Subject: Re: Yggdrasil Pressure on the LDP
From: [email-masked] (Greg Hankins)
To: Linux Documentation Project writers <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 9 Jul 1995 20:14:23 -0400 (EDT)

Matt Welsh writes:
>We discussed it. As I seem to recall, the general consensus was that
>it's still much better for us to maintain these documents under a 
>no-modification license. It saves us a lot of headaches and allows
>us to maintain the "one true version" saving the community and
>the end-user from a lot of confusion. We also believe that the LDP
>manuals reflect our personal views and writing style quite directly,
>and allowing anyone to modify the manuals and release changed
>versions without our prior approval could turn into a bad situation---
>
>Yes, but not of the nature of the changes themselves. The changes could
>be written in a very poor, unclear style or somehow allude to a 
>philosophical standpoint that the original author does not intend. 

I agree with Matt completely.  From the HOWTO maintenance standpoint, I can
only imagine what a nightmare it would be if Joe Random sent me an update
to the Foo-HOWTO.  Adam is trying to apply the GPL to something that it
can't apply too - writing.  Writing (docs) is not like code.  Writing
caries with it a flow and style, this can be seriously disrupted if the
changes don't come from the original author.  Matt also raises the point
that the writings reflect our personal views and philosophical standpoints
and beliefs.

Software also has it's own style, but it's not as visible to the end user 
as documentation.  I don't think that the personal beliefs and style
and flow are (as much as) an issue for GPLed software.  Even the GNU
tools have maintainers... I don't know what is wrong with having HOWTO
or LDP maintainer for their documents.

Adam, what exactly did you want to be able to do with the LDP docs that
you could do if they were GPLed, but you can't do now?

Greg

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