On Sun, 2002-05-05 at 00:41, Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
On Sun, May 05, 2002 at 12:40:40AM +0200, Jeroen Dekkers wrote:
On Sat, May 04, 2002 at 11:33:46PM +0200, Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
GFDL with "invariant sections" or some "front/back cover" things is proprietary license.
It isn't, it only takes away freedoms you can't do anything useful
Not having to publish crap is something very useful.
You have not read carefully what GFDL states and do not consider that documentation has some real difference from software. You cannot threat toughts and software exactly the same way.
with and is generally only abused. The same does the GPL.
Have you ever worked with open/free documentation ?
It would completely destroy Wikipedia if we allowed some 'invariant sections'.
Many of us have worked with documentation, have you ever read any doco on www.gnu.org site? What licence do they have? Do you think that is bad?
The possibility to modify a software is obviously a good thing! The possibility to modify a technical document to update or correct it is of course a very good thing (and GFDL permit it if used correctly)!
But the possibility to change a person's toughts is NOT!
If in a document I say: "I think Free Software is a good thing!" and I licence the document under GPL, you are entitle to change (without even notify me) it to be: "I think Free Software is a BAD thing!".
Now do you think this is fair? What is the meaning of permitting other people to change MY toughts?
They are MY toughts not something general that is useful to change, I'm the only entitled to change my toughts, so applying invariant sections to personal toughts is The Right Thing! and GFDL is the right way to preserve the ability to correct wrong or outdated techincal statements without changing the philosophical/political/whatever personal opinions of the author.
Stating that GFDL is not a valid free documentation license, is just a miscomprension of this point.
Sincerely, Simo.