Re: Unidentified subject!
Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:
> None of these differences correctly classifies Hello as both a program
> and documentation, as far as I can tell.
>
> Hello is an example program.
Yes... and thus both program and documentation.
> It is difficult
> to deal with such grey areas and I assume that it requires a
> case-by-case review.
>
> I have never found it difficult. When it's hard to decide, neither
> choice is really wrong, so pick whichever seems better.
TeX is both program and documentation, as are essentially all literate
programs. Entries to the various Obfuscated Programming Contests are
both program and documentation. These are all gray areas... and more
importantly, are members of *both* the set of programs and the set of
documentation. So *either* choice is wrong. It is more correct to
say that all of these are software (i.e. non-hardware), and we should
make sure that all software is free.
Your casual suggestion to "pick whichever seems better" leaves out the
object: better for whom? For the Free Software community? For the
Free Software Foundation, whose goals are quite different? Debian has
to answer: "For the Debian Users and for Free Software."
-Brian
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