Re: GNU FDL 1.2 draft comment summary posted, and RFD

[Ben Pfaff <blp@cs.stanford.edu>]

Joe Wreschnig <piman@sacredchao.net> writes:

> Requiring the original source for documents is like requiring XCFs for
> e.g. all the GNOME icons. I'm sure they're all stored as XCF's
> originally, not PNGs. Yet no one complains, because PNG is an open
> format, editable with free tools. But by the logic you're applying to
> documentation licenses, all such images are non-free (and in fact
> illegal! Since we can't distribute the XCFs at all).

If the original image is an XCF that takes advantage of features,
like layers, that PNG does not support, then sure I'd ideally
want the original XCF if I was going to modify the icons.
Similarly, some documents have features that get lost in
translation from one format to another.  If the original is in
Texinfo and I only get a version in HTML, then there's going to
be information lost.  Less drastically, I'm sure there are
features in each of, say, DocBook, Texinfo, and LaTeX that are
not present in the other two formats, so that for modification
the original format is preferred.

I like the way the GPL defines source: "preferred form of the
work for making modifications to it".
-- 
"ATM, I'm expecting Vol. 4 to come out before I die, but I
 confidently expect that Vols. 5-7 will be written by Knuth's
 shade, and purchased by my estate."
--Mike Andrews in the Monastery


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