[Fsuk-manchester] Distributions that accept GFDL with invariant sections

[Simon Ward]

I mentioned at yesterday’s meeting that I looked into FSF endorsed
free system distributions’ policies on accepting documentation
licensed under GFDL with invariant sections. The results aren’t
good if you find such documentation an issue.


Blag
----
Best I could find is “If you find any software or documentation that is
non-free according to the Free Software Foundation's criteria, please
report this to the forums so we can remove it.
http://forums.blagblagblag.org/” (interesting to note there is forum for
discussion about non‐free software here).

Documentation licensed under GFDL is included in the distribution.
There is no mention that I can find about GFDL with invariant sections.
An email in the archives lists some license tags for packages, which
doesn’t include anything special for GFDL with invariant sections. There
was a question in the forums[1], with a response indicating at least one
developer (who has apparently left the project) prefers GFDL, but
doesn’t say anything about invariant sections.

http://forums.blagblagblag.org/viewtopic.php?t=4680&highlight=gfdl


Dragora
-------
I couldn’t find anything on the site or bugs mailing list about GFDL
documentation. The site itself is GFDL licensed.

An old site contains a manifesto[] that explicitly allows “data that has
an aesthetic purpose” as long as you can copy and redistribute it, only
two of the four freedoms.

http://dragora.usla.org.ar/wiki/:en:informacion_general:manifiesto


Dyne:Bolic
----------
I couldn’t find anything on the site, but a manual (old) names some
invariant sections.

http://distro.ibiblio.org/dynebolic/dynebolic-manual.txt


gNewSense
---------
Explicitly uses GFDL with no invariant sections for the web site
and its own documentation, but has a policy of actively hunting
down documentation that Debian removed from main and adding it to
gNewSense.

http://www.gnewsense.org/DocumentationTeam
http://www.gnewsense.org/LicenceInformationUpdate
http://www.gnewsense.org/Roadmap
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnewsense-users/2009-06/msg00044.html
http://www.gnewsense.org/Projects/DocRejectedByDebian

On a positive note, all of this information was easy to find, even
if there doesn’t appear to be a single policy document. If only
the other distros could be as good at documenting things.


Musix
-----
I had trouble finding anything useful, in part due to my rusty
Spanish and not getting on with Google Translate. The web site is
GFDL, no mention of invariant sections that I can see.


Parabola
--------
Considers “works of opinion” and “non‐functional data” suitable
for inclusion.

https://wiki.parabolagnulinux.org/Package_freedom_verification_problems#No_modification_allowed_for_.22works_of_opinion.22_or_.22non-functional_data.22


Trisquel
--------
The website and Trisquel documentation explicitly use GFDL with no
invariant sections, but seems to happily accept documentation with
invariant sections.

http://trisquel.info/en/issues/2330
http://trisquel.info/en/issues/1363


Utotu
-----
Didn’t find anything useful. Site is GFDL, no mention of invariant
sections as far as I can tell.

Simon
-- 
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a
simple system that works.—John Gall

signature.asc
Description: Digital signature