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Re: Futile bug reports?


From: Alan Mackenzie
Subject: Re: Futile bug reports?
Date: 17 Aug 2001 01:35:08 +0200
Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 23:36:29 +0000
User-agent: tin/1.4.5-20010409 ("One More Nightmare") (UNIX) (Linux/2.0.35 (i686))

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote on Thu, 16 Aug 2001 15:30:53 -0600:

> Our policy is that this list should not be used to publicize *any*
> non-free manuals, or any non-free software.  It makes no difference
> whether there is a free replacement (or, if there is one, who
> distributes it).

We recently had a discussion along these lines in gnu.emacs.help.

The conclusion I reached was that, although free software is invariably
better than its restricted counterparts, free tutorial documentation is
usually less good than (the best of the) commercially published
alternatives.  Why this should be would likely make a good PhD thesis.

I think the above stated policy is misguided - Instead of shunning such
books as (?)idealogically unwanted, you could embrace them as
_enhancements_ to free software.  This would help free software, such as
emacs, to get accepted by more people than otherwise would.  This is
surely in accordance with the aims of the FSF.

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Munich, Germany)
Email: aacm@muuc.dee; to decode, wherever there is a repeated letter
(like "a"), remove one of them (leaving, say, "a").




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