[Scribus] Restricted documentation license (was: a different kind of Scribus reference)

[Christoph Schäfer]

Am Freitag, 21. April 2006 13:15 schrieb Craig Bradney:
> On Friday 21 April 2006 11:23, PLinnell wrote:
> > On Friday 21 April 2006 10:39, Brian Burger wrote:> On 4/21/06, Helmut
> > Wollmersdorfer <helmut.wollmersdorfer at gmx.at> wrote:> > Christoph Sch?fer
> > wrote:> > > The licence allows free distribution, including translation,>
> > >
> >
> > > but has> >> > some> >> > > restrictions regarding reformed German
> >
> > spelling, notifications> > > to the> >> > author> >> > > (i. e. me) if
> > any major changes are applied, and another> > > restriction> >> > with>
> > >> > > respect to commercial printing.> >> > Be aware, that such
> > restricted licenses are the reason, why> > scribus-doc is deleted from
> > the package in the official Debian> > distribution.> >> > See:> >> > $
> > apt-cache show scribus-doc> > Package: scribus-doc> > Priority: optional>
> > > Section: non-free/doc> >           ^^^^^^^^> >> > This means, that
> > scribus-doc is not installable without changing> > the default
> > repositories, and also is not delivered on official> > Debian-CDs.>>
> > Interesting - there is no "scribus-doc" package at all in Ubuntu> 5.10,
> > and when I start Scribus 1.2.2.1 and go Help->Scribus Manual,> all I get
> > is a blank help window with "Sorry, no manual available!> Please see:
> > http://docs.scribus.net for updated docs and> www.scribus.net for
> > downloads." in it.>> Is this because of the license, or something else?
> > (I'm running> Ubuntu w/ Gnome, not Kubuntu w/ KDE, for example...)>>
> > Brian. Hi,
> > I do not know, you would need to ask the Ubuntu folks, but one of the
> > first things we do for almost any visitor to IRC using Ubuntu to add our
> > repo, so that users can replace 1.2.2.1 with 1.2.4.1, which is more
> > feature complete and more stable than even 1.2.2.1. Also, for Ubuntu
> > users, I have added an FAQ section here:
> > http://www.scribus.net/admin.php?module=FAQ&op=FaqCatGo&id_cat=13 Cheers,
> > Peter
>
> The point is that Christoph who is writing that document doesn't like the
> new German spelling rules so he doesn't want anyone to change it.

If I only didn't like them, I probably wouldn't have added that clause. The 
point is, the spelling reform was intended as a test case for the state: How 
far can we go in imposing our will to the people? If we can force them to 
write in a new way and in a way they don't want to write, we can enforce 
almost everything else. I didn't invent that, they said it in public. The 
politicians even acknowledged that the reform was a grave mistake, but they 
don't retract it, because "reason of state" doesn't permit! So this is not 
only about the damage brought to an established culture, it's also about 
democracy and law. If you look at it this way, I want to keep the docs "free" 
from rules imposed by authoritarian politicians, since freedom also means to 
say "no".

Honestly, I never cared about this nonsense. 70 % to 90 % of the German 
population are against this reform and continue to write correctly. But on 
two occasions I saw texts written by me converted to reformed spelling 
without my permission, and these texts were published, so I had no chance to 
force the publisher to correct his copyright violation (i couldn't afford a 
law suit at the time). It's very hard for a writer to see his texts converted 
to something that makes him look like a stupid botcher!

> He also 
> applies a similar no comemrcial printing without permission clause like we
> have on the official Scribus documentation.

And for similar reasons, I suppose.
>
> Craig

Christoph