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RMS at Truman State - Invariant Sections



Below is my review on the RMS presentation at Truman State last Friday.

As usual, it was a ... um, different ... presentation. Some stuff is old hat,
some obvious, some not so obvious, some interesting, some brilliant, and some
just delusional. But that's par for the course with RMS... :=)

P.S. For those wanting to know about the "invariant sections" and its relation 
to Free Software vis-a-vis the threads on debian-legal. I did get a chance to
ask him.

I guess the answer, as best I can translate from "RMS-ese", is that he doesn't 
recognize the problem in the first place, so therefore discussing "solutions"
or "alternatives" is meaningless (for him). He views them as "they would never
be used for evil", and so doesn't understand part of the question, and he feels
they are very much akin to the BSD "advertising" clauses. He pointed out that
no-one feels BSD-style advertising/copyright notice clauses make those 
licenses "non-free". You have to admit, he's got a point there.

But, I think, in his mind, if really pressed on the issue (which he seems to go
to great lengths to avoid, IMHO) that he sees those as *optional* components 
of a GFDL-licensed work. Therefore, if one has a problem with those clauses, 
simply don't do so yourself, and forbid anyone else from adding those 
"options" (invariant sections and cover texts) in *your* license for *your* 
work.

I'm thinking along the lines of the way you "construct" a Creative Commons
license. For example, I ran across this example below here:

http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Disk-Encryption-HOWTO/intro.html#copyright

The part, IMHO, that makes this a "Free" license, is the restriction that NO
Invariant Sections or Cover Texts can be added to the work. i.e. you can't use 
it if you want to take away a recipient's right to modify the work - any part 
of it.

> 1.2. Copyright and License
> Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under 
> the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later 
> version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections,
> no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is 
> included in Appendix A.

Whether you buy into the "or any later version" is another debate.... :=)

But, in short, I believe it is a "Free" work, and uses the GFDL to spell out
what you can and can't do with the document. And all of this is if you feel
the GPL isn't suitable for your document. Or *some* of the Creative Commons 
licenses. It is but one license among many.

But, for Debian, I can see their dilemna for full GFDL coverage for a work that
allows for Invariant Sections and Cover Texts. And I honestly do believe that
the GFDL was an olive branch to publishers to get them to accept a "free"
license where they effectively are *never* granted exclusive publishing rights.

And IMHO, it is this last part that is the truly insidious part of how
information is disseminated under copyright structure. i.e. not only do
companies buy up copyrights (making it harder to get, say, different licenses 
granted), but they lock up publication with exclusive publishing rights granted 
by the copyright holder.

Anyway, it was an enjoyable evening and the college kids got their brains
exercised a bit, which is why they are in college in the first place. The most
important thing I think the audience "got", was that the very information they
are paying (and taxpayers, too) to get exposure to in our educational systems
and institutions of higher learning *IS NOT FREE*. Not the textbooks, not the
syllabi, not the coursework, not the software used to write reports or publish
papers with, etc. None of it. It's *ALL* locked up by copyright laws. You could
almost hear the figurative light bulbs going on when this topic was discussed.

Mike/

---------------------------------------------
http://www.valuenet.net



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