Subject: Re: Another view of the LDP vs. Yggdrasil/FSF religious war
From: Kai Harrekilde-Petersen <[email-masked]>
To: Linux Documentation Project writers <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 1995 20:38:39 +0200 (MET DST)

Vince Skahan writes:
> [...]
> Anyway, lets look at the reality of the situation:
> 
> 	- what we don't hear here is the FSF saying something
> 		like "guys, you wrote some good stuff that we'd
> 		like to use as the basis for a GNU doc project
> 		if you can remove some restrictions you have on
> 		your docs (so that we can not waste time and effort
> 		generating docs that say the same thing in 
> 		different words)". [...]
> 
> 	- what we also don't see here is Yggdrasil having the
> 		courtesy to write to us all privately to 
> 		calmly discuss their change of heart and 
> 		explain their position. [...]

I think that Vince really summed things up in these two statements, as
I see them.  I find Yggdrasil's approach to the situation very
disrespectful towards us, the contributors.  This is the root of my
anger in this case.

Also, I do not see what this has to do with the payment for the Linux
Bible, 3rd edition, since it is based on "old" work, whose copyright
they cannot change by this.  This affair can only change the copyright
on future howto's & manuals.  So, why this 1st of September date?
---does it hurry that much?  IMHO, Ygdrasil is shooting themselves in
the foot (with a cruise missile) in this case, by raising anger, when
they could (possibly) have acheived the same thing by being polite.

> At this time, you own your work.  
> Do what *you* (and not what anybody else) thinks is right.

In fact, this has made me hope, that the ftape-howto *DOES NOT* go
under the "no more restricting than the GPL" thing, although I
probably would have, made the change if Yggdrasil (or FSF) had sent me
a mail asking me to it.

"Med venlighed kommer man laengst!"  ("Friendliness carries you further")

Kai
-- 
Kai Harrekilde-Petersen  <[email-masked]>  Linux: choice of a GNU generation
>> Inside every little problem there's a BIG problem, struggling to get out <<