Re: [ox-en] Re: GFDL
- From: Thomas Uwe Gruettmueller <sloyment gmx.net>
- Date: Sun, 9 Feb 2003 16:23:07 +0100
Hi Stefan,
On Saturday 08 February 2003 12:01, Stefan Merten wrote:
I think the new version made rather clear what is meant here.
The key paragraphs here are
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. *If a section does not fit the
above definition of Secondary then it is not allowed to be
designated as Invariant.* [highlighting by me] The Document
may contain zero Invariant Sections. If the Document does not
identify any Invariant Sections then there are none.
and
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.)* [highlighting by me] The relationship could be
a matter of historical connection with the subject or with
related matters, or of legal, commercial, philosophical,
ethical or political position regarding them.
So the worries of Thomas that someone may add invariant racist
stuff or things like that is not covered by the GFDL.
I don't understand the relation between the paragraphs quoted
above and your conclusion.
For example, someone could translate your Milestone to Klingon
and add an Invariant section: "I have translated this because I
hate Ewoks." It would not matter that the original version did
not have an Invariant section, because the derived work is
licensed independently. Also, the off-topic clause does not
prevent this because the topic of the Milestone text is not
racism-related. ASDAP IANAL TINLA.
Anyway, I don't see so much of a problem in it:
* GFDLed texts without Invariant Sections are clearly free.
* If I.S. are to be considered non-free, then the GFDL is a
non-copyleft-license, like the BSD license.
* Such non-free versions with would still be freely copyable,
so the book as a whole would still be freely copyable.
* Racist remarks, pornos and stuff like that will be very rare.
So, there is no reason to worry about it, yet. (Although
there is pornographic material in Debian -- hehe).
* The book will be a loose aggregation of chapters,
"communicating at arms length" ;o). They could have
different licenses, like the programs in a Gnu/Linux
distribution; just in case that someone wants to
contribute a GPLed or DSLed text to the book.
cu,
Thomas
}:o{#
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