Savannah rejects a project because it uses GPL

[Xavier Amatriain]

I would say more, regardless of the discussion itself the reaction of
Alfred is really unacceptable if he is really representing GNU. And I am
saying this as a real Free Software supporter who has trouble justifying
it many times due to the way our own people present themselves.

Really sad.

On Fri, 2006-02-10 at 23:44 +0100, Alessandro Rubini wrote:
> Alfred,
> while MJ Ray may be difficult to deal with, it seems to me you
> are following just the same path, like each of you isn't understanding
> what the other part is saying, while I'm sure you understand each
> other perfectly.
> 
> This is one of several examples:
> 
>    mjray clearly hinging at fdl manuals:
>    >    vanished) and still includes non-free software manuals.
>    
>    alfred smizd not getting the hint (or showing not to):
>    > It includes manuals for non-free software? That seems silly.  Could
>    > you point out which manuals so that they can be removed?
> 
> I'll bring my experience as author, touching a different point than
> freeness/unfreeness, where there will never be agreement. I used the
> FDL for a printed book when it was fresh new; I pushed for it with my
> co-author and the relevant person in the publishing house, at the end
> all of us were convinced it had to be the best choice, main reason
> was because it was a FSF thing and thus obviously right.
> 
> Later, after following the discussion in debian-legal and elsewhere,
> after thinking about it ourselves, we came to the conclusion that it
> has been a very risky choice, and we switched away from it in the next
> edition of the book.  What follows, though, is my own position, and I
> don't know how much it is shared by other involved parties.
> 
> The main problem of the FDL, for authors, is in failing the copyleft
> mechanism.  The invariant sections and cover texts, that can neither
> be modified nor be removed, allow people to make derived works whose
> technical contents can't be folded back in the original manual.  We
> had no cover texts and a competing publishing house could republish,
> bringing slightly up to date the material and sticking their own "a
> gnu manual" as cover text, or an invariant about how copyleft kills
> economy, thus preventing reuse of the added material by the original
> authors or publishing house (if you ask to explain or "back up" my use
> of "prevent", I won't).
> 
> Sure we could have though about it from the beginning, sticking our
> own cover texts and invariant sections. Does this mean that the only
> way to enforce copyleft with FDL is by sticking ads to the material?
> Isn't it like patenting ideas just to prevent others from doing it
> first?
> 
> I agree the non-functional material is probably better protected by
> denying modifications, but unremovable invariant and cover material
> isn't the right solution, in my opinion. Removable invariants may
> probably be, but the current FDL doesn't allow removing invariants
> or cover texts.
> 
> > Debian does include non-free software.  It promotes its usage by
> > giving space to host it.  Even Fedora is a better bet [...]
> 
> Flame bait, I'm sorry. Same sin you contest to your party.
> 
> /alessandro
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