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[Gnu-arch-users] [OT] Debian should move all GPL sw to non-free
From: |
Tom Lord |
Subject: |
[Gnu-arch-users] [OT] Debian should move all GPL sw to non-free |
Date: |
Sat, 27 Mar 2004 08:38:22 -0800 (PST) |
* The GFDL is not Debian-free
One clause of the DFSG ("Debian Free Software Guidelines") is
commonly cited as contradictory to the GFDL:
from http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines:
4.Integrity of The Author's Source Code
The license may restrict source-code from being distributed in
modified form _only_ if the license allows the distribution of
"patch files" with the source code for the purpose of modifying
the program at build time. The license must explicitly permit
distribution of software built from modified source code. The
license may require derived works to carry a different name or
version number from the original software. (This is a
compromise. The Debian group encourages all authors not to
restrict any files, source or binary, from being modified.)
(I have seen people also argue that clause 3 of DSFG contradicts
the GFDL but I haven't seen it argued well enough to try to refute
here.)
The problematic GFDL provisions are primarily found in section 3
of the GFDL. Summarizing:
* restrictions that apply to distribution of modified copies
GFDL requires that when modifications are made to a GFDL document,
some optional parts of the document _must_ be modified in certain
ways; others _must_not_ be modified in certain ways.
Most famously, a contributor may add an "Invariant Section" which,
thereafter, may not be removed or modified by others.
Slightly less well known: an "Endorsements" section must be
removed from modified versions; "Acknowledgements" and
"Dedications" sections may be modified only in certain ways; a
"History" section must be added or modified in a certain way;
"cover texts" and author lists must be updated in certain ways;
the title must be modified; and a portion of the information about
obtaining the source-form of the unmodified copy must be
preserved.
It should be noted that all of the sections and items which must
or must not be modified are specifically restricted by GFDL in
purpose and content. None of them can contain information which
is central to the topic of the document. If a manual's main
purpose is to document a program, none of the restricted sections
or items may document that program.
* Is Debian Being Coherent?
The Debian position on the DSFG is that it permits no restriction
whatsoever on modifications to the substantive content of a free
work. The sole exception is, of course, those kinds of minimal
restrictions which are necessary to implement the copyright
ownership and licensing which protects the freeness of a work.
By extension, any license which imposes content restrictions, other
than those which implement minimal requirements of copyright law,
must not be DSFG-free.
The GPL is such a license.
In section 2c, the GPL says:
c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively
when run, you must cause it, when started running for such
interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an
announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a
notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you
provide a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program
under these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy
of this License. (Exception: if the Program itself is
interactive but does not normally print such an announcement,
your work based on the Program is not required to print an
announcement.)
I call your attention to the list of things which must be printed or
displayed, in particular:
that users may redistribute the program under these conditions
Such a statement in the start-up message of an interactive program
is not legally necessary. It is political speech.
It is political speech that the FSF typically includes in its
interactive programs. For example:
% gdb
GDB is free software and you are welcome to distribute copies
of it under certain conditions; type "show copying" to see the
conditions. There is absolutely no warranty for GDB; type
"show warranty" for details.
GDB x.y, Copyright XXXX Free Software Foundation, Inc.
(gdb)
Note the phrase "you are welcome to distribute copies of it under
certain conditions". There is no legal necessity for that phrase
outside of the requirements of GPL.
You are free to modify GDB. You are free to change the wording of
that start-up message. However, you are not permitted to change the
wording of the start-up message in a way that causes it to fail to
explicitly inform users that they may redistribute GDB and directing
them to the GPL to see the conditions of that redistribution.
The same brute-force application of the DFSG that leads to the
conclusion that GFDL is non-free must also reach that conclusion
that GPL is non-free.
GPL imposes an invarient requirement on the behavior of some
programs and on the content of part of their output. These
requirements restrict the range of permissible modifications. GPL
hard-codes a specific use of this requirement: namely to deliver a
political message from the FSF.
Of course, the 10th DFSG guideline says explicitly that GPL is "an
example" of a free license according to the previous 9 guidelines,
but nothing in those guidelines explains why the modification
restrictions of GPL 2c are tolerable. Nothing in Debian's
rejection of GFDL suggests there is any fuzziness in the issue.
It is apparently simply a mistake that GPL is listed as an example
of a free license.
Clearly, to be consistent, Debian should now move all GPL'ed
software to non-free and remove the mention of GPL from the DFSG.
-t
- [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] Debian should move all GPL sw to non-free,
Tom Lord <=
Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] Debian should move all GPL sw to non-free, James Blackwell, 2004/03/28