Re: A possible GFDL compromise
On Wed, 2003-08-27 at 07:13, Fedor Zuev wrote:
> Removing of secondary section from manual can't be count nor
> as improvement, nor as adaptation of manual.
It is, by definition[0], off-topic. Therefore, as any good editor[1]
will tell you, it would be an improvement to remove it.
[0] Read the GFDL; every Secondary Section is defined as being
off-topic.
[1] The human kind, who is responsible for making sure that the
resulting work is coherent and complete. It is painfully obvious that
the so-called "Free Software" community could *desperately* use the
services of many competent editors of this sort. The emacs manual, in
particular, is filled with off-topic material, begins with a bunch of
legalese that a) belongs at the end, and b) describes in great detail
how that emacs as a whole is licensed under a self-incompatible license
(GPL+GFDL, since it claims right there that the documentation is part of
the editor[2]), contains advertisements (for other systems, no less),
and contains a couple of embarrassingly juvenile comments about some of
the operating systems it runs on. All in all, an embarrassment to "Free
Software" -- and that's all just in the first page of the index!
I'm not an editor by trade, nor am I willing to work on something where
I perceive the license to be the height of hypocrisy *and* the license
is written in such a way as to ensure that I cannot succeed in my task.
I do, however, recognize that the GFDL is a very real limitation on the
improvements that can be made to this manual.
[2] The electronic kind.
--
Stephen Ryan Debian Linux 3.0
Technology Coordinator
Center for Educational Outcomes
at Dartmouth College
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