, especially > I wish to thank those who second it.
I second the amendment quoted below. It's my understanding that it fulfills option (A) as described in: http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.linux.debian.devel.vote/8148: Cheers, Moritz > ------------------------------------------------------------------- > > GNU Free Documentation License protects the freedom, > it is compatible with Debian Free Software Guidelines > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > > (0) Summary > > This is the position of Debian Project about the GNU Free > Documentation License as published by the Free Software Foundation: > > We consider that works licensed under GNU Free Documentation > License version 1.2 do fully comply both with the requirements and > the spirit of Debian Free Software Guidelines. > > Within Debian community there has been a significant amount of > uncertainty about the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL), and > whether it is, in fact, a "free" license. This document attempts to > explain why Debian's answer is "yes". > > (1) What is the GFDL? > > The GFDL is a license written by the Free Software Foundation, who use > it as a license for their own documentation, and promote it to others. It > is also used as Wikipedia's license. To quote the GFDL's Preamble: > > The purpose of this License is to make a manual, textbook, or other > functional and useful document "free" in the sense of freedom: to > assure everyone the effective freedom to copy and redistribute it, > with or without modifying it, either commercially or > noncommercially. Secondarily, this License preserves for the author > and publisher a way to get credit for their work, while not being > considered responsible for modifications made by others. > > This License is a kind of "copyleft", which means that derivative > works of the document must themselves be free in the same sense. It > complements the GNU General Public License, which is a copyleft > license designed for free software. > > (2) The Invariant Sections - Main Objection Against GFDL > > One of the most widespread objections against GFDL is that GFDL > permits works covered under it to include certain sections, designated > as "invariant". The text inside such sections can not be changed or > removed from the work in future. > > GFDL places considerable constraints on the purpose of texts that can > be included in an invariant section. According to GFDL all invariant > sections must be also "secondary sections", i.e. they meet the > following definition > > 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. [...] The relationship > could be a matter of historical connection with the subject or with > related matters, or of legal, commercial, philosophical, ethical or > political position regarding them. > > Consequently the secondary sections (and in particular the invariant > sections) are allowed to include only personal position of the authors > or the publishers to some subject. It is useless and unethical to > modify somebody else's personal position; in some cases this is even > illegal. For such texts Richard Stallman (the founder of the Free > Software Movement and the GNU project and author of GFDL) says [1]: > > The whole point of those works is that they tell you what somebody > thinks or what somebody saw or what somebody believes. To modify > them is to misrepresent the authors; so modifying these works is > not a socially useful activity. And so verbatim copying is the only > thing that people really need to be allowed to do. > > This feature of GFDL can be opposed to the following requirement of > Debian Free Software Guidelines: > > 3. Derived Works > > The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must > allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of > the original software. > > It is naive to think that in order to fulfil this requirement of DFSG > the free licenses have to permit arbitrary modifications. There are > several licenses that Debian has always acknowledged as free that > impose some limitations on the permitted modifications. For example > the GNU General Public License contains the following clause: > > If the modified program normally reads commands interactively when > run, you must cause it, when started running for such interactive > use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an announcement > including an appropriate copyright notice and a notice that there > is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide a warranty) and > that users may redistribute the program under these conditions, and > telling the user how to view a copy of this License. > > The licenses that contain the so called "advertising clause" give us > another example: > > All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this > software must display the following acknowledgement: "This product > includes software developed by ..." > > Consequently when judging whether some license is free or not, one has > to take into account what kind of restrictions are imposed and how > these restrictions fit to the Social Contract of Debian: > > 4. Our priorities are our users and free software > > We will be guided by the needs of our users and the free software > community. We will place their interests first in our priorities. > > Currently GFDL is a license acknowledged as free by the great mass of > the members of the free software community and as a result it is used > for the documentation of great part of the currently available free > programs. If Debian decided that GFDL is not free, this would mean > that Debian attempted to impose on the free software community > alternative meaning of "free software", effectively violating its > Social Contract with the free software community. > > We should be able to improve the free software and to adapt it to > certain needs and this stays behind the requirement of DFSG for > modifiability. GFDL allows everybody who disagrees with a personal > position expressed in an invariant section to add their own secondary > section and to describe their objections or additions. This is a > reasonable method to improve the available secondary sections, a > method that does not lead to misrepresenting the authors opinion or to > censorship. > > (3) Transparent copies > > Another objections against GFDL is that according to GFDL it is not > enough to just put a transparent copy of a document alongside with the > opaque version when you are distributing it (which is all that you > need to do for sources under the GPL, for example). Instead, the GFDL > insists that you must somehow include a machine-readable Transparent > copy (i.e., not allow the opaque form to be downloaded without the > transparent form) or keep the transparent form available for download > at a publicly accessible location for one year after the last > distribution of the opaque form. > > The following is what the license says (the capitalisations are not >=66rom the original license): > > You must either include a machine-readable Transparent copy ALONG > with each Opaque copy, or state IN OR WITH each Opaque copy a > computer-network location from which the general network-using > public has access to download using public-standard network > protocols a complete Transparent copy of the Document, free of > added material. > > Consequently the license requires distribution of the transparent form > ALONG with each opaque copy but not IN OR WITH each opaque copy. It > is a fact confirmed by Richard Stallman, author of GFDL, and testified > by the common practice, that as long as you make the source and > binaries available so that the users can see what's available and take > what they want, you have done what is required of you. It is up to > the user whether to download the transparent form. > > If the transparent copy is not distributed along with the opaque copy > then one must take reasonably prudent steps to ensure that the > Transparent copy will remain accessible from Internet at a stated > location until at least one year. In these curcumstances the > requirement of GPL appears to be even more severe - a written offer, > valid for at least three years, to give any third party a complete > machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code. > > (4) Digital Rights Management > > The third objection against GFDL arises from the measures in Section 2 > that attempt to overcome Digital Rights Management (DRM) technologies. > According to some interpretations of the license, it rules out > distributing copies on DRM-protected media, even if done in such a way > as to give users full access to a transparent copy of the work; and, > as written, it also potentially disallows encrypting the > documentation, or even storing it on a file system that supports > permissions. > > In fact, the license says only this: > > You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the > reading or further copying of the copies you make or distribute > > This clause disallows the distribution or storage of copies on > DRM-protected media only if a result of that action will be that the > reading or further copying of the copies is obstructed or controlled. > It is not supposed to refer the use of encryption or file access > control on your own copy. > > Consequently the measures of the license against the DRM technologies > are only a way to ensure that the users are able to exercise the > rights they should have according to the license. Because of that, > these measures serve similar purpose to the measures taken in the GNU > General Public License against the patents: > > If a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of > the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly > through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this > License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the > Program. > > We do not think that this requirement of GPL makes GPL covered > programs non-free even though it can potentially make a GPL-covered > program undistributable. Its purpose is against misuse of patents. > Similarly, we do not think that GFDL covered documentation is non-free > because of the measures taken in the license against misuse of > DRM-protected media. > > [1] http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/copyright-and-globalization.html > [2] http://www.gnu.org/doc/gnupresspub.html > > --/9DWx/yDrRhgMJTb > Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" > Content-Description: Digital signature > Content-Disposition: inline > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux) > > iD8DBQFD1BkkJP1eZJv0KwcRAmyyAJ9AvIIAGuqICZbqk17B1OvfUVinpACcCUck > Laz6d9DnfwblFjlnvte+ToY= > =a+DM > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > > --/9DWx/yDrRhgMJTb-- > >
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