On 6/12/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 6/12/07, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote:
On 6/11/07, K P kpbotany@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/11/07, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote:
Do you have a real-life example where it is impossible for you to comply with the license?
Impossible? The same example I gave, a 4" square image accompanied by a couple of pages of text. Impossible? I'm a starving artist, I can afford to frame a 4" square image, but can't afford the 24" by 24" frame, paper and matboard for the accompanying text.
Who said the license had to be on the picture? I appreciate the ridiculous idea, but it isn't very helpful in a discussion.
This is actually a common interpretation. Common enough that RMS has explicitly disagreed with it: <blockquote>Someone mentioned the fact that the GFDL says the work must "include" the license where as the GPL says that the license must "accompany" the work. His assumption was that this distinction had major consequences, but on reflection I believe it does not make a difference. A work can consist of multiple volumes, so the GFDL could be in one volume while the other volume is as short as you need it to be.
So it seems that you could indeed make a reference card from a GFDL-covered manual. You would just have to distribute a little booklet along with the reference card. The booklet would include the license and any invariant sections.</blockquote>
http://groups.google.com/group/linux.debian.legal/browse_frm/thread/d04e3fc6...
Now, granted, RMS can be just as wrong as the rest of us non-lawyers, but his argument does seem reasonable.
That's just it. It's not practical to distribute a booklet along with images in many cases. No magazine would ever use a GFDL image if they had to distribute a booklet with it, or even print a copy of the license with it. The requirements of the license make re-use a hinderance unless the entire work is already being licensed under GFDL. Which is not a strategy which encourages re-use by any except those who are already totally sold on the free-content idea.
What the GFDL needs is a requirement that says that you could just say, "(C) So-and-so, licensed under the GFDL (see gnu.org for details)." That's about as much as any non-internet-based content provider is going to be able to allocate to any single image, and it is not at all unreasonable.
FF