I would say more, regardless of the discussion itself the reaction of Alfred is really unacceptable if he is really representing GNU. And I am saying this as a real Free Software supporter who has trouble justifying it many times due to the way our own people present themselves.
Really sad. On Fri, 2006-02-10 at 23:44 +0100, Alessandro Rubini wrote: > Alfred, > while MJ Ray may be difficult to deal with, it seems to me you > are following just the same path, like each of you isn't understanding > what the other part is saying, while I'm sure you understand each > other perfectly. > > This is one of several examples: > > mjray clearly hinging at fdl manuals: > > vanished) and still includes non-free software manuals. > > alfred smizd not getting the hint (or showing not to): > > It includes manuals for non-free software? That seems silly. Could > > you point out which manuals so that they can be removed? > > I'll bring my experience as author, touching a different point than > freeness/unfreeness, where there will never be agreement. I used the > FDL for a printed book when it was fresh new; I pushed for it with my > co-author and the relevant person in the publishing house, at the end > all of us were convinced it had to be the best choice, main reason > was because it was a FSF thing and thus obviously right. > > Later, after following the discussion in debian-legal and elsewhere, > after thinking about it ourselves, we came to the conclusion that it > has been a very risky choice, and we switched away from it in the next > edition of the book. What follows, though, is my own position, and I > don't know how much it is shared by other involved parties. > > The main problem of the FDL, for authors, is in failing the copyleft > mechanism. The invariant sections and cover texts, that can neither > be modified nor be removed, allow people to make derived works whose > technical contents can't be folded back in the original manual. We > had no cover texts and a competing publishing house could republish, > bringing slightly up to date the material and sticking their own "a > gnu manual" as cover text, or an invariant about how copyleft kills > economy, thus preventing reuse of the added material by the original > authors or publishing house (if you ask to explain or "back up" my use > of "prevent", I won't). > > Sure we could have though about it from the beginning, sticking our > own cover texts and invariant sections. Does this mean that the only > way to enforce copyleft with FDL is by sticking ads to the material? > Isn't it like patenting ideas just to prevent others from doing it > first? > > I agree the non-functional material is probably better protected by > denying modifications, but unremovable invariant and cover material > isn't the right solution, in my opinion. Removable invariants may > probably be, but the current FDL doesn't allow removing invariants > or cover texts. > > > Debian does include non-free software. It promotes its usage by > > giving space to host it. Even Fedora is a better bet [...] > > Flame bait, I'm sorry. Same sin you contest to your party. > > /alessandro > _______________________________________________ > Discussion mailing list > [email protected] > https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion > > _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list [email protected] https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
