[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: [Fwd: Re: Bug#304316: section non-free/doc]



On Wed, 13 Apr 2005, Olleg Samoylov wrote:
> License of documents in gnu-standards restrict modification
> documents. And reason easily undestanded, standard can't be called
> standard if can be modified by everyone.

That's why it's sensible to have a standard signed with a known PGP
key so the veracity of the standard can be verified by anyone. The use
of licensing mechanisms to do this isn't necessary when there are
perfectly valid technical mechanisms to do it. [Furthermore, it's not
like anyone who would maliciously modify a standards document would be
stopped by copyright...]

> IMHO incorrect implement DFSG to any documentation due to DFSG is
> "Debian Free _Software_ Guidelines" and designed especially for
> software. However restriction of modification documents correlate
> with "Integrity of The Author's Source Code" in DFSG.

[snip]

> Can you resolve such weakness and add "Debian Free Document
> Guidelines" to Debian Policy?

This has already been discussed ad naseam. Please read through the
list archives regarding documentation as software in -legal. (Hint:
there are thousands of messages on this very subject itself.)

To briefly sumarize[1] the issues facing separating documentation and
software:

1) No one has been able to definitively disambiguate software and
documentation.[2]

2) No one has put forward a set of freedoms that documentation needs
to preserve.

3) No one has set forth a rationale of why some freedoms which we find
necessary for software are not necessary for the documentation for
that software.


Feel free to work at resolving these questions if you have decided
that documentation[3] needs fundamentally different freedoms than
software.


Don Armstrong

1: Inasmuch as I can summarize, since I have rather well known views
on this subject, and am not an impartial observer.

2: The only real definition I'm aware of has been very much akin to
the USSC definition of pornography: "I know it when I see it."

3: Whatever that is.
-- 
Frankly, if ignoring inane opinions and noisy people and not flaming
them to crisp is bad behaviour, I have not yet achieved a state of
nirvana.
 -- Manoj Srivastava in 87n04pzhmh.fsf@glaurung.internal.golden-gryphon.com

http://www.donarmstrong.com              http://rzlab.ucr.edu

Attachment: signature.asc
Description: Digital signature


Reply to: