Bug#345604: [tex-live] Re: ConTeXt documentation in "commercial" products

[Frank Küster]

Hans Hagen <pragma at wxs.nl> wrote:

> Karl Berry wrote:
>
>>The main point of free documentation is to allow, in principle, someone
>>who makes changes to the free software it describes to also update the
>>documentation.  Distributing pdf's doesn't allow that.  Making a
>>good-faith effort to distribute sources (even if not necessarily
>>complete / guaranteed to run) does.
>>
>>
> i'd say: write a new or additional manual -)
>
> btw, the fact that tex distributions seems to differ slightly (just
> read messages on the context list about installing tex on linux) does
> not mean that those who change things also document things; in the end
> the questions come to the source of the program ...
>
> also, if users take pieces of manuals, rewrite it, make better manuals
> ... fine for me, as long as no-one bothers me ... my main point is
> that i don't want to be responsible for that and that i don't want to
> let users be confused about what version is 'the real one'

This is a worthwile goal, but I fear it must be enforced rather by
social pressure than by law.  And the CC license you chose doesn't
enforce it, anyway.

> i bet that there are pdf's (and maybe html's) in texlive with no sources -)

I won't bet against this; but we are about to start a big "check the
docs" effort for the Debian packages (of texlive and teTeX), and will
approach all the authors where no source is available.

Regards, Frank
-- 
Frank Küster
Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer (teTeX)