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The LDP and Debian
Guylhem writes: "The former LDP license was the first license used for our documentation. While we are now recommending the GNU FDL and the OPL 1 without options A or B, many documents are still licensed under the LDPL. David Merril, our Collection Coordinator, noticed that the LDPL is "not free" according to the Debian Free Software Guidelines.
We have to get in touch with the authors as soon as possible or 2/3 of the LDP document collection will be removed from the base Debian distribution because the code freeze is happening in 2 days. Maybe some of the LDP unreachable authors are reading slashdot and could take 1 minute to submit an updated document licensed under the FDL or OPL v1 -A -B ? Another solution is to find volunteers to rewrite from scratch the concerned documents."
Would they really use a code freeze as an excuse for putting out a release with the majority of it's documentation removed?
Surely not. I would think the intelligent thing to do would be to set a seperate freeze date for the documentation.
As far as I understand, just using the application is no problem, and you really don't need to be concerned with the license other than knowing it exists. You DO need to pay close attention to the license if you are planning on modifying/releasing any of the source code for the GPL applications.
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
They aren't a company. They believe in Free Software specific to certain licenses, it's an ideal more than a product. They'd be hypocritical if they didn't do this.
"Another solution is to find volunteers to rewrite from scratch the concerned documents"
... and easier to explain to your mother than kernel hacking.
Nothing like the glory of writing the help files. Its the most visisble part of any program
Cruise TT
That is why Debian is not a company and that is also why they are so cool. BTW this does not mean that the docs will not be there it just means that you will have to add non-free to your sources list. I know of very few people who don't have non-free in their sources list anyway and so it would not look like a change to a person installing or using Debian. It would all still be there just not in main anymore.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
I'm probably missing something obvious but I see no conflict between the Debian policy and old LDP license. The license grants the right to freely distribute the original and none of the restrictions it has for derived works conflict with the Debian policy.
What am I missing?
I find it interesting that this would be modded up.
;)
"This self-important bullshit ought to stop"
You are making an assumption about the purpose of Debian. You assume that it's about providing you with a new release. It is not. Debian as a project is about producing a free software operating system. If 1/2 of that definition is not met by 2/3 of the documentation, then it should be of major concern (to at least 1/3 of the team
It's not a big deal, get back to hacking code
And what code do you hack? I'm getting rather tired of self-important Slashdot posters who feel that these slackers should go back in the kitchen and bake some pie. We, the coders of various open source and/or free software applications write the code for our own reasons. If you don't like the code or don't feel that it's up to your standards/schedules, then don't use it. We'll be just as happy either way.
I would have a lot more sympathy for your comments if you spent any time acknowledging that these folks have provided you with an awful lot of benefit because they're fanatics who will waste hours/days/years of their lives for the good of the free software cause.
Am I missing something? Or does this sound to anyone else like it would have been noticed before? (Especially among the Debian crowd?)
Also, this isn't something to stop the code freeze for? I thought code freezes were done to get everything in order for releasing the next version. Clearly, not everything is ready, so it would make sense to me not to freeze the code...
an updated version without documentation wouldn't be much of an updated version!
libertarianswag.com
Does anyone else see any irony behind the fact that the GPL doesn't require derived works to credit the original authors, yet RMS wants GNU plastered all over everything that rubs shoulders with the license?
If it ain't a Model M, it's a piece of crap.
sPh
i think it's because DFSGv3 demands that EVERYTHING in the package be modifiable and LDP can allow unmodifiable sections. I could be wrong here though, I'm almost as confused as you.
Caoilte
Ooh, it's sure easy to see how the LDP license would destroy the Free Software community if it were allowed to persist. Good thing that those alert folks at Debian are on the case: I'd hate to think they just had their heads in the usual location. I'm sure there will be no problem locating the authors of two-thirds of the Linux documentation and persuading them to fiddle with licensing issues.
And a good thing, too, because it would be horrific if everyone just started automatically sticking the "Non-Free" pool into their sources.list. After all, it isn't like most people run Debian just because they want a Free As In Beer distro which is easy to upgrade!
Hats off to the Deb folks! I'm sure glad I recently donated cash to their cause!
No shit, the hypocrisy involved in the Debian project is ridiculous. Removing the GIF code from Gimp because it's not free? Next you're gonna tell me they won't allow XMMS (licensed under the GPL) in the free section because it can play MP3s, a non-free and patented file format.
Somehow I doubt RMS sees the irony. I wrote a short piece about this back on March 31, 1999: Why "GNU/Linux" is a Misnomer In the 2.5 years since then, the FSF still has not released a GNU distribution, relying instead on the Debian project to do what they won't.
Given that "The GNU Project" doesn't credit the X Window System anywhere in its name, RMS has no moral high ground to stand on when he demands that all Linux-based systems be referred to as "GNU/Linux" systems.
It's doubly ironic that the older BSD license was incompatible with the GPL specifically because of the so-called "advertising clause" that requires credit be given for the BSD-licensed software.
Isn't it funny how RMS feels it isn't necessary to credit BSD or X Windows, yet demands such credit for the GNU project? It's disingenuous hypocrisy, through and through. If someone makes a free software distribution, they should be able to call it anything they want, whether "GNU", "Linux", "BSD" or anything else is included in the name.
After all, wasn't this all supposed to be about freedom? I guess that doesn't include the freedom to choose the name...
Deven
"Simple things should be simple, and complex things should be possible." - Alan Kay
This is the reason that so many open source style projects get so bungled up. I have a great appreciation for Debian. It was my introduction to Linux, and I'll always keep one or two Debian systems around me. But they are always so far behind. And things like this "rewrite" are one of the primary reasons why.
Why go an re-invent the wheel everytime someone puts a different type of nut on it from what you like? Work with the people to get it the way you want it. Don't go throwing a temper tantrum, tossing away a perfectly good bit of software/documentation/whatever and screaming, "You no good, me do better!" Not only is it childish, it's also extremely narrow minded and wasteful of resources.
As other posters are pointing out, it's not like this couldn't have been dealt with sooner than two days before the code freeze. This is something that should have been dealt with a long time ago if it needed to be dealt with. Instead it comes across like a last minute bid for attention. "HEY EVERYONE! I'M GOING TO THROW A USELESS FIT ABOUT SOMETHING STUPID! Oh, and by the way, we've got this code freeze coming up..."
Sorry, this just seems a little ridiculous to me.
Bite my yammer.
Yes, I hate licensing too. In fact, that's one of the reasons that I like Debian GNU/Linux. Those folks are fanatic about licensing issues so that I don't have to be. This LDP thing is actually a good example of this. There is no way that any of the LDP authors are going to come after Debian. Especially since Debian itself isn't breaking the rules set forth in the LDP. They are moving the documentation into non-free because they want to alert potential documentation developers that you can't change these documents and distribute the changes without changing the name of the document. That's a pretty tiny nit to pick, but to them it's important.
Which means that if I limit myself to the main part of the Debian distribution I can rest assured that I can happily change the source code to anything I see and still distribute those changes (I might be required to distribute source as well, but that's another story).
GIF code (for encoding GIFs, not reading) is not free due to software patents. Further, GIF is in the process of being replaced by a free standard (PNG), which is also technilogicaly superior. For similar reasons, MP3 readers are perfectly safe because the MP3 patent only covers the encoding process.
Exactly how is this "hypocricy"? Debian says it's a project that upholds a certain set of Free Software guidelines, and then does so. They still allow non-free software, but it is seperated from the free stuff. It would be hypocritical to allow GIF encoding or LDP docuementation as a "special case". Now you may disagree with their unwavering stance on Free Software, but that is no basis for calling them hypocrits. Even so, I'm not sure that documentation should be held to the same standards as software.
(Personally, I started using Debian because of their stance with Free Software. I didn't even know what apt was until six months or so after I started using it.)
Not a typewriter
Personally, I wouldn't lose any sleep if the LDP documents were granted a temporary reprieve from their DFSG problems long enough to get into woody. It also won't bother me if 2/3 of them have to go into non-free. The documentation will be available to those who want it, either way.
But I see more than little irony in all the hysterical chest-thumping going on in the replies to this message from people who admit they haven't even read the DFSG, or even the GPL, and then bitch about Debian's "hysterical chest-thumping", of which I can find none. David Merrill and Colin Watson have been perfectly civil with each other and everyone else on this issue. Whatever crisis there is here is being manufactured, Katz-like, by armchair developers who don't appear to have any notion of the practical matters behind operating a free software project. Both Colin and David have this understanding, which is probably why they don't have a problem with each other.
Get caught up on the issues, first, mmmkay? The DFSG wasn't sprung on people last week. It's been around for years. So has the OSD. So has the FSF's definition of free software. People who need a slashdot story to bring the fact that free licenses permit modification to their attention don't get any sympathy from me.
What happened in this situation was clearly just misfortune. Neither the LDP documentation maintainer or the Debian package maintainer were aware of this situation until recently. Maybe they should have, but that's spilt milk. The simple truth is that Debian didn't schedule its freeze to screw the LDP. And, having watched the situation develop on the debian-legal list, I don't think the LDP will get screwed. Everybody with an actual stake in this who has spoken up wants to make this work. Some folks just used a bad license for their documentation. That's too bad. You live and you learn. You either relicense it or you don't. Debian will continue to welcome freely licensed documentation with open arms.
You know, for the life of me I can't imagine why anyone would want the freedom to modify technical documentation. It's not like software ever changes, right? I mean, none of us own any books on computers or software that say things like "Second Edition" or "Third Edition", right? And certainly such fundamental, landmark works as The Art of Computer Programming have never required the scarcest revision, let alone a rewrite to switch from MIX to MMIX...right?
Address-collecting spam robots don't know how to crack ROT13. Do you?
IMO, the LDP license is much better than the one Debian wants to use. There is a good reason why changes to the documentation should make it back to the original authors, so they can update their documents. Documentation isn't software. When someone makes a change to software somewhere, and has to update the documentation, the corrosponding changes should be made at the LDP. I shouldn't have to worry if the "Apache Howto" at the LDP website is no longer valid, because somebody at RedHat modified the wording of a "DocumentRoot" to "DocumentStart". According to the LDP license, if someone makes a change like this and documents it (in the RH docs), the change should be forwarded onto the LDP, so they can update/add to theirs, so everyone knows whats going on. This is not the case with the proposed Debian license. People can make changes willy-nlly, and the LDP docs get all out of sync. i think this is ridiculous, and I encourage all LDP authors to not change anything. If the Debian fanatics insist on it, let them write their own docs.
Yes, someone(s) with a particular ax to grind are spending a lot of moderation points on these threads. If the mods were for Offtopic I might see at least a valid argument (if not agree with it), but the Trolls and Flamebaits suggest a concerted effort to suppress any questioning of the party line.
Sort of like John Ashcroft's performance today, eh?
sPh
The problem is that Debian is quickly becoming just as bad as Microsoft in terms of insisting that everyone play the games by their rules, freezing out everyone else.
Um, no. They insist that they play by their own rules. What anyone else does is their business. Perhaps you are confusing Debian with RMS?
Now they suddenly announce that since 2/3 of LDP does not satisfy their definition of "free," they're going to drop them. Not move them into "non-free," drop them outright.
Where did you read that? They're not dropping them. They're moving them from "main" to "non-free". They'll be just as available as they ever were. Debian even keeps blatantly non-free stuff like Netscape on their servers. Debian developers perenially argue whether they should dump non-free for the sake of purity and/or to save space and maintainer effort. So far the users have won every time.
The only way to avoid this is for authors to drop everything else in their life to make these changes.
Well, yes, it will certainly take a great deal of time and effort on the part of the authors to change their licenses. Maybe as much as an hour. The only reason there's any hurry is that woody-base will be frozen in a few days. The timing is unfortunate, but considering the importance of the docs, and the fact that docs don't impact other software, I will venture to predict that the Debian maintainers will be generous in letting docs back into main after the freeze as the licenses are fixed.
And, rubbing salt in this wound, this question was clearly written by one of the persons responsible for dropping these documents. Yet he doesn't feel the need to actually provide a link to a list of the documents in question. We're clearly supposed to waste even more time trying to track down that list on the Debian site because this guy can't be bothered to provide the link in his message.
The list doesn't exist yet. LDP is working on it.
I should also point out that Debian did not instigate this. No one at Debian had noticed the license issue till David Merrill pointed it out to them. If you don't like the fact that they then acted in accordance with Debian policy, perhaps you're using the wrong distribution.
The FDL ain't free either. It's quite ironic that Debian wants to convert LDP docs to FDL docs because the former doesn't meet the Debian definition of Free. Well the latter doesn't either. If it wasn't for the fact that the FDL came from GNU, Debian would reject it in a heartbeat.
According the the FSF's four freedoms, the OSI Open Source Definition, and the Debian guidelines, any license that allows immutable sections in the body of a work cannot be Free. Geez.
Of course, documentation should not follow the same rules as software. The root problem is that Debian needs separate guidelines for docs than they do for software. Both LDP and FDL (as well as "copy this at your leisure" licenses) should be allowed.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
No modification is allowed at all. According to the Debian Free Software Guidelines (which they are now applying to ALL included works, not just software), they require that modifications are allowed.
If they drop the text of the license, then they'd have to drop every package licensed under the GPL (as the license requires including a copy of the license).
Until the entire software community only produces "Free" software, licensing issues are going to exist. The good news is that in the Free Software world licenses are actually much less of an issue than in the commercial software world. If your company is purchasing commercial software without paying a lawyer to look at the contracts then you truly are a fool. In the Free Software world that isn't necessary, although you certainly do have to pay attention when purchasing the shrink-wrapped versions of most Linux distributions. Nearly all of them contain software that is most definitely not Free.
To use your "damn" example Debian could simply patch this hole with a quick change to the Debian Free Software Guidelines allowing for documenataion that was freely redistributable but required a new title and proper credits given for changes. This would be little more than a "wedge" type fix, because all of a sudden there would be an exception to the rule. Instead Debian took the more radical approach of removing the "danger," however slight.