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Re: [was A possible GFDL compromise] documentation eq software ?



On Fri, Aug 29, 2003 at 03:17:12PM +0200, Mathieu Roy wrote:

> I'm completely capable to read a book and make a summary, make a
> speech about it ... there's no way to forbid that - since I have the
> freedom of speech and freedom of thought.

> Every scientific book is made of references, bibliographies. You do
> not remodify a book someone wrote - that's pointless. If you have
> something new to say, or something you want to criticize, you make
> your own book. For the sake of comprehension, it helps. 

> It's interesting to be able to modify a book only when it's a simple
> manual. Something that explain *how to* do something specific (emacs
> manual) - and not when your book express a point of view (gnu
> manifesto), not when a book explain how was or is something (history
> and sociology books, for instance) 

As evidence that the FSF's attempt to disseminate their philosophy by
piggybacking it on technical manuals using the GFDL is flawed, I present
the fact that none of the people that the FSF's views seem to have
reached via this vector are capable of reasoning clearly about the
difference between stuff Debian wants to distribute (manuals) and stuff
Debian doesn't want to distribute (sociology books).  Since the FSF's
goal couldn't possibly be to attract a following of loyal idiots, I
conclude that invariant sections are an ineffective strategy for
reaching the FSF's target audience.

Feel free to use the GFDL when writing your sociology books.  Don't
expect Debian to distribute them.

> There no problem with that for me. We cannot modify the GNU manifesto:
> who cares? If you want to make your own, inspired by this one, go
> ahead. Your brain is already able to read this text, execute this
> text, modify this text, reuse this text.

"Who cares?" doesn't sound like an argument from principle.  I'll stick
to Debian's statements of principle as the basis for /my/ opinions about
what Debian should distribute, thanks.

> Finally, in manual, you can have a part which is really "a manual"
> specific part, which should be free. But you can have also a part that
> express a political stand, for example, and this part should not be
> modified, because it would be a lack of respect for the believes of
> the manual author. This part should be invariant.

Yes, and our goal is to always respect authors:  by not distributing
works that they don't wish to make available under the terms of the
DFSG.

-- 
Steve Langasek
postmodern programmer

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