Documentation licensing FAQ
De JacoboTarrioOrg
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Live draft
This is a proposal for addition to the DFSG FAQ (http://people.debian.org/~bap/dfsg-faq.html). It was discussed on debian-legal (http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/). Previous versions of this FAQ (with differences among them) can be seen in the "historial" tab. This site uses the same theme as Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/), so you can use it even if you don't understand Spanish.
Q: Why does Debian apply the DFSG to documentation?
A: Debian applies the same standards of freedom to all works it distributes; some of these standards are written down in the DFSG. No widely-accepted reasons have been provided to use a different standard with documentation than with programs.
Even if we were to treat programs and documentation differently, first we would need to have a clear way to tell documentation and programs apart. Many works, like source code annotated with Javadoc comments or Postscript files, are programs and documentation at the same time, so it is very hard to find such a clear division.
Q: Shouldn't we allow documentation which describe standards or personal opinions to be non-modifiable? Why should we need the same freedoms as for programs?
A: Mainly, for three reasons: such a restriction is unnecessary, it is useless and it is not true that it would be less appropriate for programs than for documentation.
First, misrepresentation can be prevented without forbidding anyone to modify the work, by requiring all modified works to not claim that they are the original work or that they were written by the original authors; so, the restriction is unnecessary.
Furthermore, a clause in a copyright license would not prevent someone misrepresenting the work or its authors. For example, I might create a new, original document titled "RFC 2821, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol" with a distorted description of SMTP, and with this action I would not be contravening the license of the IETF's RFC 2821. The proper defense against this are the various laws dealing with libel, fraud and impersonation. So, such a restriction would be useless.
Finally, if there were any reasons to allow such a restriction in documentation, these reasons would allow it in programs too. For example, a standards document might be accompanied by a demonstration program. One could say that the reputations of the authors of the document and the program may suffer if someone breaks either one of them. If Debian allowed any restriction on modification of the document, Debian should also allow the same restriction on modification on the program, so this kind of restrictions would not be more appropriate for documentation than for programs.
Q: I think that some "Debian Free Documentation Guidelines" should be created as an alternative to the DFSG for documentation. What should I do to have them adopted?
A: You should start by drafting a proposal yourself. Preferrably, your proposed guidelines should be based in the DFSG to ensure that they (your proposal and the DFSG) are similar in philosophy.
In your proposal you should include a rationale for your proposal. You should make sure that, for every difference between the DFSG and your proposed guidelines, it answers the following questions:
- For what kind of works is this difference necessary?
- How can we distinguish between works that need the difference and works that do not need the difference, in such a way that everyone would make the same distinction in all cases?
- Why is the difference necessary for that kind of works?
- Why is the difference not necessary for all other works?
A well written and well reasoned rationale will help you refine your proposal and make sure that it is logically sound. Also, when you submit your proposal for consideration, it will show that your proposal is well thought through.
Suitable places to submit your proposal to are the debian-legal and debian-project mailing lists. Generally, such proposals spark a lot of discussion and fierce flamewars which spread to other lists. Don't worry, it's not personal :-)
Finally, if your proposal is not shot down after several months' worth of discussion and gathers enough support, and you still want to follow through, you'll have to propose a General Resolution to amend the Social Contract, which will need 3:1 supermajority to win.
Q: If the DFSG are to be applied to documentation as well as to programs, why is the text of the GPL included in Debian, if it says that it cannot be modified at all?
A: Because the verbatim text of the license must be distributed with any work licensed under its terms. This is not specific to the GPL; almost all free licenses require that their text be included verbatim with the work. As a compromise, Debian distributes copies of the GPL and other licenses under which the components of Debian are covered. This compromise will not be extended to other types of works.
(Note that according to the FSF, which is the author of the GPL, you're actually allowed to modify the text of the GPL and create a derived license if you remove the preamble and you do not call the results "General Public License". See the GNU GPL FAQ (http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#ModifyGPL) for more information.)
Contributors to this FAQ
Jacobo Tarrío, Andrew Suffield, Doug Jensen, Francesco Poli, Anthony DeRobertis, Raul Miller, Evan Prodromou, Ben Finney, Glenn Maynard, Humberto Massa and MJ Ray.
