GNU Free Documentation Licence Comments

[Bruce Byfield <bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com>]

First, thanks to everyone who responded to my requests for
comments about the recently released GNU Free Documentation
Licence.

Second, since at least one person who responded found my initial
request for comments vague, let me be more specific:

I am very familiar with the GNU Public Licence, since I've dealt
with with it for the last ten months, and have been talking with
the Free Software Foundation. What I am interested in is quotable
comments about the idea, on such topics as:
- do writers want a separate or need a separate public licence?
- will writers work for the free software movement in the same
way that coders do?
- will the GNU FDL give writers and documentation more respect?
- will the licence's distinction between transparent documents
(ones readable with free software and not exported from
proprietary software) and opaque documents cause work or
production problems? For example, since postscript is a
proprietary format, its use means that a document isn't
transparent.

The deadline for my first column has passed, but I heard
yesterday that it's going to be a regular feature in the
magazine, so I would still be interested in any comments about
these issues.

--
Bruce Byfield, Outlaw Communications
3015 Aries Place, Burnaby, BC V37 7E8, Canada
bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com 604.421.7189

"To Newgate Jail they took him, the Ranters' dream was dead,
He had no taste for martyrdom, 'I will recant,' he said,
'I banished sin, but I have erred, it cannot be denied,
That these are sins: greed, tyranny, hypocrisy, and pride.'"
-Leon Rosselson, "Abezier Coppe"