Subject: Re: LDP copyright license
From: [email-masked] (Richard Stallman)
To: Multiple recipients of list <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Sep 1994 17:27:20 -0400

Your logic is that you see problems with the FSF book terms, therefore
you must prohibit all modifications.

But these are just two points in a multidimensional space of
possibilities.  There are many ways to solve those problems.

    and Linux vendors are exhibiting an extreme lack of foresight. They
    are competing head-to-head and constantly trying to outdo each other
    with questionable marketing techniques. The LDP doesn't want to be a 
    part of this competition.

There is more than one way to prevent this.

For example, you could write a section explaining and condemning these
questionable marketing techniques, and probihit deletion or alteration
of that section.  Then the people who do these things would find that
using this book makes it harder for them to get away with those
techniques.

You could also explain about sleazy ways of modifying the book.  Then
anyone who did something sleazy would have to explain and damn his own
crime.  People would not be likely to do that.

    I refuse 
    to have my name and reputation associated with such a work. 

There are other ways to protect your reputation.  For example, you can
make detailed specifications about how people who modify the book must
identify modified versions.  You could even require them to include
information about where to get the unmodified version.