Re: A possible approach in 'solving' the FDL problem
Wouter Verhelst <wouter@grep.be> writes:
> On Thu, Aug 07, 2003 at 09:22:25PM -0400, Brian T. Sniffen wrote:
>> Said Wouter:
>> >> > In fact, if the debian-legal group were to decide all by itself that
>> >> > software and documentation are essentially the same thing, I'm
>> >> > afraid a fork would be much more likely.
>> >>
>> >> It is not the same thing. The question is whether the definition of
>> >> freedom should be the same for both.
>> >
>> > That's exactly the point I'm trying to get through. I feel that a lot
>> > of developers think it is not. As such, I'm suggesting we ask our
>> > developers, and work from there on.
>>
>> IANADD, but while there is clearly documentation which is not software,
>> all documentation distributed by Debian -- possibly excepting CD cases --
>> is software.
>
> In the broader definition of software. Not everyone sees that definition
> as correct, including many people who accepted the DFSG with a
> definition of software that only includes 'computer programs', not this
> broad definition, in mind.
OK. See, I thought you were arguing for keeping documentation in main
under looser criteria than executable programs. If you're arguing
that some of what Debian is distributing *isn't software at
all*... gosh, what is it? I'd thought Debian distributed Free
Software. But now you're telling me it distributes Software,
Documentation... anything else in there?
And incidentally, what does all of this do the LaTeX issue -- TeX is
written using Literate Programming, remember, so the code and
documentation are tightly interwoven.
-Brian
--
Brian T. Sniffen bts@alum.mit.edu
http://www.evenmere.org/~bts/
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