Re: The debate on Invariant sections (long)
Hi Richard Stallman,
> The idea of "merging the documentation into the software" is in general
> a purely academic issue--a hoop that there is no reason to jump through.
> It is always better to keep the manual separate and have the program
> display it, as in fact Emacs already does in sophisticated ways.
Would you mind stating for the record that the creation of
context-sensitive help and other "sophisticated ways" of presenting GNU
GFDL documentation does not lead to issues with GPL compatibility because
it creates no situation of a derived work through dynamic linking with
software. A lot of us would be very happy to learn that we can present GNU
GFDL documentation in "sophisticated ways" without any concerns about
software licence compatibility with the GFDL.
[And this also goes the other way. Please also state for the record that
one may annotate vast screeds of GNU GPL code in GNU GFDL documentation
and the mere fact the licences are incompatible is no more than a purely
academic issue because it is always better to keep a manual separate from
code.]
Frankly this claim that it is "always better to keep the manual
separate"--as if it is always better to keep data separate from code--is a
shocking and nonsensical claim from someone with such a distinguished Lisp
background as yourself. I suppose for your next trick you'll claim
ignorance of what Knuth achieved with literate programming.
Don't think you can treat us all like fools by glossing over sound
methodologies of documentation and software engineering in order to push
the mandatory inclusion of your political texts.
Regards,
Adam Warner
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