Debian GNU/Linux to Declare GNU GFDL non-Free?

Syntaxis writes "There's some considerable argy-bargy in progress over whether or not GNU's own GFDL is a Free documentation license at all. At issue are "invariant sections" which cannot be removed from derivative works. Check out the thread culminating in the proposed motion to take action. The current consensus on Debian-legal does indeed appear to be that one of the FSF's own licenses is non-Free under the terms of the Debian Free Software Guidelines! Well, documentation for GPLed projects countermanding the very freedoms embodied in the GPL certainly seems insane to me."

Comments

Actually, the GPL fails the test too.

[Brett Glass]

Ironically, despite the fact that it is promoted by an entity which calls itself the "Free" Software Foundation, the GPL is not "free" according to the Debian definition (and is also not "Open Source" under the Open Source Definition). Why? because it discriminates against a group of people (programmers who produce commercial software) and against a field of endeavor (the creation of commercial software). This discrimination is intentional. As Richard Stallman himself has written publicly:

In the GNU Project, discrimination against proprietary software is not just a policy--it's the principle and the purpose.

Most proponents of open source and freely distributable software of all kinds recognize that commercial software also has an important place in the world. But the FSF does not. Its licenses are designed to discriminate, and therefore do not conform either to the Debian defninition or the OSI definition. This isn't a matter of ideology; it's a matter of fact. Stallman himself says so.