[BadVista Advocate] Free software and Vista

[Don Hensley]

OK.

Don. 
**************************** 
 On Sunday 06 May 2007 04:55 pm, Guy Johnston wrote:
Don Hensley wrote:
> 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.

I know he sometimes allows derivative works if you ask for his permission.
 However, my point was that he doesn't allow that without his explicit
 permission, so that's not a freedom everyone has. There's a chance
 (theoretically) that if you asked them, Microsoft or Apple would give you a
 copy of the source code of their software and let you use, modify and
 distribute it however you want, but that wouldn't make it free software if
 only you could exercise those freedoms.

There's also something confusing at the bottom of your article, where it
 reads "This entire article is being released under the The GNU Free
 Documentation License, here it is (easy to understand, isn't it?):

Copyright 2007 Don Hensley
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any
 medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved."

That seems to imply that that simple permission statement is the GNU FDL,
 which it isn't. The FDL is the long document at
 http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.html. That statement isn't any form of free
 licence, as it only allows verbatim copies to be made, and because of
 copyright law, other uses, such as distributing modified versions, aren't
 allowed without extra permission from the copyright holder.

-- 
GNU/Linux is the future.
Join the FSF: http://www.fsf.org/register_form?referrer=4458
Get the Real Facts: http://BadVista.org