Page:Shrinking the Commons.djvu/22

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380
Harvard Journal on Legislation
[Vol. 47


1. The GFDL

The GNU Project made one of the earliest attempts to apply the commons-enhancing principles of the GPL outside the context of computer software. The result was the GNU Free Documentation License (“GFDL”), which was promulgated in 2000.[1] An amended GFDL followed in 2002, which added several new definitional provisions to the license and made a few changes to the language of the license conditions.[2] In 2008, the GFDL was again revised,[3] primarily to expand the license’s termination (or forfeiture) provision[4] and to add new language permitting the relicensing of GFDL-licensed works.[5]

The GFDL was written with software documentation in mind, although by its terms the GFDL may be used for any text.[6] The GFDL, like the GPL, grants users the rights to engage in acts that would infringe the author’s copyright absent a license, including the rights to copy,[7] modify,[8] and redistribute the licensed work.[9] Unlike the GPL, the GFDL expressly permits copying for commercial purposes.[10] Like the GPL and other open-content licenses, however, the GFDL attaches conditions to the rights granted.

First, the GFDL is a reciprocal (or “copyleft”) license. Any modified version of a GFDL-licensed work that is distributed to others must itself be

  1. ↑ FSF, GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 (2000), available at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.1.html [hereinafter GFDLv1.1]. Although the label “Version 1.1” might imply the existence of an antecedent “Version 1.0,” in fact Version 1.1 was the first version of the GFDL released to the public. Id.
  2. ↑ See FSF, GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 (2002), available at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html [hereinafter GFDLv1.2]; see also, e.g., Andrés Guadamuz González, Open Science: Open Source Licenses in Scientific Research, 7 N.C. J.L. & Tech. 321, 343–44 (2006) (discussing several provisions of the GFDLv1.2).
  3. ↑ See FSF, GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 (2008), available at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.html [hereinafter GFDLv1.3]. This revision of the GFDL was commonly referred to as “GFDL Version 2” or “GFDL 2.0” during discussions leading up to the revision, and such references to the license of that type are still available online. See, e.g., FSF, FDLv2: First Discussion Draft (2006), available at http://gplv3.fsf.org/fdl-draft-2006-09-22.html. According to the FSF, work is continuing on a future revision of the GFDL, still slated to be called “Version 2.0.” See FSF, FDL 1.3 FAQ, http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-1.3-faq.html (last visited May 4, 2008) [hereinafter GFDL 1.3 FAQ].
  4. ↑ See GFDLv1.3, supra note 103, § 9; see also infra notes 119–22 and accompanying text.
  5. ↑ See GFDLv1.3, supra note 103, § 11; see also infra notes 141–47 and accompanying text.
  6. ↑ See GFDLv1.3, supra note 103, § 0 (“We have designed this License in order to use it for manuals for free software . . . [b]ut this License is not limited to software manuals; it can be used for any textual work . . . . We recommend this License principally for works whose purpose is instruction or reference.”). The principles underlying the GFDL are expounded in Richard M. Stallman, Free Software Needs Free Documentation, in Free Software, Free Society, supra note 47, at 67.
  7. ↑ GFDLv1.3, supra note 103, §§ 2–3.
  8. ↑ Id. § 4.
  9. ↑ Id. §§ 2–3.
  10. ↑ Id. § 2.
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