[BadVista Advocate] Free software and Vista

[Don Hensley]

This is not exactly accurate. RMS does allow some very heavy modifications to 
his works, at times. 

Here are examples:
RMS: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

My Modification: http://donhensley.com/right-to-write.html

Some of mine is word for word copied from his, the rest is very modified...

I simply asked him if it was OK. Now I suspect it's the license you were 
meaning, not RMS.

Even then all RMS actually did when granting me permission was to ask that the 
terms of the license his was released under was followed (He was polite about 
the way he did that too --you can read his reply to my request at the link to 
my work).

Because the GNU Free Documentation License does allow modified versions. 

4. MODIFICATIONS
In part: "You may copy and distribute a Modified Version of the Document under 
the conditions of sections 2 and 3 above, provided that you release the 
Modified Version under precisely this License, with the Modified Version 
filling the role of the Document, thus licensing distribution and 
modification of the Modified Version to whoever possesses a copy of it."

From here: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.html

So my asking, and his granting was a politeness on each of our parts (more his 
then mine). So long as I stayed withing the guidelines of the GNU FDL I was 
free to do my modification anyway.

I asked because from my viewpoint I was about to fiddle around with a very 
important work, and sometimes it's wise to simply be friendly... show a 
little respect, as it were.

And because of the way I wished to present my version, it would have been  
awkward to do the full cover page, and so on, and while there is an exception 
for conditions like mine, where the cover page layout would not work well, I 
decided to seek permission from the actual source... in my example RMS 
himself.

I think being polite is always a good thing, and asking first is always 
polite. I will admit I debated a long time about my wasting his (RMS) time 
with my request, I finally decided based not so much on what I was doing, as 
I was reasonably sure he would agree with my reasons for doing it. And he 
did. 

When you read my modified version (which I hope you like), I suspect you will 
realize it was more the shared dissatisfaction with the person's remarks that 
caused me to write it, rather then my prose, that made RMS feel favorably 
towards my modification of his work.

More on that subject here: http://duskpeterson.com/technopeasant/

BTW: the one thing not allowed is to change the license it's self. A 
modifiable at will license is no license at all (Public Domain).

Don.
************************* 
 On Sunday 06 May 2007 12:15 pm, Guy Johnston wrote:
It may be true that what he means is similar to what I'm saying, but I don't
 think so. He allows verbatim distribution of all his essays, but never
 distribution of modified versions, even if you do make it clear how it's
 different from the original.

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