Re: [libreplanet-discuss] The FSF Allows No Derivatives,

[J.B. Nicholson-Owens]

Ali Abdul Ghani wrote:
> http://onpon4.github.io/other/fsf-no-derivatives/

I'm guessing you pointed us to this article because you wished to 
discuss the article. Here are my views on this article.

The article makes a number of claims without any sources; there are no 
links to other pages as one would expect to find (save one to a 278 page 
PDF of "Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. 
Stallman"). FSF and GNU Project webpages are easy to link to and quote, 
their pages are static HTML and easily readable with text, some offer 
links to sections within the same page (like 
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html which is a list of 
words to avoid). There's no excuse for not providing source material 
pointers in the form of inline links.

Quoting the article:

> The FSF's idea is that if people are allowed to modify works of
> opinion, they are going to distort it and misrepresent the original
> author(s). The FSF claims that this is the only possible reason one
> could have for modifying a work of opinion, which is nonsense.

Where has the FSF claimed this? I'd like to read the evidence for this 
claim for myself. Has the author tried to offer translations of articles 
and been rejected? Some FSF and GNU Project pages offer translations and 
that means someone had to write them. It's not clear that this article 
is complaining about a real issue. It's also worth noting that the 
article doesn't respond to the alleged FSF claim at all, besides calling 
it "nonsense".

Instead the article inadvertently goes on to show how the alleged FSF 
opinion is quite sensible:

> It's even entirely plausible that the work can be improved in some
> way; perhaps there's an embarrassing typo that the original author
> isn't fixing for some reason, or perhaps rewording a paragraph makes
> the point the work is trying to make stronger.

Improving a work is in the eye of the beholder; in other words, 
improvements are subjective. The articles in question aren't functional 
works -- one doesn't use them to get a job done. So it's not clear that 
one needs them to be modifiable. This is a point the article would do 
well to expound upon but doesn't.

The irony of these points (and the reason I consider the article 
'inadvertently' making the FSF's alleged point for them) is that I'm not 
sure the author is conveying the FSF's views accurately (too few sources 
cited). So if I'm not sure this article is getting the FSF's views 
correctly, maybe the FSF is on to something in allegedly fearing 
misrepresentation.

Here's another point the author makes without evidence:

> Perhaps the negative effect is large, and perhaps the negative effect
> is small, but even if just one person is prevented from doing a
> useful translation or adaptation by a no-derivatives license, that is
> one too many.

The author should define terms that are quantifiable and then do the 
legwork to look things up. Neither are done here. If the "negative 
effect is small" the entire point of the article is lost on me as one 
adversely affected translator strikes me as insignificant. If the 
"negative effect" is large, exactly how many is a "large" number of 
translators or translations and why were each stopped from publishing 
their translations? Were these authors not capable of writing their own 
essays or giving their own talks citing FSF/GNU Project works as needed 
per fair use?

Another undefended claim -- "The FSF doesn't need to insist on free 
culture; in fact, it shouldn't." -- where exactly does the FSF "insist 
on free culture" and what exactly does this author mean by "free 
culture"? I'd like to read this source for myself and understand what 
you mean when you say things.

By this point in the article I'm ready to give up reading because the 
article reads like the author is arguing against their own views instead 
of referenced quotes of what the FSF says.

Another point in the article that makes no sense to me:

> No-derivatives licenses do absolutely nothing to stop
> misrepresentation.

This is true but allowing derivatives would also do absolutely nothing 
to stop misrepresentation of the author. So why bring this up?

The author doesn't discuss how one can quote from the article in order 
to "spread the message of the FSF" without license (just like I'm doing 
to this article without regard for its license). I've found that it's 
easy to cite passages (entire paragraphs, even) from GNU Project and FSF 
essays, blog posts, and mailing list articles while combining them with 
points I put into my own words. Spreading the FSF's message is assisted 
in this way because I'm using their material as a source for backing up 
my points. This implicitly tells my readers I know what I'm talking 
about and lets them see where I get the backing for my case.