Re: GNU FDL (was Re: Bug#141561: gnu-standards: Non-free =?iso-8859-15?q?software in?= main)
On Mon, Apr 08, 2002 at 10:01:15AM -0500, Jeff Licquia wrote:
> Revisionist history, for one. I'm sure the FSF wouldn't appreciate the
> GCC document being modified to make it look like Linus Torvalds wrote
> GCC, for example.
How does the GFDL stop that? I can add a section to the GCC
documentation claiming that I wrote GCC (and emacs, too) and there's
nothing in the license that stops me. The GFDL does stop me from
changing the texinfo file without noting my changes (i.e. I can't put
words in people's mouths); not that people prone to do such things
really care about licenses . . .
> Or are we just interested in having control in how the
> system works?
What non-technical material appears when a document comes up is
certainly part of how the system works. You can't change a manual with
invariant sections into a manpage or a helpscreen without carrying all
the invariant sections along; clumsy in the first case and possibly
impossible in the second. I use Linux in part to get away from every
decent cheap program in Windows having ads; if Caldera funds some new
manpages, and every manpage new starts with
"Caldera - the system of the future. Upgrade your system to Caldera and
it will be 35% faster than your older distribution. More packages than
blah blah blah ..."
then that's a serious annoyance, that I'm going to want to remove or at
least move. If the license doesn't let me, then then I don't really have
control of how my system works.
--
David Starner - starner@okstate.edu
"It's not a habit; it's cool; I feel alive.
If you don't have it you're on the other side."
- K's Choice (probably referring to the Internet)
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