Man pages point to non-free documentation [Was: What do I use to reconfigure the network...]

[Douglas Allan Tutty <dtutty@porchlight.ca>]

On Sun, Mar 18, 2007 at 04:44:41PM -0500, John Hasler wrote:
> Doug writes:
> > I think this licencing problem is going to become critical at some point.
> > I'm firmly in Debian's camp on this and am just waiting for the fine GNU
> > people to put some invarient sections on actual code not just docs.  I
> > know, code is under GPL not GFDL, for now.
> 
> > Does Debian have a long-range or contingincy plan for this?
> 
> Write DFSG-free versions of the man pages.  Your assistance would be
> welcome.  Just write such a page and send it to the maintainer via the BTS.
> -- 

Thanks, John 

I'll have to work on writing man pages.  Since I don't fancy learning
roff just for that and I'm currently learning latex, I'll work on
learning to write man pages.

However, I haven't browsed the man pages for the base system (which I
think would be the first priority).  Is there an overall Debian plan for
addressing the GFDL?  

I have a problem with the GNU stuff having basically a stub man page
that says look at the info docs.  Debian policy says that everything
have a man page.  Perhaps is needs to say ``complete'' man page.  

I'm quite interested in writing documentation.  I don't do GUI stuff
much and since everyting can be made from a LaTex or dvi file and LaTex
is very well documented, I'm learning LaTex.  Basically, I want to build
up my skills so that I can contribute.  Is there a style guide for
writing debian documentation?

Also, if we take tar as an example, if the documentation as it is now
can't be used and presumably the program has changed since the last
version who's docs could be used, how does one write documentation on
the differences without using the non-free docs as the only souce
without violating the now-non-free licence?

One could say that its the job of the programmers, but they released the
documentation under a non-free licence.  Yet they are the ones that
changed or added features since the previous version.  I suppose someone
could read the source, but I don't do C (or sh for that matter).  Free
software with non-free documentation seems backwards which is why I'm
wondering what Debian's long-term plan is.

Doug.