Re: FYI: GNU Emacs Manual to be moved to non-free
D.Goel <deego@gnufans.org> wrote:
> I am sure almost no one consider FSF's manuals unfree just because
> DSFG thinks they are,
Well, judging from your email address, why am I not surprised you'd say
this without knowing the arguments.
> and that we all want to continue to use them,
> whether or not these issues get resolved. IOW, most of these users
> will continue to want to use these manuals.
Sure. They might just find them in non-free, where they belong. Heck,
I'll keep using them too. But I'll also have a good reminder never to
include any of it in free code.
A few years ago, I was in the "documentation is not software and can't
be treating as such" camp. Then I found myself wanting to include bits
of documentation in elisp code often enough to realise that
documentation about code may well get mixed with that code. It's better
to have a license that allows it. GFDL docs with Invariant Sections
aren't compatible with the GPL! That's the _GNU_ GPL, the one that
you're so happy to uphold and protect.
> The net effect of this will be to force these few users to add nonfree
> into our sources.list.. which will make it very hard for us to find
> out what is free what is not before installing it.. and only serve as
> a huger inconvenience.
It's not a relevant argument to deter us. We don't want to do this to
make it easy (we didn't put netscape in `main' years ago when it was the
only real browser out there either). We want to do it because it's the
right thing to do.
> If you *have* to do this, until the situation is resolved with FSF,
> can they atleast be put in a different section, say "nonfree-but-gnu"
> (or abbreviated as "gnu"), so we can put that section in our
> sources.list and still not have to put "nonfree" in our sources.list?
That would discrimate against other non-free stuff.
> DG http://gnufans.net/
Ah, a web site that uses the GFDL. Does it have Invariant Sections?
If so, do users sometimes complain that they can't redistribute a bit of
your content without also including the Invariants?
Peter
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