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Re: Please remove RFCs from the documentation in Debian packages



On Thu, Jul 03, 2003 at 05:16:07PM -0700, Brian Nelson wrote:
> Andrew Suffield <asuffield@debian.org> writes:
> 
> > On Thu, Jul 03, 2003 at 02:19:59PM -0700, Brian Nelson wrote:
> > You have some free software, and it comes with a manual. You modify
> > the software in a manner which suits you... but you're not allowed to
> > modify the manual to reflect this change; the license of the manual
> > requires that it only document the unmodified version, so any modified
> > versions are at an immediate disadvantage.
> >
> > And you think this is acceptable? Why?
> 
> It's more acceptable to me than the alternative: to move a good portion
> of documentation to non-free where it will not be distributed by
> vendors, will not be considered "part of Debian" and thus will be under
> threat of removal, and will be considered a "lower class" package.

That's not exactly what we are speaking about. We don't speak about
documentation, but about standards. Documentation comes after the
implementation of the program to explain how to use it. Standards comes
before the implementation to explain how it should behave to be
interoperable with other implementations from other people.

RFCs are not program documentation.
[but the program documentation can refere to RFCs, as ldap stuff does]

> Fortunately, the situation you describe is unlikely to occur because few
> people are perverse enough to make their software free but their
> documentation very non-free.

The fact is that it happens. Look at FDL discussions. But in my mind, that's
out of topic, and I would appreciate if we could discuss one item at once to
have a small chance of converging to a decision...

Thanks, Mt.

-- 
If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a
Rolls-Royce today would cost $100, get a million miles to the gallon, and
explode once every few weeks, killing everyone inside.



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