Re: documentation eq software ?
Matthew Garrett <mgarrett@chiark.greenend.org.uk> a tapoté :t the software. It's not documentation about
> the software.
>
> >> Making a political statement within the software does exactly the
> >> same. Why do you believe that one should be protected and the other
> >> shouldn't?
> >
> >Because a software is not a documentation.
>
> No. In the specific case of making a political statement, why should we
> protect the author's opinions in documentation and not in programs? You
> claimed that invarient sections were needed because the author's
> opinions might be misrepresented - this could only be a reasonable
> opinion if you believe that misrepresenting the author's opinions is
> always bad, which would have to hold for programs as well. So, why do
> you not hold a consistent position here?
Misrepresentation is always bad.
Adding invariant section in a software would be harmful (do I need to
explain why?) and so we cannot, even if there is a risk of
misrepresentation, allow it.
Adding invariant section in a documentation, for secondaries parts (as
defined in the FDL) is not so harmful: a reader of a documentation can
skip a chapter if he's not interested in, it does not forbid him to
use the existing documentation at his full possibilities. Sure, you
cannot do exactly everything you may want with the documentation. But,
for instance, nobody is forced to read the GNU Manifesto when using
Emacs documentation (while it would not be the case if the Manifesto
was included in the "File menu"). It's not a problem to skip a chapter
when reading a book (unless you want to be sure to understand
everything) while it's a problem to be forced to skip a Menu of a
software.
But since Debian consider every part distributed by Debian as
software, sure the current GFDL is partially not free... partially not
free software (partially: you cannot add code in an invariant
section). But free documentation according to the FSF and to myself.
> >Side note: I never said that 'political statement within the
> >documentation should be protected' but I said that I understand and
> >think acceptable and harmless why some people want to protect some
> >political statement in a documentation. This is pretty different.
>
> Not really, no. It limits Freeness - the only way it could be "harmless"
> is if you believe that the potential harm caused is significant compared
> to the freedom lost.
In fact, it's approximatively what I explained at the beginning of
this reply.
--
Mathieu Roy
Homepage:
http://yeupou.coleumes.org
Not a native english speaker:
http://stock.coleumes.org/doc.php?i=/misc-files/flawed-english
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