discuss: Documentation licensing
Subject:
Re: Documentation Licensing
From:
Rick Moen ####@####.####
Date:
8 Apr 2004 04:48:55 -0000
Message-Id: <20040408044850.GG22228@linuxmafia.com>
Quoting David Jao ####@####.####
> Where in the GNU FDL does it state that derivative works may not address
> the same topic as an Invariant section?
Section 1 includes:
A "Secondary Section" is a named appendix or a front-matter section
of the Document that deals exclusively with the relationship of the
publishers or authors of the Document to the Document's overall subject
(or to related matters) and contains nothing that could fall directly
within that overall subject. (Thus, if the Document is in part a
textbook of mathematics, a Secondary Section may not explain any
mathematics.)
The "Invariant Sections" are certain Secondary Sections whose titles
are designated, as being those of Invariant Sections, in the notice
that says that the Document is released under this License.
Imagine an author creates a work and aspires to issue it under GFDL 1.2,
and wants certain passages to be treated as invariant sections.
According to other wording in section 1:
If a section does not fit the above definition of Secondary then it
is not allowed to be designated as Invariant.
So, for the passage to qualify for invariant section treatment, the
author must ensure that it first qualifies as Secondary. I.e., the
section must be off-topic relative to the rest of the document (must not
"fall directly within that overall topic").
Invariant sections by definition must never be removed from the
document or derivatives by third-party recipients. They must also never
be modified. Quoting 4L:
In addition, you must do these things in the Modified Version:
[...] L. Preserve all the Invariant Sections of the Document,
unaltered in their text and in their titles. Section numbers or the
equivalent are not considered part of the section titles.
Now, some while later, a second author wishes to create a derivative
work reusing material from the GFDLed work, to address a different
topic. Unfortunately for him, he finds that the work also includes an
invariant section that addresses his topic. That section was off-topic
for the first author's work (thus meeting that requirement for invariant
status), but sadly topical for the second work -- which means the second
author would not be keeping it Secondary, and thus his planned
derivative work wouldn't satisfy the first author's terms of usage.
> I read the FDL pretty thoroughly (or at least I thought I did), and
> while I saw several restrictions against _titling_ a new section to
> conflict with an Invariant section, I did not see any restrictions
> against addressing the topic of an Invariant section.
It's not obvious upon initial reading, which brings me to a second
point: The GFDL 1.2 text is complex and confusingly written for what is
supposed to be a free-software licence. When Richard Stallman was my
houseguest and advised me to wait for the GFDL draft (initially called
DGPL) to be adjusted into final shape, I was rather unimpressed by the
mess I saw at the time. Things haven't gotten better; they've actually
gotten worse.
> > Personal opinion: Introduce GFDL 1.2-covered works today --
> > especially any with invariant sections, and TLDP will regret it
> > tomorrow.
>
> It's a little too late for that --
> http://www.tldp.org/LDP/LDP-Author-Guide/html/doc-licensing.html already
> cites GNU FDL as the first recommended license, and
> http://www.tldp.org/authors/template/Sample-HOWTO.html defaults to GNU
> FDL 1.1.
Well, you-plural can fix that. ;->
Quite a lot of people seem to have believed GFDL is a suitable licence
on the strength of FSF's recommendation. That was initially a
persuasive factor with me, too: It took me quite a while to reach the
conclusion that it's not merely verbose and over-complex but also
problematic.
> I am interested in why you single out GFDL 1.2 given that GFDL 1.1 is
> more common on TLDP than 1.2. Is version 1.2 spectacularly worse than
> 1.1 in some major way that escaped my notice?
Well, I have not yet _studied_ GFDL 1.1, and thus cannot in fairness
comment. GFDL 1.0 aka DGPL 1.0, I did read -- please see general
comment, above. (I always try to qualify my comments on licensing to
cite versions of licences under discussion, because I've seen many
avoidable misunderstandings arise when people don't take that trouble.)
Moreover, my main concern with GFDL arose from its increasing usage in
GNU documentation. When I've examined that documentation lately, I've
encountered v. 1.2.
--
Cheers, No trees were destroyed in the sending of this message.
Rick Moen We do concede, though, that a large number of electrons
####@####.#### were terribly inconvenienced.
