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: Wed, 12 Jul 1995 20:23:09 +0200 (MET DST)

Hi Adam,

Adam J. Richter writes:
> 
> >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.
> 
> 	Yggdrasil is a free software company.  Everything that we
> write is free software.  For a long time we have wanted to create
> freely redistributable derivative works of the LDP docs, but doing
> so would have involved creating unfree content.

This is all fine and well, but why didn't you take the time to just
mail us guys explaining this?  I believe that more than half of the
anger and bad temper in this case was created by your approach.  Also,
please remember that some of us (like me :-) are only on the LDP list,
and just about never read News (I'm behind a modem line, and have to
read news online).

> We are more concerned
> about the copyright on the latest version of the documents than the
> documents that are actually in the third edition of the linux bible.
> 
> 	Let me give you some examples.  For a long time, we have
> wanted to merge the Plug-and-Play Linux manual with _Linux
> Installation and Getting Started_, but doing so would have put
> the P&P-Linux manual under a copyright that have made it too
> restricted (assuming even that we could get Matt's permission
> to do this).

>From this, I take your intent to be: The reason that you (Yggdrasil)
want us (the LDP writers) to change our copyright policy to a
less-restrictive one, is that Yggdrasil wants to use the
less-restrictive copyright policy to be able to change our doc's as it
suits you, to create better products (eg "Value-Added" versions of the
howtos), and hence, hopefully make more money.

Is this correct?

> >So, why this 1st of September date?
> 
> 	Because we don't want to hold the donation checks forever.

I assume that you mean donations based on the sales of the 3rd edition.

Adam, I do not like this mixing of donations based on 3rd ed, and
copyright on documents going into the 4th edition.  To me, the 3rd and
the 4th edition should be kept completely apart.

This "if you don't change your copyright now, we will give you less
money for the howto we have already used" method makes me feel that
you are trying to bully me into doing something.

And, like most other people, I *hate* being bullied, regardless of
*what* you are trying to bully me into.

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 <<