GFDL 1.3

[MJ Ray]

Noah Slater <nslater at bytesexual.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 04, 2008 at 02:36:00PM +0000, MJ Ray wrote: [...]
> > I missed that specific change and I didn't find what happened to the
> > SamplingPlus and Developing Countries licences.  However, CC remains
> > a broad label which also covers things opposed to free software and
> > free manuals.
>
> Yes, maybe this would be an issue if the FDL was facilitating a switch to ANY of
> the Creative Commons licenses, which it clearly is not. Why must you insist that
> these to things are related in anyway?

As previously quoted, RMS also related all CC licences.  Why insist
it's unreasonable to associate them?

[...]
> If you can see that "free" society is different from "free" software, which may
> also be different from "free" speech, why can't you also see that "free"
> documentation may mean something different too?

Because when the documentation is stored as software, its "free"ness
can also be evaluated as software as well as documentation.  They're
not chalk and cheese like society and software.

> Sure, to you and to Debian "free" software and "free" documentation mean the
> same thing, [...]

No, it isn't and nothing depends on that mistake.

> > but the FSF seems content to redefine "free" for documentation
>
> You seem to be implying that your definition of "free" documentation is somehow
> the original, or the true, version and the FSF has snuck in and redefined it for
> you without asking, which is an absurd implication. The FSF defined "free"
> documentation long before Debian or (I presume) you did.

Cool.  Where?  TTBOMK, none of those groups have explicitly defined
free documentation.

Side-stepping for a moment:-

"David Gerard" <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> FWIW, Wikimedia uses the http://freedomdefined.org definition (which
> happens to have been written by Erik Moeller from Wikimedia).
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:File_types speaks of
> patent-encumbered formats not being free enough for WMF purposes.

A problem with freedomdefined.org is that it also uses the "essential
freedoms" devious words, but it seems better than the FSF concept of
free documentation as I understand it.

Patent-encumbered formats are a practical threat to freedom.

Back to Noah Slater:
> It wasn't a personal message, sorry if I offended you.

Well, this message also seems to be very personal (you, you, you) and
I feel that it's in an utterly inappropriate register for discussion.

> > Actually, last I saw, the FSF did not define documentation freedom at
> > all and left us trying to rebuild that pig from the FSF-licence
> > sausages which have been produced.
>
> Are you kidding?

No.

> How is producing a license not the ultimate definition of what they consider free?

A license is a particular instance.  The definition would be a general
case.  (cf Differential Equations terminology)

> > [...]
> > It's not possible to do productive work directly with the FSF on its
> > licences because the stet-centred process is DELIBERATELY inaccessible
> > and incompatible with free software communities.
>
> (emphasis mine)
>
> This is *quite* a statement, do you care to back it up?

I have good records showing that I have been requesting pretty basic
accessibility bugfixes to stet for over two years now.  Bugs have
regressed as fast as they've been fixed.  I understand there are
general policy decisions by FSF and SFC (but I don't think either
organisation publish their decisions, do they?) that stet gets no
development funding besides a 2008 Google-sponsored student (whose
work isn't yet published), so I call this situation *deliberate*.

> > stet may be useful for lawyers and big corporations, but it doesn't
> > collaborate well.
>
> But writing a license is *fundamentally* different from writing code.

Who's saying otherwise?

> We're talking about producing a legal document. This takes people with decades
> of legal experience and training. The "patches welcome", "lets do this on a
> wiki" approach isn't going to work.

We're also talking about producing a legal document to help a
community.  That takes community involvement, accessibility and so on,
building on the wealth of good knowledge about these subjects.  (By
the way, in case anyone isn't aware, I have some experience
contributing to legal documents as a local councillor now.) A star
chamber approach, where we don't even know who's in the chamber until
late in the day, also isn't going to work.

Regards,
-- 
MJ Ray (slef)
Webmaster for hire, statistician and online shop builder for a small
worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/
(Notice http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html) tel:+44-844-4437-237