[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Thomas Bushnell, BSG) wrote: > Walter Landry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > > > 0. In general we're not happy about invariant parts of documentation. > > > > It's a complete showstopper if they contain technical information, > > > > but even if they don't we'd rather not have them at all. Sometimes > > > > they're let in anyway, but only because there are specific reasons > > > > that count more than our dislike for invariance. "There's no > > > > acceptable, more free, documentation available" is usually a > > > > necessary but not sufficient part of such specific reasons. > > > > You can use the same argument to argue that some non-free software > > should go into main. Prior to Mozilla and Konqueror, there was no > > acceptable, more free web browser than Netscape available. We still > > didn't put it in main. This would also mean that if better, more free > > documentation did come out, then the old documentation would suddenly > > become unfree. > > The absence of a free alternative is a necessary, but not sufficient > reason. In the case of software, we have decided that it is certainly > not sufficient.
For software it is not even a consideration. Why should we consider it for documentation, which is definitely less important? After all, it is much easier to write documentation from a working program, than to write a working program from documentation. A program without documentation is much more useful than documentation without a program. > > I've already voted for this. I think that Invariant text is an > > abomination. It is unfortunate that the GNU manuals may be booted > > into non-free, but that is what happens when you forcefully interject > > political commentary into technical documentation. > > What would you think about requesting the FSF to give Debian a copy of > the manual with no such license restriction, but which still included > the political commentary, under the understanding that Debian would > distribute the normal version? If we could sneak it past RMS, I'd be happy. I have no problems with including the political commentary per se (Heck, I agree with most of it). I just have problems with Debian being unable to take it out (though I can't imagine why we would). However, that would be equivalent to not having Invariant texts in any copy of the manual. I think RMS has already ruled that out. He wants a legal guarantee that the technical documentation will be saddled with extraneous material. He also (at least as I understand it) does not want to special case Debian. Regards, Walter Landry [EMAIL PROTECTED]
