Re: Can the FSF be corrupted
Mathieu Roy <yeupou@gnu.org> writes:
> bts@alum.mit.edu (Brian T. Sniffen) a tapoté :
>
>> You argue that RMS is incorruptible?
>
> I do.
>
>> I present as a counterargument the GFDL.
>
> The GFDL did not reached a consensus as the GPL is in the free
> software world, sure.
>
> But I wonder which part of the ideas expressed by Richard on
> www.gnu.org are contradicted by the GFDL. Richard always focused on
> software and not on book and even if he ackownledged that software
> documentation must be free.
The four freedoms, for a start.
> The fact that Richard do not see freedom for documentation like
> proeminent people of Debian do not mean that Richard is corrupted.
> How he understand the freedom for documentation nowadays is not
> different as before. We cannot speak of corruption -- there no
> changes, no sign of corruption.
He's always been willing to ensure the end user, the recipient of a
copy, had freedom. He's increasingly willing to sacrifice that to
promote the message that "the end user, the recipient of a copy,
should have freedom."
> At the contrary, nowadays Richard's position about freedom for
> software is coherent with the stand he made before.
>
>
>> > But the GNU licenses are anyway designated to reach a specific
>> > goal very correctly documented on gnu.org.
>>
>> The GFDL does not meet the FSF's four freedoms. But oh, look what I
>> found on www.gnu.org:
>>
>>
>> The GNU Project was launched in 1984 to develop a complete
>> Unix-like operating system which is free software: the GNU system.
>>
>> So the FSF says all these manuals are either not part of the GNU
>> system, or are software.
>
> The manuals are not software.
But they are distributed as part of GNU! And gnu.org says GNU *is*
free software. Not that it contains free software, but that it
exists only as free software.
> The goal of the GNU project is not to write a complete set of
> documentation but "to develop a complete Unix-like operating system
> which is free software". And that system needs documentation, which is
> free documentation according to the FSF definition of free
> documentation.
A component of that OS is documentation, just as a component is games
and a component a shell.
>> Still think it's OK for them to not meet the four freedoms or the
>> DFSG?
>
> I think as I said before that a documentation is not a software --
> different enough to be ruled differently. Because what matters are
> not the freedom in the end, but what you can do with, what freedom
> brings to you.
Indeed. And I can't derive Free software from the Emacs manual in any
way; thus, the Emacs manual is non-free.
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