Re: distributable but non-free documents
Scripsit Oliver Elphick <olly@lfix.co.uk>
> On Mon, 2002-03-04 at 16:45, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
> > However, free documentation *is* essential to free software.
> If I recall, the original issue was about some RFC documents. I would
> have thought it was essential that such things, which define the
> standards we all use, should be protected from unauthorised amendments.
It is important for the technical development of free software that
people are free to use existing software as a basis for experiments
with other ways to do things, possibly to meet different needs than
the original software tries to meet, or to meet the same needs under
new circumstances.
It is exactly the same way with protocols and other technical
standards. If I want to do something that existing protocols can't
do, I should be able to change an existing protocol to suit my needs,
and use the documentation of the original protocol as the starting
point for my documentation of my modified protocol. Of course I must
not try to claim that my modified protocol is the original one, but
that's a topic that's completly separate from my freedom to create
derived works that are clearly marked as such.
> Or do you want Microsoft to issue new versions?...
Microsoft, and everyone else, should be free to use existing free
documentation as a baseline of new free documentation. Otherwise it is
not free.
--
Henning Makholm "Man vælger jo selv sine forbilleder."
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