Mastering Emacs

Posted Aug 31, 2023 5:56 UTC (Thu) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582)
In reply to: Mastering Emacs by IanKelling
Parent article: Mastering Emacs

This book is not "documentation". That would be the emacs manual. This is an extra and optional effort from a third-party author, and he is free to charge just as any writer does. RMS nowhere claims that all books must be free. In fact, even his GFDL for documentation ran into trouble with Debian as "not free enough"!

Mastering Emacs

Posted Aug 31, 2023 14:32 UTC (Thu) by IanKelling (subscriber, #89418) [Link] (13 responses)

> This book is not "documentation".

I see no basis for that. It has broad overlap with what is in the emacs info manual.

> This is an extra and optional effort from a third-party author, and he is free to charge just as any writer does.

I never said he should not charge. I'm happy that he charges. Freedom respecting does not mean not charging.

> RMS nowhere claims that all books must be free.

Neither did I. I linked to an article explaining that documentation should be free. You've really lost the point here.

> In fact, even his GFDL for documentation ran into trouble with Debian as "not free enough"!

Again, unrelated to my comment.

Mastering Emacs

Posted Sep 1, 2023 1:21 UTC (Fri) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (2 responses)

> Again, unrelated to my comment.

What *is* related to your comment is that the official emacs manual is released under a non-Free license, so complaining about other documentation also being non-Free is somewhat unreasonable.

Mastering Emacs

Posted Sep 1, 2023 13:17 UTC (Fri) by IanKelling (subscriber, #89418) [Link] (1 responses)

Even if you were right about it being nonfree, which you aren't, you are claiming a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism, which is completely wrong. Because some injustice exists does not make it invalid to complain about another injustice.

Mastering Emacs

Posted Sep 1, 2023 13:54 UTC (Fri) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> Even if you were right about it being nonfree, which you aren't.

The emacs documentation, like many other GNU software documents, are provided under the GFDL, with invariant sections.

"invariant sections" cannot be altered or removed. This makes them non-free under Debian's guidelines.

So yes, someone pointing out that getting lectured about the "non-freeness" of a book about a major free software package whose own documentation (as written by the saint of Free Software himself, RMS) is explicitly (and intentionally) non-free is not a "whataboutism", it's pointing out "good enough for thee but not for me" hypocrisy.

After all, both the document and this book are non-free, just to different degrees.

Mastering Emacs

Posted Sep 1, 2023 12:00 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (1 responses)

> > This book is not "documentation".

> I see no basis for that. It has broad overlap with what is in the emacs info manual.

From the comments I've seen, it most definitely is not documentation - it's actually useful!!! :-)

Documentation is the art of telling you what you already know as a reminder. As a general rule, giving a newbie the documentation and saying "teach yourself" is pretty much a guaranteed disaster.

Given the number of comments about how people have learned new stuff from this book, and how this book has greatly increased what they can do with Emacs, I'd say it most definitely is not documentation.

Cheers,
Wol

Mastering Emacs

Posted Sep 1, 2023 12:57 UTC (Fri) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

I sounds like the book covers all parts of this graph[1] *except* documentation (to differing degrees).

[1]https://documentation.divio.com/

Mastering Emacs

Posted Sep 2, 2023 2:09 UTC (Sat) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (7 responses)

> I'm a bit annoyed that the philosophy of emacs came up without mentioning that the book is diametrically opposed in an important way: it is not freedom respecting. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-doc.en.html.

What did you expect? I mean, in which fantasy world does every book about free software follow this commandment? Are you going to grace every book review with such incredibly naive trolling?

> I see no basis for that. It has broad overlap with what is in the emacs info manual.

Quoting the very start of the page you referenced:
> Documentation is an essential part of any software package; when an important free software package does not come with a free manual, that is a major gap.

Totally agree and this does not describe the Emacs situation.

> I never said he should not charge. I'm happy that he charges. Freedom respecting does not mean not charging.

If the book was available online then there's much less chance I would buy it and it's the same for many other readers. Pretending this economic reality does not exist is again incredibly naive or trolling or both.

Mastering Emacs

Posted Sep 3, 2023 3:46 UTC (Sun) by IanKelling (subscriber, #89418) [Link] (6 responses)

MarcH, who are you? All I see is your username which has the same letters as a month and I don't recognize. It is much easier to say someone's post is "incredibly naive trolling" using anonymous speech.

Mastering Emacs

Posted Sep 3, 2023 9:13 UTC (Sun) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (2 responses)

Ian - are you a REGULAR reader of this site? MarcH has been around a lot longer than you.

And if he told you his name, would it leave you any the wiser? I doubt me telling me you my real name (for heavens sake, "Wol" is based on my real name) would leave you any the wiser as to who I am! People here know me by reputation - the only real way to know anyone. Someone's "real name" is just a meaningless label.

And anyway, you're completely missing the point. I'm with MarcH on this - as I understand it, FSF documentation usually contains invariant sections, and the GFDL with invariant sections is not a free licence.

And another point, as a lawyer I presume you're rich (compared to most people, at any rate). I'm lucky, I'm rich, I'm near retirement and my mortgage has near enough gone. But the fact I've still got a mortgage almost at retirement age says I'm not THAT rich. You may be able to afford to give your work away for free (bully for you!), but who are you to tell other people to give their work away for free!?!? That's theirs to gift, not you to demand!?!? (That demand is called attempted theft!)

Cheers,
Wol

Mastering Emacs

Posted Sep 3, 2023 9:39 UTC (Sun) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (1 responses)

To the best of my knowledge Ian isn't a lawyer, but even if he were he's working for the FSF and, well, even lawyers working for relatively small non-profits are not making bank. Some lawyers do become unreasonably wealthy, but many spend their time working on things they believe in. There's plenty of room to talk about which freedoms should apply to which things without turning it into an argument about economics.

Mastering Emacs

Posted Sep 3, 2023 10:53 UTC (Sun) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

Yup, there's economics and there's economics, but, to quote the bible "Take the mote out of your own eye before complaining about the spec in someone else's", and "God loves a cheerful giver".

You shouldn't be complaining about the unFreeness of charging for the book, and ignoring the unFreeness of invariant sections in the manual.

And you shouldn't be trying to give away *other peoples'* work.

Cheers,
Wol

Mastering Emacs

Posted Sep 3, 2023 14:54 UTC (Sun) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (1 responses)

I don't know you either and I doubt everyone here does. Somehow this does not stop you from spamming every other LWN article with unsolicited, always annoying and frequently pointless free software commandments. That everyone knows. Breaking news: truly free software has not conquered the world as it should have! Thanks for the Nth million reminder; we had forgotten that again! /s

The comments can be anonymous here. If that's a problem for you then there's always the easiest of fix: go and preach somewhere else. Simply avoid the comments section. You can still read the articles; a lot of people do just that.

Mastering comportment

Posted Sep 3, 2023 15:41 UTC (Sun) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

Perhaps this is a good time for everybody involved here to take a break and calm down? I don't think this conversation needs to go any further.

Mastering Emacs

Posted Sep 4, 2023 10:22 UTC (Mon) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

given the capitalisation, I'd read it as "Marc H".