MJ Ray said on Thu, May 06, 2004 at 11:37:26PM +0100,: > What did you read?
The various documentation from the FSF. > Did you obtain it directly from FSF? No. I found all this in a Debian Woody CD From a friend. > been less or more enlightening if you had the freedom to edit it? I would have got a very different idea about freedom if this friend had changed either the FSF's `political speech', or the Debian PM or DFSG and whatever else is in doc-debian and allied packages. That this friend had the freedom to modify the latter, but did not, is a different issue altogether. > Maybe their aim is noble, but I believe their method is wrong. This My point is that it is not a question of `wrong' and `right'; just a different way of solving issues. > weapon proliferation causes peace (because everyone is too scared > to attack each other) or danger (because there is more chance of a > mistake). How far should we restrict people's freedom in order to > promote freedom? You have a point here. > feel that the FSF does not currently represent my view on software Which is what the whole issue is about. FSF says `documentation is not software'. Debian says `whatever we carry in our CDs is software'. The problem for experienced users and advocates of the free software philosophy, like me (I'm speaking for myself *only*, as an individual, and not as a lawyer, which is what I do for a living) is that if Debian takes out what is `free documentation' for the FSF we loose a potent tool for spreading the concept. I would never have understood the real meaning of `free software' if the FSF's messages were not carried in a *Debian* CD, and I read them side-by-side with the documents in /usr/share/doc/*debian*. Does debian really want to deny future newbies a good intro to what free software is by taking out all this political speech from the /usr/share/doc? And all this `political speech' is very different and has to be treated differently from other `do not modify' documents like RFCs. I am reading this list for about two years now, and understand why Debian does not want invariant sections, (and also other issues with the GFDL). But I also understand the FSF's perspective; and the point is that both are right, in their own way. > This is worrying, but not insurmountable. Yes. And somebody tells me that there was a meeting of this committee last month. And there was some progress on this issue. -- +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+ Mahesh T. Pai, LL.M., 'NANDINI', S. R. M. Road, Ernakulam, Cochin-682018, Kerala, India. http://paivakil.port5.com +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+