discuss: TLDP and the Commercial World
Subject:
Re: TLDP and the Commercial World
From:
David Lawyer ####@####.####
Date:
28 Feb 2005 23:30:56 -0000
Message-Id: <20050228232135.GA1152@lafn.org>
> On Mon, Feb 28, 2005 at 02:28:39PM +0100, Stein Gjoen wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > To avoid further topic drift I am taking this to a separate thread.
> >
> > Machtelt Garrels wrote:
> > [snip]
> > > I agree with what was said before on free documents on non-free
> > > software: it is not really our task to host those and we should be
> > > carefull accepting those documents. Often they are written and
> > > contributed to TLDP because no good documentation is available for
> > > a product, but we run then the risk that the company owning the
> > > software lets TLDP/the community do the work, so that they can
> > > lateron "steel" the documentation, and include it in their product
> > > at no cost.
Or a software company can write it's own documentation and get us to
distribute it at no cost to them. Of couse, it costs them little to
distribute their documentation themselves by including it with the
non-free code or via their website. But going thru LDP has some
advanatages since people searching on the Internet for software will be
more likely to find the non-free software documentation since it's on
all the LDP mirror sites and has a top rating in search engines. In
other words, the LDP document on non-free software also serves like an
Internet advertisement for it even though it's not an ad.
On Mon, Feb 28, 2005 at 12:39:30PM -0700, doug jensen wrote:
> Personally, I don't think documentation of closed-source software should
> be accepted at all, it is like a mouse providing assistance to a cat.
> Non-free open-source software can lead to vendor lock-in which puts the
> user in a compromised position. (Note that the non-free is generally
> intended to refer to the state of freedom, not necessarily to the state
> of cost.)
In some cases, the non-free software is better than the competing free
software but it costs and people get locked-in to it. One special case
is IBM's DB2. IBM tried to help LDP by having Joy Goodreau work with
us. But I think that we should eventually phase out most documentation
of non-free software including IBM's. The stuff removed might go into
an obsolete category so it would be still available .
David Lawyer
