Re: Inconsistencies in our approach
On Sun, Aug 03, 2003 at 05:12:55PM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote:
> John Goerzen wrote:
> > 1. Would removing the manual for Emacs, libc, or other important GNU
> > software benefit our users?
> Yep. I'm very unhappy with having non-free software (and software means
> 0s and 1s -- so nearly everything Debian distributes except the
> physical CDs) in Debian; as a user, I chose Debian at least partly for
> the Social Contract, which this violates.
That's an overly-expansive view of software. You would include anything
that is digital in that description -- audio CDs, DVD movies, off-air TV
signals, books on disk, etc. I find it very hard to quantify Beethoven's
Ninth Symphony as software, even if it was recorded digitally, given that
the invention of software postdated its composition by a LONG time -- and
that the invention of software postdated early recordings by a long time as
well.
I see it as fallacious reasoning to conclude that anything that is binary is
software. If I use some sort of binary "Morse code" to send a message
manually, why is it more of software than if I use the real Morse code?
> > Would it benefit Free Software?
> Yep. It would help promote the movement to have genuninely free manuals
> for those pieces of software; manuals which could be integrated into
> programs, used as help text, freely lifted from, etc.
I agree that this is good. But how does it promote Free Software to strip
manuals from Free programs?
> I bet you thought you were asking rhetorical questions.
No, I posed them in my message as things we need to consider. And you have
:-)
-- John
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