Re: [rms@gnu.org: Free Software Needs Free Documentation]
On 7 Aug 1998, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
> However, I do not think that standards documents (and
> possibly other categories [personal opinions come to mind]) benefit
> from being modifiable. In fact, making a modifiable document a
> standard undermines the validity and acceptance of the standard,
> since one never knows what one is agreeing to.
>
> Other issues of concern: Translations, and re-ormatting into a
> a different presentation format or conversion into a different
> encoding (for some documents the layout and presentation maybe very
> important).
Indeed. Rendering into a GIF. Rendering into a hi-res TIFF then
printing. These are definitely derived works (although in some sense the
underlying information has been copied verbatim).
>
> If we are looking to reuse the DFSG, I think items 1 (Free
> Redistribution) and 4-9 are perfectly fine; I even think that 2
> (asking for source code -- preffered form of the document for
> modification) is OK.
>
Indeed. 2 is perhaps 'less' important in the case of documentation, but
still valid, I feel.
> The problem lies with Derived works. (Would I like a derived
> work of the ANSI C Standard? Sounds like what MS does)
>
No problem.
As long as they call it the 'MS C Standard' (with a footnote to the effect
that it is derived from the ANSI C Standard).
Of course, you can't modify a standard. That would make the noun
'standard' meaningless. However, I do feel that it is reasonable to want
to modify the sgml document which renders to a standard. For example, I
take the HTML 4 standard, incorporate in some new features, and title the
resulting document 'HTML 5? A proposal by Jules Bean'.
This seems to me to be a reasonable (hypothetical) action on my part, and
one I would defend my right for. If I cannot do this, then I am doomed to
follow whatever the standards body decides. If I can do this, I can show
people my opinions, and let them decide. And then, six months down the
line, either everyone is now using 'JMLBHTML' (ha!), or they have simply
ignored by badly-thought out standard, and have returned to the fold of
W3C.
I must admit that I don't feel *very* strongly about this. But, on
balance, I think there is a case to be made for modifiable documents.
Jules
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| Jules aka | jules@debian.org | Richmond, Surrey |
| Julian Bean | jmlb2@hermes.cam.ac.uk | TW9 2TF *UK* |
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