Re: GDFL vs GPL (Was Re: [Bashdb-devel] Upcoming changes for potential Debian release)

[James M. D. <mdu...@ya...>]

--- "R. Bernstein" <ro...@pa...> wrote:
> Matthias Klose writes:
>  > I actually proposed to relicense or dual license the docs. The
> latter
>  > would have the advantage, that it could be merged back to the bash
>  > docs which have the same license for the docs (GPL)
> 
> I've solicited the help of someone more competent at this than I. If
> there are no "Invariant Sections" then GDFL is the same as GPL. Does
> Debain have a problem with documents that are GDFL that don't have
> any
> invariant sections? 
> 
> The only invariant section I see is in the current bashdb reference
> manual is what I would call FSF boilerplate in the info
> documentation:
> 
>   Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this
> document
>   under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1
> or
>   any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with
> the
>   Invariant Sections being ``Free Software'' and ``Free Software
> Needs
>   Free Documentation'', with the Front-Cover Texts being ``A GNU
>   Manual,'' and with the Back-Cover Texts as in (a) below.
> 
>   (a) The Free Software Foundation's Back-Cover Text is: ``You have
>   freedom to copy and modify this GNU Manual, like GNU software. 
> Copies
>   published by the Free Software Foundation raise funds for GNU
>   development.''
> 
> I'm trying to understand the objection is to this. There is a saying
> that "the freedom for you to wave your fist ends at the tip of my
> nose". With freedom comes responsibility. People are free and welcome
> to make technical improvements or even make it technically
> worse. However the philosophical stuff they are not free to change at
> present.


Yes. What is the problem here. Just view the invariant sections as
non-content. What if the document has %0 content? delete it.
make a policy that it must contain %75 content or not be allowed in the
distro.


the FSEDu project puts all of its wiki under the GDFL.

mike

=====
James Michael DuPont
http://introspector.sourceforge.net/

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