discuss: Proposal for revised license and license requirements.
Subject:
Re: Proposal for revised license and license requirements.
From:
Rick Moen ####@####.####
Date:
6 Jun 2005 05:50:31 -0000
Message-Id: <20050606055028.GY1486@linuxmafia.com>
Quoting Alex Nordstrom ####@####.####
> I fail to see how rewriting documentation is any different from writing
> a clone of non-free software from scratch after having used (and
> possibly read the source code of) it.
I might be able to help, here. (I think David's points were valuable
and well taken, and hope you will heed them. ;-> )
The obvious differences are as follows:
o Barring use of peculiar and (ordinarily) far-fetched DRM measures,
one has reasonably easy access to something approaching the preferred
form of non-free documentation. Thus, generally speaking, the
substance of the work is exposed to study in a way that is not true
of binary-only, proprietary software. It is irksome to have to
paraphrase / independently rewrite a bit of non-free written documentation
under the thumb of some obstructive control freak (or whose author
cannot be found, or who's died and the heirs can't be found or aren't
interested), but not prohibitively difficult.
o ...nor time-consuming -- since, proud as we may be of our HOWTOs and
Guides, only a few are of book length.
o Derivative works and resulting licence compatibility issues are
relatively rare, compared to the case with software.
Basically, there are differences of kind (access to the preferred form)
and of scale (length, time commitment, rareness of combinatorial
problems) that make this problem non-crucial (compared to the case with
software), even though it's worth working on -- work that's a credit to
the efforts of people like you and David.
--
Cheers, Hardware: The part you kick.
Rick Moen Software: The part you boot.
####@####.####
