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

[Robert J. Chassell]

   At 11:43 AM 12/12/2004, Robert J. Chassell wrote:
   >Why is it not possible?  Are you suggesting that the XEmacs people
   >lack proper papers for contributions?  If so, this means they cannot
   >ever ensure that the lawyers of a hostile organization with plenty of
   >money will tell the organization's leaders that the software is legal.
   >That is what I think you are suggesting.

   That's either amusing or insulting. XEmacs explicitly does not collect
   papers because we believe that hinders development of the product. ...

To me you sound as if your primary concern is in the `development of
the product' rather than its use by strangers who care nothing about
software.

As a technique, you have made yourself hostage to anyone who is
hostile to you and has lots of money.  That is what is meant by `does
not collect papers'.

You can hope to be perceived as irrelevant, in which case no one will
attack you.  That is fine.  But that also means you are doing no good
for society as a whole.

   >This means that the XEmacs project is rhetorically ineffective.  ...

   Please do not make assumptions about we are or are not concerned
   with. If anything the XEmacs project is much more concerned with
   these things than the FSF appears to be.

Well, please undertake actions that show you being effective as
salesmen.  I am not persuaded of that.  The FSF strategy is not very
powerful, but I cannot think of anything more effective, considering
the nature of the people who are part of GNU.  Please show me how you
have been better at affecting poltical and business change in
Washington, Paris, and Berlin.

I dislike this whole need for `papers', police support of legal
monopolies, and developers' hinderances; I want to see this harm
ended.  I want to see more software freedom.

   ... So you can protect the code from big, bad companies - I highly
   doubt that anyone in the real world actually cares anymore.

They do care.  That is why some companies lobbied for laws like the
DMCA.  That is why SCO got funding which they have used, among other
actions, to make statements that confused decision-makers who know
nothing about software.  Only the irrelevant are untouched.

   I personally believe that the FSF's approach has contributed to
   making Emacs (and XEmacs) largely irrelevant today. ....

Perhaps GNU/Linux is irrelevant, but neither Microsoft nor IBM think
so.  I do not think so.  As for Emacs, it may be a failed project; or
it may be an integrated user environment that is less interesting than
a graphic user interface; or it may be doing as well as a programmers'
tool can be expected.  In any case, Emacs is not the GNU project.

To focus on Emacs when we are talking about licenses suggests to me
that you are more concerned with the development of that product than
with changing the political and business patterns of societies.

-- 
    Robert J. Chassell                         
    address@hidden                         GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8
    http://www.rattlesnake.com                  http://www.teak.cc