Re: [Fsuk-manchester] Freedomware distro

[John Rooke]

On Fri, 2017-08-18 at 16:41 +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
> Documents can be held as software and I think it's fine to apply the
> standard of free software to documents so held.  
Sorry, but I can't see the sense in that.  They can also be written on walls, but I've never heard it suggested that they can be adequately governed by building regulations ;-)  

To be clear, my problem is with the freedomdefined project's approach, not with Debian, which I use myself.  The issue is not whether Debian documentation is free, nobody has suggested that it isn't.  It is perfectly possible to regard both Debian and GNU-FDL documentation as free.  

Nor does my argument depend on whether or not the GNU-FDL is a good license.  I am currently agnostic on this point, as I have not studied it.  My point is that the freedomdefined critique of it is misconceived and therefore likely to lead to problems if applied to other cases.

Best wishes,

John

PS Nice to hear from a fellow phone co-op member :-)

--
John Rooke

Wittgenstein's Builders

"as economics becomes more truly scientific, it will become less of a science" John Rapley