Andrew Suffield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Thu, Jul 03, 2003 at 02:19:59PM -0700, Brian Nelson wrote: >> Andrew Suffield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> >> > On Thu, Jul 03, 2003 at 06:23:14PM +0200, Marcelo E. Magallon wrote: >> >> > That would be clause #1 of the Debian Social Contract. >> >> >> >> Where do you draw the line between software, data and documentation? I >> >> get the impression that you are reading "Debian Will Remain 100% Free >> >> Software" to mean "everything in Debian will be Free Software" instead >> >> of "all the software in Debian will be Free Software". >> > >> > Well, of *course* we do. It would be idiotic and hypocritical to >> > interpret it as "The software in Debian will be free, but the >> > documentation doesn't have to be". >> > >> > We have historically allowed some free non-software things into the >> > archive, since it doesn't matter very much. Why does anybody think >> > that allowing non-free non-software things into the archive is >> > acceptable? >> >> It all depends on how you define "free". I think that documentation, as >> long as it's freely distributable and usable, is free enough. I don't >> see any need to require documentation to be freely modifiable. > > You have some free software, and it comes with a manual. You modify > the software in a manner which suits you... but you're not allowed to > modify the manual to reflect this change; the license of the manual > requires that it only document the unmodified version, so any modified > versions are at an immediate disadvantage. > > And you think this is acceptable? Why?
It's more acceptable to me than the alternative: to move a good portion of documentation to non-free where it will not be distributed by vendors, will not be considered "part of Debian" and thus will be under threat of removal, and will be considered a "lower class" package. Fortunately, the situation you describe is unlikely to occur because few people are perverse enough to make their software free but their documentation very non-free. -- Poems... always a sign of pretentious inner turmoil.
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