David Gerard wrote:
On 22/11/2007, Robert Horning
<robert_horning(a)netzero.net> wrote:
I'm not suggesting here that some significant
improvements to the GFDL
can't happen, but I can't even begin to imagine how Linus Torvalds (who
is one who has been very vocal about some of the changes to the GPL...
in part due to this issue) would react if the FSF went and simply
declared that some version of the Creative Commons license suite was in
fact "the next version of the GFDL".
It's entirely unclear how that's relevant even by analogy, given that
Torvalds' stuff is all GPLv2 and expressly not "or later."
And you want to know why Torvalds is insisting on GPL v2 only? This
isn't accidental, and it does show some distrust with the FSF that they
may not do the right thing in the future. I'm not here insisting that
the GFDL v. 1.2 is the one and only true version for now and eternity,
but there is a trust issue here with the community of individuals who
use this license that is not being addressed effectively.
GPL/GFDL
compatibility is from my perspective something far more
important (and should be important to the FSF) than CC-by-SA/GFDL
compatibility, but that is another issue entirely. I certainly don't
know how you could get GPL/CC-by-SA compatibility to work at all.
Have you read GPLv3? And how it achieves compatibility with the Apache
v2 licence and the AGPL.
I would be amazed if the FSF were as careless as you hypothesise them to be.
- d.
If this happens where compatibility between the CC-by-SA license is the only
consideration for a future license, I will have to consider the updated version of the
GFDL to be an utter failure.
BTW, I haven't read the "official" GPLv3, but I have read draft versions of
it from time to time. And have watched some of the diffs between the various draft
versions as well. Some of this is to fix problems that RMS sees are an issue (such as the
Tivo-related stuff, and the expansion of the patent issue section) and some is to adapt to
the newer technology that wasn't originally anticipated when the GFDL was originally
written... especially web services and software distribution models that don't use a
traditional operating system like Unix or Windows. I have also read some of the drafts of
the updated GFDL, and so far I haven't seen anything so drastic to suggest that the
GFDL is going to have a massive overhaul here, although there are some explicit concerns
that have been addressed. Full compatibility and harmonization with CC-by-SA or any other
CC license seems like a good idea, but a dream, and I'll have to see it to believe it.
The GFDL fills a different niche in document licenses, and I have a hard time seeing RMS
give up some of his pet ideas that went into the GFDL originally.
-- Robert Horning