🚀 go-pugleaf

David Kastrup wrote:
>dblake@dylan.ucsf.edu (Dave Blake ) writes:
>> Donal K. Fellows wrote:
>> >Or does RMs hold the (IMHO ridiculous) position that if someone writes
>> >a book about GNU Emacs, then the content of that book[*] should[**] be
>> >given away free?  
 
>> Copylefted.
>> 
>> If someone like O'Reilly is printing good documentation books,
>> it will act to prevent people from writing good free (or at
>> least copylefted) ones.
>> 
>> This is my understanding of rms' take on documentation manuals.

>More particular, it is his take on basically *essential*
>documentation.  

http://www.salonmagazine.com:80/21st/feature/1998/09/11feature2.html




>> The dude has ethics.
>
>What have ethics to do with what he wants other people to do? 

rms has a world vision, and it is a world he lives in and
has been a driving force behind. GPL software has been
strongly affected by his presence. He knows his 
"only free open source software and copylefted manuals" 
philosophy is not the easiest solution, but he firmly
believes the computing world will be a better place
if everyone believed similarly. 

I think he is right, but there are such amazing short
term gains to be had from commercial software and manuals
that I think it is impractical to stop them. Eventually
they will lose out anyway.

---
Dave Blake
dblake@phy.ucsf.edu