Re: Permission to use portions of the recent GNU Emacs Manual

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

>>>>> "rms" == Richard Stallman <address@hidden> writes:

    sjt>       But personally I wish the FSF would amend the GFDL to
    sjt> remove the additional encumbering restrictions, or simply
    sjt> rename it the GNU Documentation License:

    sjt>        "The GDL is a not-too-unfree documentation license
    sjt> that reserves certain non-economic rights to authors, while
    sjt> perpetually

    rms> In our judgment, it is free.  If you disagree, you're
    rms> entitled to your opinion.

That is exactly the point.  I _am_ entitled to my opinion, as are the
Debian Project, and the various BSD projects, and the OSI, as well as
the general public.  To the extent that the disagreement is widespread
and deeply rooted, the FSF has a public relations problem.

Now, I'm only one person, and my particular position is probably
unusual, and definitely extreme.  So maybe the public relations
problem pointed out here is "small" compared to the benefits of
insisting that the GFDL is "free".  That's for you to judge; I simply
wish to point out that the issue is not which definition of freedom is
correct, but that treating the existence of differences as negligible
harms us all.

Extremism-in-the-defense-of-freedom-is-no-vice-ly y'rs,

-- 
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences     http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba                    Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
               Ask not how you can "do" free software business;
              ask what your business can "do for" free software.