GNU Free Documentation License Released

Jonathan Riddell writes "The FSF have quietly released The GNU Free Documentation License 1.2. There's been some controversy about the creation of this license and possible abuse of non-editable sections to make documents non-Free. A diff shows that there's been a fair number of changes. The FDL is in my opinion the most flexible way to keep documentation Free while preventing abuse from publishers."

We'll have to see how this develops

[Henry V .009]

Interesting. The author gets to decide whether certain sections are "Invariant," can't be modified, or not.

If a translation is done of an Invariant section, the translator either needs the author's permission, or needs to include the original along with it.

Re:problems with a central authority

[ichimunki]

Warning. Link is actually to a pretty nasty scat photo, using a redirect via buy.com.

Re:problems with a central authority

[Anonymous Coward]

I second that. Don't click on it. It's a chick eating her own diahrea in a bathtub.

Invariant sections

[evalhalla]

Invariant sections have to be "secondary sections" i.e. not about the main technical subject of the document, so I believe that they can't be used to make a document non-free. Anyway they're not new to this edition of the license.

I agree that they can lead to problems when translating the document, but such problems can be accepted in exchange for the great flexibility given by invariant sections.