[Sussex] Distros

[Geoffrey J. Teale]

Simon Huggins <huggie at earth.li> writes:

> Shame they made a mistake with the GFDL really with Invariant sections
> and other problems.
>
> http://people.debian.org/~srivasta/Position_Statement.html [0]
>

Hmm, seems to be a dead link.  Anyhow there are many criticisms of the
GFDL, however it is a really comes down to people not understanding the
difference between software and documentation.  In particular paper
based documentation has different legal requirements and practical
considerations to electronic media.  RMS states:

==================================================================
Can technical writers earn money by writing free documentation for
free software? We seriously hope so, and that is the reason for the
GNU Free Documentation License.

The GFDL is meant as a way to enlist commercial publishers in funding
free documentation without surrendering any vital liberty. The "cover
text" feature, and certain other aspects of the license that deal with
covers, title page, history, and endorsements, are included to make
the license appealing to commercial publishers for books whose authors
are paid. To improve the appeal, I consulted specifically with staff
of publishing companies, as well as lawyers, free documentation
writers, and the community at large, in writing the GFDL.

At least two commercial publishers of software manuals have told me
they are interested in using this license. The future is never a sure
thing, but the GFDL looks like it has a good chance to succeed in
shaping a social system where commercial publishers pay people to
write commercial free manuals for free software.
====================================================================

The community as a whole is seeing the benefit of this license in
terms of published books already.  Moreover if you don't want to use
the GFDL you don't have to, it's perfectly acceptable to GPL your
documentation (and indeed is preferable for electronic media).

-- 
Geoff Teale
CMed Technology            -   gteale at cmedresearch.com
Free Software Foundation   -   tealeg at member.fsf.org

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