Hi Richard Stallman, > The idea of "merging the documentation into the software" is in general > a purely academic issue--a hoop that there is no reason to jump through. > It is always better to keep the manual separate and have the program > display it, as in fact Emacs already does in sophisticated ways.
Would you mind stating for the record that the creation of context-sensitive help and other "sophisticated ways" of presenting GNU GFDL documentation does not lead to issues with GPL compatibility because it creates no situation of a derived work through dynamic linking with software. A lot of us would be very happy to learn that we can present GNU GFDL documentation in "sophisticated ways" without any concerns about software licence compatibility with the GFDL. [And this also goes the other way. Please also state for the record that one may annotate vast screeds of GNU GPL code in GNU GFDL documentation and the mere fact the licences are incompatible is no more than a purely academic issue because it is always better to keep a manual separate from code.] Frankly this claim that it is "always better to keep the manual separate"--as if it is always better to keep data separate from code--is a shocking and nonsensical claim from someone with such a distinguished Lisp background as yourself. I suppose for your next trick you'll claim ignorance of what Knuth achieved with literate programming. Don't think you can treat us all like fools by glossing over sound methodologies of documentation and software engineering in order to push the mandatory inclusion of your political texts. Regards, Adam Warner
