Mathieu Roy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Brian T. Sniffen) a tapoté : > >> You argue that RMS is incorruptible? > > I do. > >> I present as a counterargument the GFDL. > > The GFDL did not reached a consensus as the GPL is in the free > software world, sure. > > But I wonder which part of the ideas expressed by Richard on > www.gnu.org are contradicted by the GFDL. Richard always focused on > software and not on book and even if he ackownledged that software > documentation must be free.
The four freedoms, for a start. > The fact that Richard do not see freedom for documentation like > proeminent people of Debian do not mean that Richard is corrupted. > How he understand the freedom for documentation nowadays is not > different as before. We cannot speak of corruption -- there no > changes, no sign of corruption. He's always been willing to ensure the end user, the recipient of a copy, had freedom. He's increasingly willing to sacrifice that to promote the message that "the end user, the recipient of a copy, should have freedom." > At the contrary, nowadays Richard's position about freedom for > software is coherent with the stand he made before. > > >> > But the GNU licenses are anyway designated to reach a specific >> > goal very correctly documented on gnu.org. >> >> The GFDL does not meet the FSF's four freedoms. But oh, look what I >> found on www.gnu.org: >> >> >> The GNU Project was launched in 1984 to develop a complete >> Unix-like operating system which is free software: the GNU system. >> >> So the FSF says all these manuals are either not part of the GNU >> system, or are software. > > The manuals are not software. But they are distributed as part of GNU! And gnu.org says GNU *is* free software. Not that it contains free software, but that it exists only as free software. > The goal of the GNU project is not to write a complete set of > documentation but "to develop a complete Unix-like operating system > which is free software". And that system needs documentation, which is > free documentation according to the FSF definition of free > documentation. A component of that OS is documentation, just as a component is games and a component a shell. >> Still think it's OK for them to not meet the four freedoms or the >> DFSG? > > I think as I said before that a documentation is not a software -- > different enough to be ruled differently. Because what matters are > not the freedom in the end, but what you can do with, what freedom > brings to you. Indeed. And I can't derive Free software from the Emacs manual in any way; thus, the Emacs manual is non-free.
