RMS forwarded this response and requested it be posted... One of the comments about the GNU Free Documentation License cited the publications of O'Reilly Associates as an example of contribution to the "open source" community, and argued that the GFDL is not designed to encourage publication of more such non-free manuals. That hits the nail on the head. O'Reilly Associates provides a conspicuous example of doing work that could have contributed to the free software community, but then refusing to contribute it. Those manuals have been made non-free, and withheld from our community, through licenses that are unacceptably restrictive. The whole point of the GFDL is to encourage publication of free manuals instead of additional non-free manuals. Documentation is an essential part of any software package. The documentation in a free software package needs to be free also; it needs to respect the users' freedom just as the software does. A non-free manual, like a non-free program, can be well written in an abstract sense. But to people who value their freedom, non-free documentation is as useless and as worthless as a non-free program. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-doc.html for more explanation. Unfortunately, most O'Reilly Associates manuals are non-free, so they fall into that useless and worthless category. We need free replacements for them, just as we need free replacements for any "useful" non-free software packages; just as, in 1984, we needed a free replacement for Unix. O'Reilly Associates could now start publishing manuals using the GFDL. If they use this license, or another free license, their manuals will start contributing to the free software community. They are in a position to make a very important contribution, if they choose. But if they do not, we will get the job done anyway. Other commercial publishers are already publishing free manuals, and the GFDL should make it easier for all publishers to profitably do this. If some continue to write and publish non-free manuals, for whatever reasons, we in the Free World will carry on without their help, just as we carry on without the help of Adobe, Microsoft, Oracle, and Sun.
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RMS forwarded this response and requested it be posted... One of the comments about the GNU Free Documentation License cited the publications of O'Reilly Associates as an example of contribution to the "open source" community, and argued that the GFDL is not designed to encourage publication of more such non-free manuals. That hits the nail on the head. O'Reilly Associates provides a conspicuous example of doing work that could have contributed to the free software community, but then refusing to contribute it. Those manuals have been made non-free, and withheld from our community, through licenses that are unacceptably restrictive. The whole point of the GFDL is to encourage publication of free manuals instead of additional non-free manuals. Documentation is an essential part of any software package. The documentation in a free software package needs to be free also; it needs to respect the users' freedom just as the software does. A non-free manual, like a non-free program, can be well written in an abstract sense. But to people who value their freedom, non-free documentation is as useless and as worthless as a non-free program. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-doc.html for more explanation. Unfortunately, most O'Reilly Associates manuals are non-free, so they fall into that useless and worthless category. We need free replacements for them, just as we need free replacements for any "useful" non-free software packages; just as, in 1984, we needed a free replacement for Unix. O'Reilly Associates could now start publishing manuals using the GFDL. If they use this license, or another free license, their manuals will start contributing to the free software community. They are in a position to make a very important contribution, if they choose. But if they do not, we will get the job done anyway. Other commercial publishers are already publishing free manuals, and the GFDL should make it easier for all publishers to profitably do this. If some continue to write and publish non-free manuals, for whatever reasons, we in the Free World will carry on without their help, just as we carry on without the help of Adobe, Microsoft, Oracle, and Sun.