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[AUCTeX-devel] Re: New auctex version coming, and the freeze


From: David Kastrup
Subject: [AUCTeX-devel] Re: New auctex version coming, and the freeze
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2006 19:37:33 +0200
User-agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.0.50 (gnu/linux)

Frank Küster <address@hidden> writes:

> David Kastrup <address@hidden> wrote:
>
> But only under the assumption that Debian, the FSF and everybody
> else who uses that license does read it as the FSF intended it, not
> as it is written.

The invariant sections are an explicit optional provision.  The BSD
license has a lot more implicit possibilities of turning material
unfree.

> Although that's the outcome of the Debian vote, it's still logically
> flawed.  And I still do not want my work to be licensed under the
> current GFDL.

Let's face it: the GPL is unsuitable for a manual.  You can't hand
somebody a copy on paper without handing him a written offer for the
source code of it (for three years) and/or handing him the source code
on a machine readable medium.

> And as for the "slated for change", the FSF could have done that
> months (years) ago, but they didn't.  So why should I believe that
> it's going to happen, and when?

The drafts and calls for discussion for the GFDL and the GSFDL have
been announced and posted just this week.

>>> however that doesn't matter for my decision.
>>
>> Of course, you are free to ignore the vote done by Debian
>> developers in your decision of what you want to work on.  I try
>> balancing my duties as a GNU maintainer with the real world
>> including Debian developers, and reactions like that make me wonder
>> why I bother at all.
>
> Of course this is also a political reaction, you are welcome to tell
> this to the FSF representatives.

I am afraid that I consider this reaction far enough to the fringe
that I personally don't think the FSF could be reasonably expected to
cater for it.  For me, it is the "can't please all" category.  So I
recommend that you use the feedback channels for the current GFDL and
GSFDL drafts to voice your concern in detail yourself.  I don't feel
qualified to speak for you.

>> Naturally, such a fork would not get distributed with the main
>> distribution of AUCTeX.  One of the points of turning AUCTeX into a
>> GNU project was to make use of the infrastructure of the FSF, and
>> to make it possible at one point of time to include AUCTeX into
>> Emacs proper.
>
> Doing a fork would show the FSF that the (some) AUCTeX developers
> feel that proper free licenses are more important than
> infrastructure.

I can't speak for the other developers, but it is my hope that AUCTeX
developers feel that AUCTeX is more important than bickering over two
sentences on front and back cover of mass-printed documentation that
could not even be distributed reasonably on paper if it were under the
GPL, a license that some of the purists would rather see used as a
license than the GFDL.

>> AUCTeX is not useful without Emacs, so it is not like there is much
>> sense into trying to make AUCTeX closer to Debian
>
> I'm not speaking about Debian.  Debian users and developers can well
> do with an auctex package without the manual, and a separate
> non-free auctex-doc package.  The point is free software, free
> documentation, and non-flawed licenses.

Feel free to use the provided feedback channels for the current draft
of the GFDL and GSFDL.  If you have a concern with them, I would
consider your energy better invested explaining it there properly
rather than trying to fork a GNU project and making some message in
that rather divisive manner.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum




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