GNU Free Documentation License

The GNU Free Documentation License (often called GNU Free Documentation License, the original English name GNU Free Documentation License; Abbreviations: GNU FDL, GFDL ) is a copyleft license, which is intended for free software documentation, but also for other free content will be used. The license of the Free Software Foundation (FSF ), the umbrella organization of the GNU Project, edited.

The license is available only in English, the current version 1.3 was released in November 2008.

The license threatened - like all other free licenses also - in Germany to be invalid by a claim submitted by the Federal Ministry of Justice proposed legislation to modernize the copyright law of March 22, 2000. The Institute for Legal Issues on Free and Open Source Software filed on 26 June 2001, however, a widening provision, better known today as a Linux clause, which ensured the availability of free licenses in Germany.

Term

"GNU" is a recursive acronym. It stands for " GNU is not Unix". Unix is an older, non-free operating system. The GNU project software should make it a free replacement.

Intended Purpose

If an author or rights owner (licensor ) provides a work under this license, it provides for anyone to extensive use rights in this work to: The license allows copying, distributing or modifying the work, even for commercial purposes. In return, the Licensee undertakes to comply with the license terms. This provides, among other things, the obligation to state the author or authors and requiring the licensee to make derivative works under the same license ( copyleft principle). Who does not adhere to the license conditions, thus automatically loses the rights granted by the license rights.

History

The GNU Free Documentation License was originally created in order to provide documents such as manuals that were written within the GNU project under a similar license as the software itself and thus in the spirit of the free software movement free to guarantee availability and notification and transfer of rights for each person. The counterpart of the GNU Free Documentation License in the software domain is the GNU General Public License ( GPL).

Criticism

They complain that the license in comparison to other, developed later and licenses is too complicated for free content and that it is present only in an English version - there is only unofficial, non-binding translations.

The GFDL allows the author to prohibit for certain parts of the modification, if included this additional information about the authors or publisher. Critics complain that this is contrary to the idea of ​​software freedom. In the past this has brought down that the GFDL was for a time considered by the Debian project as unfree. But this was limited to documents with invariant sections in March 2006.

The fact that the effectiveness of the GFDL was (unlike the GPL) not yet confirmed in Germany in a process of a German court is led by some critics as a disadvantage of the GFDL. Proponents interpret this as evidence for the effectiveness of the GFDL suggesting possible applicants are deterred against efficacy under German law by speculative little chance of success.

Also criticized is the disclaimer in the GFDL. In German law, gross negligence and intent can not be excluded from any liability. According to BGB § 276 a permissible lesser liability should the respective author validly agree, and the liability may not be adopted because of resolution in advance in accordance with § 276 Section 3 BGB.