Anton Zinoviev <anton@lml.bas.bg> writes:
> On Tue, Jan 31, 2006 at 02:37:18PM +0100, Frank Küster wrote:
>>
>> We are not talking about software licenses here, but documentation.
>> Since Debian has decided to treat both types equally, but the FSF has
>> not, you shouldn't mix things up when claiming to present the FSF's
>> view.
>>
>> So do you claim that the GNU project thinks that the basic four freedoms
>> should apply to documentation? If so, please provide some evidence,
>> since I have read a couple of quotes from RMS saying the opposite.
>
> As formulated at http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html, the four
> software freedoms can not be applied directly to works that are not
> programs and in particular they can not be applied directly to
> documentation. "Run the program" and "study how the program works"
> are certainly not activities that can be applied to documentation.
Sure they can. Consider that most GNU GFDL'd documentation is written
in Texinfo format. This format is program code designed to run
through the TeX or makeinfo interpreters. The same applies to troff
documentation which is a program run through the groff interpreter.
The line between "code" and "documentation" is not a clear one, since
they are often one and the same thing, and this has been discussed
quite a lot during past discussion.
Regards,
Roger
--
Roger Leigh
Printing on GNU/Linux? http://gutenprint.sourceforge.net/
Debian GNU/Linux http://www.debian.org/
GPG Public Key: 0x25BFB848. Please sign and encrypt your mail.
Attachment:
pgpLmzWr8phUi.pgp
Description: PGP signature