Scripsit Oliver Elphick <olly@lfix.co.uk> > On Mon, 2002-03-04 at 16:45, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
> > However, free documentation *is* essential to free software. > If I recall, the original issue was about some RFC documents. I would > have thought it was essential that such things, which define the > standards we all use, should be protected from unauthorised amendments. It is important for the technical development of free software that people are free to use existing software as a basis for experiments with other ways to do things, possibly to meet different needs than the original software tries to meet, or to meet the same needs under new circumstances. It is exactly the same way with protocols and other technical standards. If I want to do something that existing protocols can't do, I should be able to change an existing protocol to suit my needs, and use the documentation of the original protocol as the starting point for my documentation of my modified protocol. Of course I must not try to claim that my modified protocol is the original one, but that's a topic that's completly separate from my freedom to create derived works that are clearly marked as such. > Or do you want Microsoft to issue new versions?... Microsoft, and everyone else, should be free to use existing free documentation as a baseline of new free documentation. Otherwise it is not free. -- Henning Makholm "Man vælger jo selv sine forbilleder."
