Re: Permission to use portions of the recent GNU Emacs Manual

What is the purpose of the GFDL? The prime purpose of the GFDL is to encourage more publishers to provide commercial, free documentation. Publishers have told me that they are afraid that without some kind of legal obligation to publish a few words on the front and back covers they will be ripped off by free riders. Were they to invest in gathering people's attention, others would benefit. So they did not invest in providing commercial, free documentation. The strategy may be wrong. Businesses may not compete with one another. They may not care whether they lose revenue to free riders and others. But I do not think so. (Indeed, most of the free works I see nowadays in commercial publications are under more restrictive `Creative Commons' licenses, so there is an argument that the GFDL is not restrictive enough.) compete, one way or the other. For example, a long time ago Tim O'Reilly told me that he believed that powerful people in Macmillan hoped to destroy his publishing house before it became well established. Perhaps he was delusional. Or perhaps he was correct. I think he was more likely correct than wrong. In any event, others have said the same. The GFDL is designed to reduce the benefits to free riders. That is its prime purpose. (It has secondary purposes, too, like enabling people to write personal introductions that legally will remain invariant.) As I said, there is short term evidence that the GFDL is insufficiently restrictive; but I do not see how it could be made more restrictive and still be free in any meaningful sense. It is not pleasant to live in a world where good guys are hurt by bad guys, but that the way the world is. -- Robert J. Chassell bob(a)rattlesnake.com GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8 http://www.rattlesnake.com http://www.teak.cc