Re: Fwd: Re: [Fsfe-uk] Free Software Magazine

[MJ Ray]

Thanks to Tony for the reply. I'll cc him on this one.

Tom Chance forwarded:
> We basically assumed that on average a magazine will take 10 days to
> get to subscribers by snail mail. This means that online subscribers
> and paper subscribers will receive FSM more or less at the same time!

Wow, US post is slow. I think it's a bit backwards to slow
email down to match it. *shrug* Your choice, but it makes
the offer a little less attractive to me.

> FREE: verbatim only copying license [...]
> FREE: Creative commons [...]
> FREE: GNU Free Documentation license [...]
> There is ONE non-free article in the magazine, and 14 free ones.

Sorry, none of those are free software licences. They variously
limit the freedom to use, adapt, redistribute or distribute
improvements to them. For CC-by and CC-by-sa, this actually seems
to be a simple bug, but there hasn't been enough interest from
them to fix it yet.  CC-nd, CC-nc and combinations with them, and
"verbatim only" are fairly clear to see how they're not free.

The FDL is another can of worms. FSF may or may not intend to
make it a possibly-free licence (I no longer know), but it's not
yet. The full details can be found at
http://people.debian.org/~srivasta/Position_Statement.html in my
opinion. For magazine articles, there's also the simple practical
problem of having to include around 20k of licence text with each
copy I make. I don't think FDL was designed for short articles.

> I have the feeling you might have read Issue 0, rather than Issue 1.

No, issue 1, the free formats one. It's an informative read, but not
something I can use directly.

>  >If it's an "informative" or "entertaining" purchase, I'd prefer copies
>  >as an easier text format than PDF, so I can read them on different
>  >devices.
> It's a little awkward to embed figures in text documents. Also, most
> modern devices handle HTML - the magazine is online in HTML format as
> well.

HTML is an easier text format than PDF. Will all editions be
in HTML format and how does one subscribe to them?

>  >Seeing the logo of agressive DMCA- and swpat-user Adobe all over the
>  >sample issue is also discouraging. It makes me wonder about the
>  >editor's knowledge.
> Are you talking about the PDF logo, which is generally recognised by
> internet users in the world for PDF files?
> If you have a better alternative, please send it to me! I will change
> it immediately.

I'm talking about the Adobe bit. I'd still go with the "PDF" caption
on a document, but probably less blurry. Not sure about the concave
looped triangle either way.

I don't think Adobe's marketing budget should let them get free ads
in free software publications when there are free software
competitors available. Your choice, though.

-- 
MJR/slef