🚀 go-pugleaf

close@lunch.wpd.sgi.com (Diane Barlow Close) provides some insight from
other FSF folks...

> > From rms@ai.mit.edu  Sun Jun 24 12:57:54 1990
...
> We thanked Kernighan in the GAWK manual because we are grateful for
> his help with GAWK.  We did not recommend that people buy the books he
> worked on because they cannot be part of the documentation of the GNU
> system.  No matter how well they were written, they are not available,
> because the authors chose to make it illegal for GNU users to copy
> them...

The phrase "they are not available" is unfortunate.  What it really means
is that they are not something FSF can have for its own, nor are they
available on the terms FSF wants...but both of those are rather far from
the unqualified "not available."  In fact, Kernighan's AWK book is both
readily available and (although I understand that this doesn't matter
within the FSF belief system) reasonably priced.

and from labrea!grackle!bob@ai.mit.edu:

> But his books are hoarded.  I have looked at their copyright pages
> in the bookstore.  Truth may be unpleasant, but it is truth.

This is an even-more-unfortunate statement.  Opinion is not truth.  For one
thing, "hoard" and "publish" are quite nearly opposites.  For another, the
word "hoard" carries an obvious, strong negative connotation.  It is not a
word a reasonable person uses for a factual statement of an opponent's
position.  It is clearly intended to cast aspersion.

As I sit on the sidelines, I'm not sure whether the FSF's position is
changing, or merely becoming more clear, but I think the timing of it all
is quite unfortunate.  With the just-announced disastrous (IMO) decision
for Lotus, it is important to have some strongly-worded statements from
"the other side"--yet I think many of us are just now finding that FSF
cannot speak for us because its position has become untenably radical
and/or violates our standards of professional conduct.  For me, there's
a fatal loss of focus in moving from challenging ridiculous software costs
and licensing to challenging the entire publishing industry.
-- 
Dick Dunn     rcd@ico.isc.com  -or-  ico!rcd          (303)449-2870
   ...Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.