Re: (end of) Development and documentation in Debian

[Tyler Smith]

This has been getting increasingly aggravating for me, as I find more 
and more of the documentation is either stowed out of sight in 
non-free, or has actually been put in some sort of package purgatory 
while someone decides what to do with it (ie. the elisp docs, which are 
currently not in etch, although I did find them in unstable).

I do understand the motivation behind the DFSG, but should we be 
considering everything that is stored in digital format to be software? 
I believe free software, by Debian or FSF definition, is a good and 
necessary thing. However, I don't have a problem with the author of a 
document file requiring the preservation of invariant sections. It's 
not clear to me how this is an infringment on my rights as a user. Do 
we need to hold documentation to the same standards that we use for 
programs?

On the other hand, I have now learned not to be afraid of the non-free 
repositories. I had always assumed that it was full of nasty 
proprietary goodies. What a surpise to realise that there's lots of 
stuff there just because the license precludes selling it, or requires 
the preservation of invariant sections.

From an advocacy point of view it might be worth considering what 
message we're sending to users if they have to use the non-free repos 
just to get basic documentation. Should make-doc really be in the same 
category as proprietary drivers?

Cheers,

Tyler


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