FDL again, was: My concerns about GPLv3 process

[Eneko Lacunza]

Hi Rui Miguel,

First of all, my apologies for having replyied this message before
reading (almost) al the thread about this issue the past days.

El mié, 22-02-2006 a las 20:55 +0000, Rui Miguel Silva Seabra escribió:
> Este mensaje ha sido analizado y protegido contra virus y spam
> On Wed, 2006-02-22 at 21:11 +0100, Eneko Lacunza wrote:
> > And besides that, FDL doesn't limit the purpose of an invariant section,
> > so in fact is allowing to restrict the freedom to modify the work.
> I guess you didn't bother to check yourself and chose to believe some.
[...]
> It's much easier to dispel specific doubts and misbeliefs like the one
> you stated instead of Debian's bogus "GFDL is not Free".

	You're right, and I apologise for my fault. But I don't think Debian's
"GFDL is not Free" is bogus, as do many more.

	You also don't comment my first paragraph about the problems with
invariant/dedications.

> > >    Why does FSF have two distinct opinions about the adequate level of
> > >    freedom for manuals and for software?
> > > Because they are different.  It is that simple.
> > > http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-doc.html
> > 
> > But the 4 freedoms do not change, it does not matter wheter it is
> > software or not.
> Oh really? Let's see...
> 
> 	Theory: 4 software freedoms are the same for books
> 
> 	If Theory is true then you can "run" a book for "an
> 	purpose" (software freedom 0) since it is a software freedom.
> 
> 	But since you can't "run" books, then you can't exercise one of
> 	the four freedoms.
> 
> 	Hence, the 4 software freedoms are not the same for books.
> Q.E.D.

	I do not understand "Q.E.D.". For the other part, if you understand
"run" as "read", which I think is quite appropiate, it works.

> > > Because such restrictions make sense, you don't need the right to
> > > modify my thoughts about why I wrote the book, or to whom I dedicated
> > > the book.
> > 
> > 	That's right. But then, your thought are not free, and if you insist to
> > attach those thoughts to your work, then your work neither is free.
> But my thoughts and opinions are mine, and not yours. I made them and
> those specific words where what I wrote and shared with you.
> If you alter that you are effectively rewriting what _I_ said. That's
> close to 1984's new speak.

	Your thoughts and opinions and yours, and if I change the document that
has them writen down, the text contained in the document no longer are
your thoughts and opinions. So what?

	I can equally create a document from scratch that contains texts with
thoughts and opinions that are not yours :)

	I respect you to not want the text you've written be modified, no
matter the contents, but then it is NOT FREE.

> > 	I also agree that it makes sense that some philosophy text, music
> > recordings or images can't be changed. But IF they can't be changed,
> > they are NOT free. Let's not pretend that everything must be free and
> > next change the meaning of freedom.
> Let's not confuse the purpose of freedom. You don't have freedom without
> limits, or you'll be able to exert power over your "inferiors" (think
> proprietary versions of Free Software that doesn't use a user protecting
> license like the GNU GPL).

	 I agree that freedom has limits, but any limit is not posible for
freedom. An invariant section does nothing to protect the freeness of a
document.

> The moment you want to make it so that what _I_ wrote is something else,
> you're placing words in my mouth, so you're not exercising freedom.

	But I can do it anyway without modifying a document written by you :)

> > 	Sorry, but if the documentation of a free program has FDL, then it can
> > contain invariant sections, so that I am limited :)
> Wrong. Only if it _has_ invariants.

	No. I'm limited because someone can insert invariant sections later, a
newly modified derivation. I can't reuse that derived version without
taking the invariant section with it. :-)

	I must say that I was quite convinced that GFDL was a free
documentation license some time ago. But after Debian's GR I researched
a bit so that I understood why the resolution was approved. After
reading all this read and some suplementary links provided by Alessandro
Rubini, I'm more convinced that ever that GFDL is not free.

Regards
Eneko.