FS/OSS license: not quite enough of a requirement

[Rahul Sundaram]

Alexandre Oliva wrote:

> 
> As long as the rationale is understood the way I mean it, yes.  But my
> experience hasn't been exactly conducive to a belief that it will.
> Thus my request for comments, such that we can come up with something
> that we all understand and agree as to its meaning.

Please just follow the process that many people have outlined to you 
now. You have no guarantee that the wording you drafted will make it in 
but you will have a significantly better chance if you follow the 
process and explain the rationale well within the draft.

> A number of times, when I came up with issues along these lines, they
> were deflected with claims that "we are already talking to the FSF
> about this."  At least it felt that way to me.

Then you felt wrong.

> Documentation is important for software, but it's not software.  It
> ought to be modifyable such that it can be maintained in sync with the
> software.  Invariant sections don't stop this if used properly.

There is there no guarantee that it will be used properly. If anybody 
adds text like say "Free software sucks" in a invariant section then we 
can't include that documentation or remove that invariant section. 
That's just one issue. See the other ones highlighted in
http://people.debian.org/~srivasta/Position_Statement.xhtml

Documentation that has invariant sections are clearly non-free. Any 
doubt about that?

Rahul