Alfred M. Szmidt wrote:
That's why it's harmful. If it wasn't allowed by the license, it could simply be prohibited by enforcing the license. If you don't think the outcome (as I described in an extreme form) is harmful, then we just have to disagree. I think it's harmful, so I don't like the FDL.
That you consider it harmful is one thing, it doesn't make the clauses harmful in it self.
Alessandro and I described scenarios with outcomes that follow from what the FDL clauses allow (1) and those outcomes we consider harmful (2).
(1) was derived by logical conclusion. Your only refutation to them that I can see, that the FSF could *require* copyright assignments (rather than ask for them), has been disproven. So unless other flaws in the way of conclusions are pointed out, it follows that the clauses are as harmful as the outcomes we described, or even more harmful (if there are even worse outcomes that have not been found yet).
(2) is, of course, a matter of opinion. But according to (1) it follows that if you don't consider the clauses harmful, you also cannot consider these outcome (as we described) harmful, if your opinions are logically consistent. You can have this opinion, sure, and we can have different opinions. So far, you haven't tried to explain your opinion (i.e., why you don't consider these scenarios problematic, or else which benefits the FDL gives that would justify the problems), so it's no wonder you don't convince anyone. Just repeating "different works need different freedoms" (even if assumed to be true) does not imply that exactly the FDL provisions are best, even less so in the presence of concrete examples that seem to indicate otherwise.
In theory, anyone can go and make Linux a non-free program, since it is simply impossible to enforce the license there.
Back up this claim.
What part of `in theory' didn't you get?
I got every part of it, really. Do you mean to imply that claims in theory need no backing up? (If so, you might mean by "theory" what others call "fiction".)
Frank