Re: documentation x executable code
On Tue, 04 Jan 2005, Matthew Garrett wrote:
> Right. But all you've said is "I think these things are not software",
> not how or why they should have different freedoms. Let's just list the
> 9 points of the DFSG:
>
> Free Redistribution
> Source Code (ie, it has to have it)
> Derived Works (ie, the right to create them)
> Integrity of The Author's Source Code (patch files and forced renamings
> are ok)
> No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
> No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
> Distribution of License
> License Must Not Be Specific to Debian
> License Must Not Contaminate Other Software
> Do you believe that we should provide documentation in main that does
> not meet all of these?
Yes, but not without extra criteria.
> If so, why do you believe that these freedoms are less useful for
> documentation than executables?
I always go back to the technical standards when asked that.
Clearly, if anyone can change a standard (without going through whatever is
the revision procedure for that standard), it loses most of its most
important characterstics. It is no longer capable of ensuring that all
implementantions are based on common ground, for example.
On the other hand, techinical standards are the kind of documents that would
be useful to have/keep in Debian (please recall that I consider stuff like
the emacs manual to be software, since IMHO it is an essential part of
emacs) EVEN if we are not supposed to change them at will.
So, I'd say that for *technical* *documentation*, yes, we should have more
relaxed criteria. Again, this does *not* apply to essential parts of
software packages. If emacs is GPL, so should be the manual that is
supposed to be shipped along with it.
That criteria would _not_ be compatible with the GFDL's annoying
non-drm-media clauses, but it would be compatible with invariant sections...
but since it only would be applied to non-essential documentation, if the
invariant parts (of a standard, of a GFDL-revised doc, whatever) start
becoming too bothersome, we simply remove the package.
I also think that for any other text/documents, we must require something at
least as strict as the DFSG.
--
"One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
Henrique Holschuh
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