Re: documentation x executable code

[Glenn Maynard <glenn@zewt.org>]

On Tue, Jan 04, 2005 at 09:04:41PM -0200, Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> I always go back to the technical standards when asked that. 
> 
> Clearly, if anyone can change a standard (without going through whatever is
> the revision procedure for that standard), it loses most of its most
> important characterstics.  It is no longer capable of ensuring that all
> implementantions are based on common ground, for example.

This is a misconception that has been made and rebunked many times.

To prevent pollution of standards, you don't prevent people from modifying
the document.  That's a very useful thing to do; for example, to reuse an
old protocol to create a new one.

The solution is to require that the new document not be misconstrued as the
one being modified, not to prohibit its reuse entirely.  There's no harm in
me taking the HTTP standard, renaming it to the "GlennHTTP standard" and
making all sorts of changes to it.  This type of restriction is explicitly
allowed by DFSG#4.

Technical standards should be (and are--once 2004-003 kicks back in,
at least) held to the same standards of freedom as everything else in
Debian.

-- 
Glenn Maynard