Re: REVISED PROPOSAL regarding DFSG 3 and 4, licenses, and modifiable text

[Scott Dier <sdier@debian.org>]

* Branden Robinson <branden@debian.org> [011202 02:53]:
> > but do we want to deticate space and bandwidth to non-free licensing,
> > or does the cabal of publishing ideas limit us to thinking of
> > documentation as Free?
> I'm sorry, I don't understand this part.

Theres been business models made out of documentation and writings not
being Free, however the software around it being so. (O'Reilly, for
instance)  Until recently, the FDL and sorts havent overly challenged
publishers to really give out any documentation electronically for free,
with good reason that it makes people money.  Some Writers now want to
be able to write good documentation for something but have the
documentation be Free in any form.  This freaks out publishers, because
they might not get all the possible revenue on a item, but it helps
Users because they should expect better access to Good Documentation,
thus hopefully freeing up thinking minds from helping users due to Bad
Documentation.  But thats probally not totally germane to this
discussion.

In any case, the people who worry about money (publishers) are worried
about Free Documentation.  Perhaps Debian, as a project, can help by
making sure that the documentation isn't restricted horribly.  By having
documentation that cant be maintained in the future is somewhat
worthless 'eventually' to Users, and with the Maintainers and Upstream
with hands tied, having to reproduce documentation thats Free to stay
Current is also a waste of time.

So, the idea is that you either have non-free docs that dont go
electronic, or you have Free docs that are maintainable and highly
available with people buying the book because they want to either
support the author or have a nice bound typeset version.

-- 
Scott Dier <dieman@ringworld.org> <sdier@debian.org>
http://www.ringworld.org/  #linuxos@irc.openprojects.net

So I ran up to him, and the exchange went something like this:
Me: Oh my god! You're Larry Niven!
Him: Oh my god! You're Wil Wheaton!
	-Wil Wheaton, in a Slashdot interview