Re: Unicode data removal from descr-text.el

[Dave Love]

Richard Stallman <address@hidden> writes:

> I told people not to install this.

[I installed the code nearly a year ago on the emacs-unicode branch.]

> Because its license is not a free software license.

Well, it isn't software.  Various files in etc, at least, don't have a
free software license.  The file in question is actually already in
GNU miscfiles.

> The fact that it describes a standard makes no difference
> whatsoever.

I'm sure that you said or agreed otherwise when we discussed referring
to additional Lisp material some time ago.  That's why I specifically
mentioned it.  Unfortunately I can't find the mail, and it doesn't
look as if such a reference went into the docs in the end, maybe
because I forgot.

What essential freedom is missing from a standards document or data
file that is freely distributable?  It isn't appropriate to change it,
since it just describes the standard.  It is nice, but not essential,
to be able to format it differently, e.g. to make an Info doc.

It isn't a quibble just in this case.  I'd want to be able to use RFCs
on the GNU system, for instance, perhaps with a specific browser for
them.  miscfiles contains the index of them, so I suppose someone else
thinks they're important.  After grovelling several of them again
recently, I could envisage an Emacs mode to make browsing them easier
too.

> What we can do is transform that data into a different form and
> release that under a free software license.  Then we could put code
> into Emacs to access that transformed file.

Given that you can do that, I really don't see how the file can be
considered fundamentally non-free.  It seems strange to be able to
make a free derived work from a non-free one.