Free software needs free documentation [LWN.net]

Free software needs free documentation

Posted Mar 10, 2005 10:28 UTC (Thu) by forthy (guest, #1525)
Parent article: A day in the life of emacs

I'd like to remind RMS on that subject. Apparently he has forgotten why. Free Software is about sharing software, and being able to help. If I have some ideas how to improve Emacs, and other people want them, too, I must have the right to change Emacs, and when RMS is not agreed with that, I'll have to fork. That's what Richard Grabriel had to. If I'm forking a project, and creating incompatible extensions (the main reason for forking, isn't it?), then I also have to fork the documentation.

Therefore, following the rule that free software needs free documentation, the documentation must allow forking the same way as the code. If it's not possible, the documentation license is not free. If the FSF requires copyright assignments to take the forked code back, it's their fault. The copyright assignments are there to protect the code with FSF's power, not because it's legally necessary. So, FSF (and RMS): If someone refuses to assign the copyright for some personal reasons, it's not your business to complain. You still can use the code.

I'm using GFDL for a few documents, too. I use a limited version of the GFDL, without the non-free stuff - no invariant sections - (though I have the FSF's back cover text, which is mandatory policy for my official FSF project. I think it's foolish, because it's inaccurate as soon as someone forks the project).

My suggestion to the GFDL issue is that if you take material, you either have to take it *with* all the invariable sections and cover/back cover texts, or *completely without*, and use a new cover title. That way, the variable part would still be free. Otherwise, it would be quite stupid.

Cover:

"This is the Emacs documentation" by Richard M. Stallman
"No it isn't, it's the XEmacs documentation" by Richard Gabriel

Backcover (mandatory texts):

"The FSF prints this manual"
"No it doesn't, because it's a derivative, and BTW: Richard M. Stallman is an obnoxious guy - Richard Gabriel"
"I'm *not* an obnoxious guy - Richard M. Stallman"
"Yes, you are - Richard Gabriel"

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Free software needs free documentation

Posted Mar 13, 2005 15:27 UTC (Sun) by anton (guest, #25547) [Link]

>Therefore, following the rule that free software needs free
>documentation, the documentation must allow forking the same way as
>the code.

The GFDL does. That's not the problem (as far as I understand it).
The problem is that the Xemacs manual is under the GPL and thus cannot
incorporate GFDL stuff. If the Xemacs people had assigned their
changes to a governing body (e.g., the FSF:-), changing the license to
a GFDL-compatible one would be easy, but since they have not, they
have to run after all their contributors, or instead get the FSF to
change the license of the text they want to incorporate; since the
latter approach has failed, they have to follow the former, or just
give up on using GNU Emacs text in the Xemacs manual.

Linux will probably have a similar problem with GPLv2-only vs. GPLv3
licensing.