Debian/GFDL – could they do better?

I really wonder why GFDL-licensed documentation is a problem if it doesn’t contain invariant sections. Maybe somebody could shed some light on the issue, I accused the Debian people of distinguishing themselves at the cost of a pragmatic policy.

5 thoughts on “Debian/GFDL – could they do better?”

  2. Invariant sections are the intractable problem. However, the other two problems the debian-legal folks have (properly) brought up probably could be handled by negotiation. Then a revised GFDL could at least make documents that lack invariant sections DFSG-free.

    The suggested alternative, of using the GPL for documentation, has problems of its own: every person who receives a copy of the document has to get a written offer, good for three years, to get the source code for the document, which is defined as the preferred form for modifying the document (the LaTeX source, or the OpenOffice file, etc).

  3. If Microsoft spreads FUD about the GPL there is a huge uproar in the OSS community. If dabblers and amateurs do the same on the debian-legal mailing list and on wikipedia then people believe it.

    There is not a single lawyer out there who supports the absurd nonsense (“GFDL forbbids changing permissions on your harddisk”) the debian-legal FUDDos are spreading around.

    It is just the personal agenda of some loonies against RMS, who once showed up on their list and said: “you are all little worms and I wont listen to you any more” (he used a different wording though). I’m all but a RMS fan but it is ridiculous that these pseudo-lawyer-loonies are holding the debian project hostage and now are trying the same with GNOME.

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