discuss: modifiability of docs: final decision
Subject:
Re: modifiability of docs: final decision
From:
David Lawyer ####@####.####
Date:
5 Mar 2005 04:34:24 -0000
Message-Id: <20050304091844.GC940@lafn.org>
On Thu, Mar 03, 2005 at 12:44:12PM -0500, Emma Jane Hogbin wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 03, 2005 at 02:17:13AM -0800, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
> > I believe that there is consesus that modifiability of
> > documents should be a licensing requirement. I havent
> > anybody opposing it.
>
> Just because no one has voiced an opinion otherwise does NOT mean that
> there is a consensus. I am still trying to wade through about 200 emails
> in my TLDP inbox and am having a difficult time keeping up.
I agree. But it takes more than a consensus per the Manifesto. It
takes an informed consensus which means that people need to understand
all the issues involved.
I think that most everyone in LDP prefers licenses that allow
modification to those that don't. But there's a third alternative to
consider: Licenses that allow modification under certain conditions, or
saying it another way, licenses that prohibit modification under certain
conditions. Furthermore, if someone prefers a certain type of license,
it doesn't necessarily mean that they favor that the LDP should reject
all licenses (and hence reject documents) that don't conform to that
type of license.
So back to the point about licenses that are in between: "You can't
modify" and "you can modify". Right now LDP accepts both extremes and
everything in between. The GFDL is such an in-between license. You are
allowed to have invariant sections that can't be modified. Even if you
have no invariant sections, the history section can't be modified. But
there are better reasons for not allowing modifications: advertising.
Some sites have inserted advertising into LDP documents. They could do
even worse and have pop-up ads, etc. I think it reasonable to prohibit
this type of modification with the license. Actually, copyright law
allows the license to restrict display of the work so it can restrict
display of the work with pop-up ads, etc.
Thus, if we do change the requirements for licenses, I think it should
possibly allow GFDL (I'm not a fan of GFDL) as well as a license that
restricts advertising. With a couple hundred mirror sits, there's no
problem of having LDP docs without ads. But searching the Internet for
info sometimes leads to a site that has LDP docs with ads. But are
there other situations where one should restrict modification? Perhaps.
What about cases where the modifications makes the doc worse, as
actually happened with some of Al Dev's modifications of adding hype
(and possibly invective as someone claimed). Thus I think that
restricting modification under certain conditions can be of significant
public benefit.
The analogy between non-free documentation and non-free software just
isn't valid due to the differences between documentation and software.
Non-free documentation can be read and understood, and since facts are
not copyrightable, facts obtained from it (along with other info) can be
used to write a free document. But with non-free software, one isn't
even permitted to read it (the source code). And even if you are
allowed to look at the source code, it may not be clear how it works.
But when reading a document, the contents should be clear, as contrasted
to hard-to-understand source code for software. If source code was very
easy to understand by everyone, then we wouldn't need to write
documentation since we could tell users to just read the source code to
understand Linux :-).
All this means that non-free documentation is not nearly as harmful to
society as non-free software. LDP documentation is always free in two
ways: It's free in cost and one is free to make copies. We encourage
authors to use licenses that allow modification. If we were to change
the requirements to only allow non-modify in certain situations, it
might take a lot of words to state it and I think it's nice to have a
one sentence requirement like we do now. One possibility is to require
at least that if the author can't be located, then anyone can modify.
One problem is that someone needs to write a license for this situation.
LDP used to write it's own licenses. Should we try again? I think yes,
but not now until we get our review process up to speed.
There is one class of document that needs to be modifiable, and that is
the documentation for free-software programs. When the program is
modified by someone else, the documentation needs to be modified also.
For LDP, when the software changes (or new software is devised to do the
task), the author/maintainer should modify the LDP doc pronto, but alas,
it often doesn't happen
David Lawyer
