Re: A possible GFDL compromise
On 2003-08-27 17:40:38 +0100 Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote:
>It's not just a continuation of the status quo that is taking
place
>here. The FSF has adopted an expansionist policy with respect to
>Invariant Sections.
The choice of words in this text that you cited indicates a desire to
cast the FSF's actions in a harsh light. I think that the only such
statements deserve is to point out that fact.
Richard, even though you feel that it is desirable to reword the
language used, can you address the original point made as well,
please?
This is a very important point. I have stated before that I would
not have serious objections to the FSF issuing a small number of
non-free manuals for a good reason, as it has been doing for 15
years.
The FSF manuals are all free documentation by our criteria. We are
the ones who first started to say that documentation should be free,
and we are the ones who first wrote criteria for free documentation.
Who do you mean by "we" in the "we are the ones who first started to
say"? Certainly not FSF, as it's just a specialism of the concept
"information should be free" generally credited to the late 1950s or
early 1960s TMRC. However much is inherited from them, FSF cannot
claim to be them.
That's not really important or relevant, though. When people write
"non-free" on this list, they generally mean "not free software" and
FDL-licensed work appears to be "not free software". Entry into
Debian is not concerned with whether FDL-licensed work is free
documentation, or free guacamole even, at this time. Debian is only
concerned with software, because that is all it distributes. So, in
the jargon commonly used by this project, an FDL-covered work is
"non-free" because it is "not free software".
I hope that Debian developers will vote to follow our criteria for
free documentation, but they have the right to choose differently.
I hope that you will assist anyone drafting such a proposal. It is in
no-one's interests to have a half-baked proposal. At the very least,
it will need to address how documentation held as software can be
differentiated from all other types of software and the necessary
modifications to the undertakings of the project. This seems to be a
hard problem.
However, you cannot expect us to follow your choice if it differs from
ours. Ultimately we and Debian may simply have to disagree.
Indeed, but it will be a sad day.
--
MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know.
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