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Free Documentation License 1.3Free Documentation License 1.3Posted Nov 3, 2008 22:20 UTC (Mon) by BrucePerens (subscriber, #2510)Parent article: Free Documentation License 1.3 The GFDL is not the best thing to come out of FSF. It includes a provision for invariant sections to protect things that are essentially rants. It also contains this prize language: You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the copies you make or distribute.This could be read to prohibit login security and file access control. It's pretty clear to me what it means is that you can't use DRM, and I even approve of what it means, but that's not what it says, and I expect any judge anywhere to rule on what it says rather than what it means. Once again FSF has updated the license without making any serious attempt to solve its problems, except by offering Wikipedia a way out of the license. Bruce
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Free Documentation License 1.3 Posted Nov 4, 2008 2:31 UTC (Tue) by donbarry (guest, #10485) [Link]
Bruce, you're normally one of the saner voices. Do you really consider
the GNU Manifesto as a rant?
It's the founding document of ethics for the Free Software Community.
One could quibble whether the requirement itself to preserve invariant
For the record, I have no problems with the GFDL, and I could easily conceive of situations under which I might attach an invariant section to a document I released under it.
Cheers
Free Documentation License 1.3 Posted Nov 4, 2008 2:51 UTC (Tue) by BrucePerens (subscriber, #2510) [Link] You really could have started out your question without implying that I or my statement are insane or suffering a period of abnormality.The GNU Manifesto is a fine document standing on its own. To bind it immutably to a software instruction manual, compelling all to reproduce it there, is ranting. As a political document it should be immutable, but should not be bound to something that is not a political document. Bruce
free software is political Posted Nov 4, 2008 10:53 UTC (Tue) by wingo (subscriber, #26929) [Link]
I don't know where I stand on the GFDL; it's a bit irritating sometimes. I do have works published under it, and under BY-SA.
But what prompts me to respond is the assertion that free software is not inherently political. I would disagree. Part of what motivates me to do this is to carve out a larger space for freedom in the world -- certainly a political intention. If the fruits of such labor are not political, I don't know what is.
Finally, you seem to use the word "political" as a pejorative; not sure if that was intentional, but I think this is mistaken. Free Software is not neutral, it has goals and direction, both in the minds of contributors and operationally (an expanding universe of freedom). There's nothing negative about this political orientation.
free software is political Posted Nov 4, 2008 15:59 UTC (Tue) by BrucePerens (subscriber, #2510) [Link] Well, I'm political too. But I did not burden the Debian distribution with mandatory rants that have to be distributed to all users, for example, because it wouldn't have been practical if I had. What we are really talking about with the GFDL is a mandiatory political advertisement. I have no problem with the content, indeed I approve of the content. It just belongs somewhere else.
Free Documentation License 1.3 Posted Nov 4, 2008 11:15 UTC (Tue) by tao (guest, #17563) [Link] Yes Don, the GNU manifesto is a rant, in this context. A political manifesto, no matter how important, heart-warming, eloquent and what not, is something that should be able to stand on its own. I normally only buy fair trade food (if available). If all the fair trade food would have a booklet attached to it explaining all its wonderful virtues, I wouldn't buy it; I'd be disgusted by the self-glorification. A small fair trade logo (and occasionally a few *lines* of text) is enough for me to know that I'm buying the right thing. Similarly, having ls show: Copyright (C) 2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. when I type "ls --version" is perfectly fine. Having it show it each type I just type "ls" would have people mass migrating to some other implementation. This is the advertising clause of BSD all over again. Granted, not everyone is aware of the virtues of free software (just as not everyone is aware of the virtues of fair trade food, liberalism, democracy, freedom of speech, DRM-free products, etc.), but that's no excuse to beat them over the head with it. You don't win supporters by telling them that they are wrong. You win supporters by letting them see that you're right (and sometimes it's just not possible). Yes, you're providing the users libre software/documentation. Should they feel thankful for this and put up with anything just because of that? A user that would ever care about the ideological difference between free and proprietary is bright enough to notice even a small blurb. If the software/documentation has high enough quality, and the amount of available material is large enough, users will not be able to avoid noticing even a small copyright/license notice. This is the kind of positive interest that sparks curiosity to find out more. Make sure that if the user googles for the GPL/FDL, the first thing (s)he'll see, along with the license itself, is the GNU manifesto. Because if (s)he's come that far, (s)he will be open to the ideas. A user just reading about the right way to get ls to show its output in columns is less likely to care. Mass-migration to libre software/documentation/media/whatnot will not happen unless we can be at least as good as the (proprietary) competition or have something that gives us a competitive advantage. For software, that's usually pretty simple; the price. Even if some users switch to GNU/Linux or one of the BSDs for ideological reasons, John Doe will not care one iota at first whether the software is libre or closed; what he'll do is look at the two EeePC's on the stand, notice that the GNU/Linux version is cheaper than the Windows version, and thus pick it. I highly doubt that a user who receives a manual page (sorry, but I totally abhor the abomination that is info), where 90% of the size of that manual page is the GNU Manifesto, will get a positive impression of the free software movement. I imagine that the first thought that will pop into mind is "rant, rant, rant". A user, on the other hand, who keeps getting high quality documents and software, with more responsive developers than the earlier proprietary system he used, will eventually care about how come it's possible. And if he doesn't, banging him over the head with the reason won't help one bit.
Free Documentation License 1.3 Posted Nov 4, 2008 13:18 UTC (Tue) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link]
It seems to me, given how text works, the current strategy is exactly equivalent to your 'ls --version' vs 'ls' example. The invariant sections don't interfere with the intended use.
In all practical formats (I don't regard a linear recording spoken word version of a manual, text book or similar reference work as practical) the manifesto doesn't get in your way at all. Anyone not interested (or at least intrigued) will skip past just like they skip the CIP page in a book.
I have a copy of "The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 21" at my bedside at the moment. It contains a introductory section from the collection's editor which, I kid you not, goes on for over 40 pages. This section touches on everything from summer blockbuster movies to the fate of electronic distribution for semi-pro authors, some of it is certainly close in tone to a rant. But you don't have to read it before getting to the stories, in fact you don't /have to/ read it at all.
What you shouldn't do though, is rip out those pages and pretend that they weren't part of the work because you personally didn't want to read them.
The idea that you can better sum things up in two or three words and avoid confusion is a terrible one. Take a look at the US. For almost any legitimate scientific, medical or political organisation there is a parallel organisation with a confusingly similar name, that exists to promote a narrow and often extremist religious agenda. The people behind these outfits know that the names are confusing, and they rely on it. Whether writing in support of a political campaign, appearing before a court or just on the TV news, they know that most people will assume based on their name that they're getting a balanced reasonable view point from experts, not religiously inspired fear-mongering.
And we know that Free Software is a target for this same sort of intentional confusion. Including the manifesto spells out what GNU actually stands for, thus helping to defend against the quite deliberate confusion that's coming from proprietary software companies and other opponents of these goals.
Free Documentation License 1.3 Posted Nov 4, 2008 14:55 UTC (Tue) by nlucas (subscriber, #33793) [Link]
I believe that is the problem. You should have the option (freedom?) of ripping the pages you want. In the same way nothing prohibits you from writing smileys all over the book and drawing mustaches on the author picture. Also nothing prohibits you from giving that "vandalized" book to someone else (as long as you don't lie that it was the author himself who "vandalized" the book). If someone makes a wonderful tutorial for, let's say, the command line but 50% of it is the glorification of the command line and rants against the GUI users, you could have a strong reason to keep the tutorial, because it's so wonderful, but strip the rest of the off-topic pages (if we assume the topic is not the rant). I can't understand why a distro couldn't distribute that tutorial stripped, as long as it's introduced as part of the full tutorial. It may be what the license orders, but then I would blame the author for choosing that license and just forget about that particular tutorial.
Free Documentation License 1.3 Posted Nov 4, 2008 17:49 UTC (Tue) by martinfick (subscriber, #4455) [Link] Also nothing prohibits you from giving that "vandalized" book to someone else (as long as you don't lie that it was the author himself who "vandalized" the book).Uh, what would prohibit you from lying about this? You said giving, not selling. Even if selling, it would not likely be a problem unless someone could make the case that they bought the book under this false pretense, and then, at best, they might get their money back.
Free Documentation License 1.3 Posted Nov 4, 2008 18:03 UTC (Tue) by nlucas (subscriber, #33793) [Link]
You could be accused of defamation. Money exchange has nothing to do with it.
Free Documentation License 1.3 Posted Nov 5, 2008 2:35 UTC (Wed) by TRS-80 (subscriber, #1804) [Link] The example I've seen used is a single-page keyboard shortcut quick-reference. If you want to derive this from the Emacs manual, you have to include a copy of the invariant section, the GNU manifesto, which is several pages long, defeating the point of the quick-reference.
Free Documentation License 1.3 Posted Nov 5, 2008 17:41 UTC (Wed) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
One could argue, that mere collection of facts without any creative work within cannot be protected by copyright and as such the quickref can be freely taken off from the Emacs manual and distributed any way you would like.
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