Re: A possible GFDL compromise
> We are the ones who first started to say that documentation should be
> free, and we are the ones who first wrote criteria for free
> documentation.
I don't see how this is relevant.
It's relevant in the context where I stated it: as a response to an
accusation that implied we intentionally distribute non-free
documentation because we don't care about the issue. It's relevant
that we're the ones that have led the community in caring about this
issue, often against strong resistance.
Taking a point out of context, and criticizing it for not proving
something it wasn't meant to prove, is not useful discussion--it
creates tangents that distract the discussion from the issue at hand.
Those arguing here against the GFDL frequently create tangents, and
have done so several times in the latest thread. When I said that the
use invariant sections was not a change, someone cited various changes
in *how and where we use them* and presented them as a contradiction.
But it's just a tangent--not relevant to the context in which it was
mentioned, nor to the larger issue.
That message used the term "expansionist policy" to describe these
tangents--a term that carries a very harsh attitude. When I pointed
that out, another message defended the use of the term "expansion".
That's another tangent, because "expansion" and "expansionist policy"
carry very different attitudes.
Another form of tangent is citing practical inconveniences, often
shared with many other accepted free licenses, as if they were
reasons to consider a license non-free.
Other recent tangents include the question of who was first to write a
free software license (it wasn't BSD, but I don't know who it was),
and how the GNU Project makes these decisions.
For the sake of a more focused and intelligent discussion, I ask the
other people on this list to make more effort to avoid tangents, and
to criticize tangents as tangents when they are raised by others.
Just because the FSF is the first to release a
free documentation *license*, doesn't mean it was the first to come up
with free documentation *criteria*.
The GNU Project has been working on (and applying) criteria for free
documentation since the 80s. However, that is a tangent, so let's not
go further down it.
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