Comment 25 for bug 27858

Karl Berry wrote:

>The main point of free documentation is to allow, in principle, someone
>who makes changes to the free software it describes to also update the
>documentation. Distributing pdf's doesn't allow that. Making a
>good-faith effort to distribute sources (even if not necessarily
>complete / guaranteed to run) does.
>
>
i'd say: write a new or additional manual -)

btw, the fact that tex distributions seems to differ slightly (just read
messages on the context list about installing tex on linux) does not
mean that those who change things also document things; in the end the
questions come to the source of the program ...

also, if users take pieces of manuals, rewrite it, make better manuals
... fine for me, as long as no-one bothers me ... my main point is that
i don't want to be responsible for that and that i don't want to let
users be confused about what version is 'the real one'

>Any interest in reconsidering?
>
>
well, for a while now context users can download sources of manuals
(more will follow) from our svn repository; if they change and patch
fine, as long as they don't let it end up in the commercial publication
domain (and thereby entering a real copyright mess); guess why i never
published one of the manuals as book: i want copies to be freely
available. I leave it to others to do that and as the licence says:
potential authors are free to use the examples for that purpose (it's
actually one of the reasons for making them available).

> if i generate an html page from an xml file, it has no source either).
>
>If you generate an html page from an xml file, the xml file is the
>source.
>
>
i bet that there are pdf's (and maybe html's) in texlive with no sources -)

(anyhow, as an escape one can always use pdftotext and then claim that
he/she has clever macros that can turn the resulting text file into a
nicely typeset pdf file)

> understand those tens of pages of legal stuff -)
>
>Well, the GPL is five pages typeset, but your point remains the same :).
>
>
-)

Hans

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