Re: Inconsistencies in our approach
On Fri, Aug 08, 2003 at 09:53:28AM +0200, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 08, 2003 at 04:01:59AM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote:
> > (Now, I'm not going to claim that there are no good reasons for
> > documentation being under licenses that wouldn't pass the DSFG - I
> > haven't really made up my mind about that. The question is, why do our
> > users not require the same rights regarding the documentation we
> > distribute as they do regarding the software we distribute?)
>
> Because they're not the same thing.
You seem to have missed my point.
> When you write a computer program, you're essentially writing a tool
> (games left aside). The purpose of a computer program is not for you to
> read it, but for you to help you performing a task, or to have fun
> playing the game.
I'd somewhat disagree (we don't distribute GNU Hello World in order to
help people perform a task or have fun), but I won't argue too much.
> The same doesn't count for things such as books, standard documents, or
> documentation; they're meant to be written, and may include the opinion
> of the person who wrote the document. That opinion deserves protection,
> whereas the same does not count for a computer program (it's hardly
> possible to state your opinion in a computer program, so protecting it
> is not really necessary).
But I disagree here, on two counts. Firstly, it plainly is possible to
state your opinion in a computer program (see the discussion about the
ReiserFS utilities' output). Secondly, so what? The issue of whether
software is deserving of certain rights has nothing to do with our
decision as to whether we redistribute that or not. We distribute
software if it provides certain freedoms to our *users*. Documentation
may be deserving of a different set of rights, but why do we believe
that our users do not require the same set of freedoms? Answers should
be in the form of practical objections.
--
Matthew Garrett | mjg59@srcf.ucam.org
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