Jeremy Hankins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Have you considered the possibility of dual-licensing the docs? I > understand that the GFDL is controversial, and also that the FSF is > going with it. Would it be possible to dual-license it GPL/GFDL, or > something like that? That would make it possible to include it in > debian-main, and make it legal for folks other than the FSF (i.e., > other than the copyright holder) to include bits of it in doc > strings and include code snippets in the docs. > > Disclaimer: I was involved in the discussions on debian-legal about > the GFDL, arguing that it was non-free. But the issue's been done > to death, so I'm not going to argue the merits of the GFDL. If > anyone really wants to know, I can provide links that explain the > "GFDL isn't free" position -- or you check google.
Thanks for the disclaimer -- I would otherwise respond much more vehemently :^) . I'll try to be nice even though the vote on this very issue was what caused me to leave Debian for Ubuntu, and even though I feel very strongly that Debian's GFDL decision seriously damaged not only its own usefulness as an operating system, but the credibility of the Free Software movement as well. A discussion on the merits of the GFDL and the (fallacious, in my opinion) classification of manuals as "software" is out of the scope of this mailing list -- all that can be said about that has been said (and rather convincingly, in my opinion) on the debian-emacsen mailing list by David Kastrup et al recently. So, no links, please. My response to the dual licensing question: nope, dual licensing is not acceptable. I'm not going to change my mind about that anytime soon, so further attempts to convince me will be pointless. Dual-licensing an entire program or manual is (in my opinion) wishing a problem away, rather than dealing with it. Muse does not have significant amounts of Emacs Lisp source code in its manual, so there is no real need to dual license parts of it. And for what it does have, is made up for by the abundance of examples that I distribute separately from the manual in the examples/ directory, which I consider to be in the public domain (need to state that in each file before the 3.03 release, though ...). I reiterate, however, that this will only be a minor inconvenience for Debian users (compared to the greater inconvenience of not having an Emacs manual on their system!) because they will still have the QuickStart document (which I will improve substantially before the release) and the online documentation, which I will mention in the README.Debian file. > Blrgh. I *really* am upset that my first post on this list is about > a licensing issue.... I really, really like muse and planner both. > I've been using them for some time now, both for planing, and as a > way of writing essays & keeping notes (with remember). I very much > appreciate the work you & others have done on it. I appreciate your dedication to your ideals, even though I do not agree with them. -- Michael Olson -- FSF Associate Member #652 -- http://www.mwolson.org/ Interests: Emacs Lisp, text markup, protocols -- Jabber: mwolson_at_hcoop.net /` |\ | | | Projects: Emacs, Muse, ERC, EMMS, Planner, ErBot, DVC |_] | \| |_| Reclaim your digital rights by eliminating DRM. See http://www.defectivebydesign.org/what_is_drm for details.
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