Free & Non-Free Documentation

Guylhem writes "After the problems the LDP had with Debian rules, it seems clear we need an organization which would for example sort documentation between free (as "libre" or "freedom") and non free. After some discussions with people from the GNU project and the FSF, we came to the conclusion no such project already existed. I am please to announce that I am now starting the GNU Writing Movement with help from the GNU project. We will provide links to existing free documents, with a possibility to rate the documentation quality. The project is not competing with existing documentation project such as the LDP or GDP. It will complement them, both by serving somewhat as a meta-project for free software documentation, to provide help to authors willing to replace their FAQ or HOWTO will a full Guide on a specific topic, and to develop brand-new book-length material on many topics. " If you can't find a home for your documentation at an existing documentation project, and you agree with the philosophy of the GNU project, we can help you. Volunteers are welcome for the first phase of the project - cataloging existing free software documentation, rating it, and determining TODO lists for what needs to be documented.

Comments

Re:Leave the politics out of it.

[dewdrops]

amen. i'm sick of hearing that the GNU borg has approved or not approved a certain group's contribution this week.

in STallman's original USENET posting, he writes "I cannot in good conscience sign a nondisclosure agreement or a software license agreement." Note he writes that he couldn't sign a license agreement... hrm; like the license agreement he forces anyone who wants to put any GNU code into their projects to do ?

Having no licenses was the original idea of open source and should remain so.

That's what made open source software so nice; you could hack without worrying about strange, arbitrary laws governing which code you can use and which you can't. Just download the code you need and go; everyone is happy.

but with all of the slightly different licenses to keep track of and all of the political infighting, it's becoming just as bad as (or even worse than) closed source software.

dd