Subject: Re: LDP and FSF and copyrights
From: [email-masked] (Matt Welsh)
To: Linux Documentation Project writers <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 1995 19:37:49 EDT

Richard Stallman <[email-masked]> writes:
>     This particular publisher also wants to rename the book "The Slackware
>     Insatallation Guide" and remove all references to other distributions.
> 
> Why do you consider this a problem?  It seems like a useful change to
> me.

The changes that they want to make go beyond technical ones. They want
to remove all references to their "competetors" (other vendors),
including those I make in the acknowledgements. The people I name
there have contributed large amounts of time, and money, in contributing 
to the book. Obviously, it's inappropriate to do this.

> An installation guide specialized to one packaged distribution is a
> useful thing to provide together with that distribution.  

I don't disagree with this! I am engouraging these people to make
changes of a technical nature to track their book---using them as
a guinea pig case, so to speak, for releasing the book under a more
GPL-like license. So far, I have given them several feet, and now
they want a mile. 

For example, they also want to remove all references to downloading 
Linux software off the Internet, instead of purchasing their CD-ROM
subscription program. In addition, they want to remove my advice to
"not reinstall with every new release of a Linux CD-ROM" because they
want readers to always get the newest CD from them. I obviously can'
t condone that kind of bad and misleading advice, especially when
it's redirected at novices.

I originally expressed great interest in working with these people
so I could find out how allowing others to make changes to the book
would work. However, all of the ideas that this publisher has go
far beyond what I consider appropriate for the book. They have pulled
up every scenario that I had feared. They are very interested in 
modifying my advice and attitudes in the book which might be seen as
harmful to their sales.

These cases, I think, ARE harmful. They don't only misrepresent
my views, but they are very deliberately misleading readers in a way
that I think is bad (for technical reasons, among others).

> Recall I suggested you have a few sections of personal views material
> which cannot be altered or removed, and permit free modification of
> all the rest.  The Emacs manual shows an example of this way of doing
> things.

I would certainly plan to do this---however, the above cases show
that they'd like to change small bits througout the book, which
individually would be hard to protect. For example, removing 
references to downloading software via FTP. How can I realistically
protect the book from these kinds of problems? 

The answer seems to be:

> If in the personal views sections you show why such a change would be
> sleazy, that would not make the change illegal, but it would make the
> sleaziness backfire on anyone who did it.  So they won't do it.

That's true. But I still think that it would be difficult to 
encapsulate all of my views in a single portion of the book---and,
of course, would anybody bother to read such a section? 

It seems that I could come up with a complex license that would allow
someone to edit the book as long as they didn't touch certain sections
or modify material in certain ways. But this seems, to me, more 
restrictive than simply allowing me to act as a filter on a case-by-case
basis. If I did provide such a complex "free" license, would anyone
take advantage of it without working with me directly, anyway? So,
what would it accomplish?

The issues that have come up with this publisher have strongly
discouraged me from wanting to liberate the book any further. It's
only proven to me that I can't trust publishers enough not to
make "sleazy" changes or those which contain very, very bad advice
to the readers. This is not to say that I'm not willing to give it
a shot---I'm only saying that the worst-case scenario is not very
unlikely, so it would seem.

mdw