[AUCTeX-devel] Re: New auctex version coming, and the freeze

[Frank Küster]

David Kastrup <address@hidden> wrote:

> Frank Küster <address@hidden> writes:
>
>> David Kastrup <address@hidden> wrote:
>>
>> But only under the assumption that Debian, the FSF and everybody
>> else who uses that license does read it as the FSF intended it, not
>> as it is written.
>
> The invariant sections are an explicit optional provision.  The BSD
> license has a lot more implicit possibilities of turning material
> unfree.

The invariant sections are not the problem.  They are the problem for
inclusion in Debian main, but even without them the GFDL is a badly
written license which is non-free when interpreted by the letter.  This
is the reason why I do not want to contribute to such a document, not
the fact that due to some political hassles between the FSF and Debian
the document would be outside of Debian.

>> Although that's the outcome of the Debian vote, it's still logically
>> flawed.  And I still do not want my work to be licensed under the
>> current GFDL.
>
> Let's face it: the GPL is unsuitable for a manual.  You can't hand
> somebody a copy on paper without handing him a written offer for the
> source code of it (for three years) and/or handing him the source code
> on a machine readable medium.

The GFDL is also unsuitable for a manual.  When you hand out more than
100 copies, you must also provide the source code online for (for one
year instead of three, well) or include the source code in
machine-readable form.  Moreover, it has a number of other serious
flaws, as e.g. outlined in
http://people.debian.org/~srivasta/Position_Statement.xhtml.  The FSF
has more or less clearly (sometimes in fact less) stated that they
intend to interpret these clauses in a free, DFSG-compliant way for the
documents they publish.  But that doesn't guarantee that other copyright
holders who use the license do the same, and in fact it can't guarantee
that the FSF will continue to do so.

>> And as for the "slated for change", the FSF could have done that
>> months (years) ago, but they didn't.  So why should I believe that
>> it's going to happen, and when?
>
> The drafts and calls for discussion for the GFDL and the GSFDL have
> been announced and posted just this week.

This is new to me, and in fact changes the situation.  I really hope
things will change for good.

> I am afraid that I consider this reaction far enough to the fringe
> that I personally don't think the FSF could be reasonably expected to
> cater for it.  For me, it is the "can't please all" category.  So I
> recommend that you use the feedback channels for the current GFDL and
> GSFDL drafts to voice your concern in detail yourself.  I don't feel
> qualified to speak for you.

I didn't mean that you speak for me.  But it might help to tell the FSF
that not only some outsiders, "the Debian project", but also members
(well, loosely associated members in my case) of their development teams
oppose to the current GFDL.

> I can't speak for the other developers, but it is my hope that AUCTeX
> developers feel that AUCTeX is more important than bickering over two
> sentences on front and back cover of mass-printed documentation that
> could not even be distributed reasonably on paper if it were under the
> GPL, a license that some of the purists would rather see used as a
> license than the GFDL.

As I already said, the invariant sections are a reason for not including
the document in Debian, but the reason for not contributing (unless the
new GFDL version turns out to be acceptable to me) is the complete
license. 

> Feel free to use the provided feedback channels for the current draft
> of the GFDL and GSFDL.  If you have a concern with them, I would
> consider your energy better invested explaining it there properly
> rather than trying to fork a GNU project and making some message in
> that rather divisive manner.

I trust there are enough people who have a similar opinion as I have,
and more experience in dealing with such topics, as well as with FSF
representatives and processes, than I have.  Making developers of FSF
projects aware of the "bugs" in the license for their documentation is
also something I consider important.  I assumed that the problems where
known to the team (I didn't have time to follow the list in the last
months), and therefore just wanted to ask whether the bad feelings about
the GFDL are general enough to do something about that as a team.  Now I
got the impression that you haven't discussed the license so far, and
Ralf's mail seems to imply that there's interest in doing that.

I've just sent a subscription message to the list server...

Regards, Frank
-- 
Frank Küster
Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer (teTeX/TeXLive)