License change requested
Oct. 17th, 2013 03:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akuchlingThe Privacy Handbook's copyright is held by the FSF, and it's under the GNU Free Documentation License (FDL). The FDL isn't viewed very favorably these days -- using invariant sections means the document is no longer considered "free" under the Debian Free Software Guidelines -- and today the CC family of licenses are more popular than the FDL.
(I think the FDL's complicated DRM and "Invariant section" language make the FDL hard to understand, and don't apply to the common use case for writers. IMHO relatively few people need to have some parts of a document modifiable and other parts invariant; instead people care about the commercial/non-commercial usage of the document as a whole.)
So the Privacy Handbook's license needs to be changed. Werner Koch, the GnuPG maintainer, has now made this request to the FSF. I don't think the FSF responds very quickly -- presumably this decision will have to wait for some committee or the FSF board to decide -- so now we wait.
(I think the FDL's complicated DRM and "Invariant section" language make the FDL hard to understand, and don't apply to the common use case for writers. IMHO relatively few people need to have some parts of a document modifiable and other parts invariant; instead people care about the commercial/non-commercial usage of the document as a whole.)
So the Privacy Handbook's license needs to be changed. Werner Koch, the GnuPG maintainer, has now made this request to the FSF. I don't think the FSF responds very quickly -- presumably this decision will have to wait for some committee or the FSF board to decide -- so now we wait.
