Re: gtkmm tutorial license / FDL

[Michael Ekstrand <lists elehack net>]

On Thu, 2 Mar 2006 03:53:56 -0800 (PST)
<halbtaxabo-debml yahoo com> wrote:
> The FDL allows me to fix bugs in the docs and
> distribute the fixed docs under the same
> license. That's free enough for any
> reasonable person. It's not worth wasting
> any time (that might more usefully be spent
> documenting something ...) on trying to
> persuade authors to agree to change the
> license on their work to something that meets
> Debian's ideological-purity standards.

Yes, there's a lot of idological purity flying around the Debian debate
on this subject. However, I'm a fairly pragmatic person without a moral
opposition to proprietary software - and I have found myself in support
of the Debian resolution.

As either the Debian general resolution or the discussion surrounding
it points out, there are several technical problems with the FDL also,
mostly pertaining to poor choice of wording with consequences that go
beyond what a free documentation license "should" guard/protect/allow.
These consequences may very well be unintended, but they are still
there. The Debian project wants to be able to carry on their work
without fear of violating licenses.

So yes, there are better things to do than expend all our energies
trying to get all authors to "see the light" and ditch the GFDL. But it
is still worth mentioning to authors, and bringing up for discussion,
because the FDL impacts concerning Debian are (or at least should be)
of concern to a greater portion of the community.

- Michael

-- 
mouse, n: a device for pointing at the xterm in which you want to type.
                -- Fortune