GFDL and cover texts
Can I get an explanation of why Debian considers a GFDL manual with cover texts non-free? For fuck's sakes... what's the big deal with a couple of unmodifiable sentences? - Jordi G. H. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GFDL and cover texts
On Mon, 2007-06-08 at 08:58 -0500, Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso wrote: > Can I get an explanation of why Debian considers a GFDL manual with > cover texts non-free? http://people.debian.org/~srivasta/Position_Statement.xhtml http://www.debian.org/vote/2006/vote_001 http://www.google.com/search?q=GFDL+Debian -ESP -- Evan Prodromou <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Debian -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GFDL and cover texts
On 06/08/07, Evan Prodromou <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Mon, 2007-06-08 at 08:58 -0500, Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso wrote: > > Can I get an explanation of why Debian considers a GFDL manual with > > cover texts non-free? > > http://people.debian.org/~srivasta/Position_Statement.xhtml > http://www.debian.org/vote/2006/vote_001 The position statement and the vote all conflate invariant sections with cover texts and dedications as if exactly the same arguments against invariant sections applied to a cover text like "a gnu manual". Why are three words enough to make thousands upon thousands of words nonfree? - Jordi G. H.
Re: GFDL and cover texts
"Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > The position statement and the vote all conflate invariant sections > with cover texts and dedications as if exactly the same arguments > against invariant sections applied to a cover text like "a gnu > manual". Why are three words enough to make thousands upon thousands > of words nonfree? Please read the list archives on these topics; they were discussed extensively around the time of the GR to which Manoj referred you. Only raise the topic again here if you have something that isn't already addressed in those threads. -- \ "The generation of random numbers is too important to be left | `\to chance." —Robert R. Coveyou | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GFDL and cover texts
My apologies, there were some inaccuracies in my initial reply, and it was more dismissive than it should have been. "Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On 06/08/07, Evan Prodromou <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > http://people.debian.org/~srivasta/Position_Statement.xhtml > > http://www.debian.org/vote/2006/vote_001 > > The position statement and the vote all conflate invariant sections > with cover texts and dedications as if exactly the same arguments > against invariant sections applied to a cover text like "a gnu > manual". That's because the same arguments do apply. All works in Debian must meet the DFSG; a work licensed such that any of it is unmodifiable fails to meet DFSG §3. Any work licensed under terms of FDL-plus-unmodifiable-sections thus fails the DFSG. > Why are three words enough to make thousands upon thousands of words > nonfree? when any part of a work is unmodifiable under the license terms, it fails the DFSG. Ben Finney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Please read the list archives on these topics; they were discussed > extensively around the time of the GR to which Manoj referred you. My mistake; it was Evan who referred you to existing documents. Those documents cover the issues you're raising; there's nothing I've said in the above that isn't already addressed by the documents Evan pointed you to. -- \ "Don't worry about what anybody else is going to do. The best | `\ way to predict the future is to invent it." -- Alan Kay | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GFDL and cover texts
On Tue, 2007-07-08 at 14:15 +1000, Ben Finney wrote: > Those documents cover the issues you're raising; there's nothing I've > said in the above that isn't already addressed by the documents Evan > pointed you to. I've started a wiki page about the history of Debian and the FDL; it may be useful for assembling links and data about the relationship and about the factors that went into our decision: http://wiki.debian.org/GFDLHistory It may actually make sense to link to relevant (or just long) threads on debian-legal. -Evan -- Evan Prodromou <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Debian -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GFDL and cover texts
=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jordi_Guti=E9rrez_Hermoso?= <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The position statement and the vote all conflate invariant sections > with cover texts and dedications as if exactly the same arguments > against invariant sections applied to a cover text like "a gnu > manual". Why are three words enough to make thousands upon thousands > of words nonfree? They are a similar problem to invariant sections (can prevent distribution in some cases) but of a smaller scale and scope. I struggled to understand this aspect until the pickle-passing example: http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/07/msg00104.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/07/msg00163.html which I summarised in http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/03/msg00098.html Hope that helps, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GFDL and cover texts
On 11104 March 1977, Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso wrote: >> On Mon, 2007-06-08 at 08:58 -0500, Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso wrote: >> > Can I get an explanation of why Debian considers a GFDL manual with >> > cover texts non-free? >> http://people.debian.org/~srivasta/Position_Statement.xhtml> >> http://www.debian.org/vote/2006/vote_001 > The position statement and the vote all conflate invariant sections > with cover texts and dedications as if exactly the same arguments > against invariant sections applied to a cover text like "a gnu > manual". Why are three words enough to make thousands upon thousands > of words nonfree? Because it is non-free. Compare with a source tarball, where one could say "But this is just one twenty-line file which is non-free, and the other 50 lines are free. Why is this enough to make the rest non-free?". That just doesn't work. For the rest see Manojs links please. -- bye Joerg > But i don't think that we talk a lot, as far as i can see, you live in > the USA. Australia. Only minor details like timezone and hemisphere but pretty much the same. TZ is UTC+10 pgpPIvhuh7jOY.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: GFDL and cover texts
On 07/08/07, Joerg Jaspert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 11104 March 1977, Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso wrote: > : Why are three words enough to make thousands upon thousands > > of words nonfree? > > Because it is non-free. > Compare with a source tarball, where one could say "But this is just one > twenty-line file which is non-free, and the other 50 lines are > free. Why is this enough to make the rest non-free?". That just doesn't > work. But we can't modify the COPYING file in a source tarball, and that's ok. Why isn't a cover text like "a GNU manual" also acceptable? - Jordi G. H.
Re: GFDL and cover texts
On 06/08/07, Ben Finney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > "Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > The position statement and the vote all conflate invariant sections > > with cover texts and dedications as if exactly the same arguments > > against invariant sections applied to a cover text like "a gnu > > manual". > > That's because the same arguments do apply. All works in Debian must > meet the DFSG; a work licensed such that any of it is unmodifiable > fails to meet DFSG §3. Yeah, and the GPL fails to meet DFSG §8 because it discriminates against people who can only make business with the software by hiding its source, like any hardcore BSD advocate will tell you. My point here is that it's a matter of interpretation and degree; the position statement and the outcome of the vote speak in absolutes, as much as a single unmodifiable byte, and you're out, which is highly impractical; I can't think of any situation where the words "a GNU manual" could actually hinder anyone's use, modification or distribution of, well, a GNU manual. I disagree that the GFDL violates DFSG §3 because everything that's important about a GFDLed text is modifiable. Like I've said before, even OpenBSD thinks GFDL texts are free enough to distribute; Debian still looks like a wacko here, not to mention that it's embarrassing to explain to Debian outsiders why Debian thinks a GNU free license isn't free at all. Source tarballs under any license have an unmodifiable section in their license terms, and we tolerate that, but the GFDL is seemingly different because it forces GNU philosophy down our throats, right? Or in the case of cover texts, it very evilly reminds us that GNU had something to do with the writing of the manual, how dare they! - Jordi G. H.
Re: GFDL and cover texts
"Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On 07/08/07, Joerg Jaspert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: On 11104 March 1977, Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso wrote: : Why are three words enough to make thousands upon thousands > of words nonfree? Because it is non-free. Compare with a source tarball, where one could say "But this is just one twenty-line file which is non-free, and the other 50 lines are free. Why is this enough to make the rest non-free?". That just doesn't work. But we can't modify the COPYING file in a source tarball, and that's ok. Why isn't a cover text like "a GNU manual" also acceptable? - Jordi G. H. It really is not as much the non-modifiable nature of cover texts, as the fact that they are mandatory to include. Lets say somebody was writting a manual for a utility that is similar to the GNU utilitiy in some respects. The person's utility is not a GNU utility. It would be very useful if the person could reuse some parts of the GFDL'd manual that still apply (perhaps a section explaining Regular expressions (for example)). If he did so though, he would need to keep the "a GNU manual" cover text on his manual, which is hardly a GNU manual, condisering that it was not written for or as part of the GNU project, nor is it about a GNU utility. Further one could very easilly see a problem occuring if one borrows text from a bunch of manuals all having different covet texts. There would be quite a few required cover texts in that case, many of which really make no sense for the end result. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GFDL and cover texts
On 07/08/07, Joe Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > "Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message > > > >But we can't modify the COPYING file in a source tarball, and that's > >ok. Why isn't a cover text like "a GNU manual" also acceptable? > > > > It really is not as much the non-modifiable nature of cover texts, as the > fact that they are mandatory to include. Wow. Thanks. Actually, this does make sense. Excerpts from GFDLed docs without the cover texts are ok and probably covered under Fair Use under US copyright law, but I think that in other jurisdictions they aren't. Come to think of it, it's strange that the GFDL doesn't have clauses explicitly allowing small excerpts... - Jordi G. H.
Re: GFDL and cover texts
I have not asked you to send copies of list messages to me; please don't. http://www.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct> "Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > My point here is that it's a matter of interpretation and degree; Debian has interpreted it, many times in the past. Others may interpret it as they please, but it's up to Debian what they put in their operating system. > I can't think of any situation where the words "a GNU manual" could > actually hinder anyone's use, modification or distribution of, well, > a GNU manual. This shows that you've not been *reading* the references given to you. Please do so. (Hint: If such a GNU manual were free, one would need to modify the statement "A GNU Manual" on derived works for which that statement is not true.) Please read the referenced documents again before re-raising points already covered in them. > Source tarballs under any license have an unmodifiable section in > their license terms, and we tolerate that Indeed, as an unavoidable function of copyright law we must distribute the copyright license without granting freedom to modify the text of the license as it applies to the work. Note that we don't distribute license texts *except* as required by copyright law; i.e. only as they are required to give the license terms for a work in Debian. Any other non-free work in Debian is a bug, to be fixed either by changing the license terms or removing the work. > but the GFDL is seemingly different because it forces GNU philosophy > down our throats, right? We reject any non-free work for inclusion in Debian, regardless of who made it or what it says. *None* of this is new to this discussion. Now, again, please re-read what has already been written on this topic so it doesn't need to be repeated in full. -- \"It's not what you pay a man, but what he costs you that | `\ counts." -- Will Rogers | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GFDL and cover texts
=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jordi_Guti=E9rrez_Hermoso?= <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > [...] I can't think of any situation where the words "a GNU > manual" could actually hinder anyone's use, modification or > distribution of, well, a GNU manual. [...] Of course not, because you just defined a tautology. What happens if the GNU manual is modified to become something that isn't in any way connected to GNU or not even a manual? Then that cover text may make it unusable, possibly fraud and/or passing-off. > Source tarballs under any license have an unmodifiable section in > their license terms, and we tolerate that, but the GFDL is seemingly > different because it forces GNU philosophy down our throats, right? Mostly the unmodifiability is a consequence of copyright law and/or the social contract anyway, as we need to give people a copy of that licence. It's not about the GNU philosophy. It's about forcing anything down throats. > Or > in the case of cover texts, it very evilly reminds us that GNU had > something to do with the writing of the manual, how dare they! It's not about attribution. I'm sure that's explained in the links which have been given. Anyway, FSF objected to the Obnoxious Advertising Clause for years. Should we like this ad clause just because it's in a GNU licence? Hope that helps, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GFDL and cover texts
Le mardi 07 août 2007 à 10:48 -0500, Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso a écrit : > But we can't modify the COPYING file in a source tarball, and that's > ok. Why isn't a cover text like "a GNU manual" also acceptable? IIRC, we also accepted invariant stuff in code comments. Cover texts are *functional* invariants. They restrict what you can do with the documentation. The reference card issue should be enough in itself to demonstrate this has real implications. -- .''`. : :' : We are debian.org. Lower your prices, surrender your code. `. `' We will add your hardware and software distinctiveness to `-our own. Resistance is futile. signature.asc Description: Ceci est une partie de message numériquement signée
