Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)

[jmarant@nerim.net (Jérôme Marant)]

Peter S Galbraith <GalbraithP@dfo-mpo.gc.ca> wrote

>Jérôme Marant <jerome.marant@free.fr> wrote:
>
>> En réponse à MJ Ray <markj@cloaked.freeserve.co.uk>:
>> 
>> > =?iso-8859-15?q?J=E9r=F4me?= Marant <jmarant@nerim.net> wrote:
>> > > As long as I am a GNU Emacs user, I object to see the Emacs manual
>> > > going to non-free. Currently, it is provided by the emacs package
>> > 
>> > You are complaining to the wrong people, I think.  Fix the licence,
>> > not the social contract.
>> 
>> After reading RMS's reply, it seems not really possible to me.
>
>Jérôme, that's RMS' choice to make.  We don't have to pretend it's free.

Yes, it is.

>He believes his invariant sections are an important soapbox for his free
>software philosophies. In an apparent contradiction, he feels it's a
>small price to pay if that makes the documentation non-free.

Could we consider some invariant sections as "non-problematic"?

>> But then, if we're seeking for enemies, I believe they
>> are not on GNU side ...
>
>I think we should be true to ourselves, in spite of whatever the FSF
>say.  I think it's unfortunate that not only are they using a non-free
>license, but that they are promoting it as a free license.

You are right if you considered such documentation as covered
by DFSG. This is the point of the debate.

>How hard will it be for you to fetch some docs from non-free?  I don't
>think it's a huge price to pay to be true to ourselves.

Err, it is a regression isn't it? I've always considered it as part
of Emacs, and even its online help. It has always worked like that. 

You mentioned in a previous mail packaging old versions of manuals.
This is IMHO pretty useless because noone cares for outdated manuals.
Althought people can be motivated in forking or reimplementing
applications, I doubt anyone will be motivated enough to fork
documentation and noone'll be able to be as up-to-date as the
Emacs manual.

-- 
Jérôme Marant