Re: disclaimer section and interlingal com

On 19 Jan 2004 at 14:10, Alex R. wrote:

> A warranty disclaimer is not really viral.

I think this is the essential point (the rest of the email was good
too... ;-))

In other words, I can copy content from Wikipedia and strip the
warrant disclaimer, even stripping the reference to it. However, by
doing so I am creating a modified version, and thus the GFDL requires
me to specify my name (as publisher and modifier) on the Title Page of
the document. Of course, if someone dies as a result of reading my
modified version, then I don't have the protection of the disclaimers
I've removed, but this is no different to anything else I publish. By
prominently giving my name as publisher and modifier, I thus shield
the Wikipedia from the liability it is disclaiming.

>From the text of the GFDL, the only way we might have to treat
disclaimers as essentially invariant sections is from the following
sections:

> "These Warranty Disclaimers are considered to be included by
> reference in this 
License, but only as regards disclaiming warranties: any other
implication that these Warranty Disclaimers may have is void and has
no effect on the meaning of this License."

> "4F. Include, immediately after the copyright notices, a license
> notice giving the 
public permission to use the Modified Version under the terms of this
License, in the form shown in the Addendum below."

If "this License" is interpreted as referring to the same specific
License, then we have a problem. An alternative interpretation is that
in 4F, "this License" simply means "The GNU Free Documentation
License, version X". Given that the GFDL already allows for disclaimer
sections to be explicitly marked invariant if the licensor desires, I
believe that this latter interpretation is the obvious common sense
interpretation.

I propose adding the following text to [[Wikipedia:general
disclaimer]] to make this more explicit:

"These disclaimers are not "invariant sections" under the GFDL, and
sub-licensees may choose to remove them and provide warranties not
given by Wikipedia, possibly at a charge".

The providing of additional warranties by redistributors at an extra
cost is a fairly standard concept in open source, and the same would
apply to our redistributors, IMO.

I end with my own warranty disclaimer:
-Martin "IANAL" Harper
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