From owner-freebsd-doc Tue Dec 4 15:55:24 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Received: from blackhelicopters.org (geburah.blackhelicopters.org [209.69.178.18]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7600937B405 for ; Tue, 4 Dec 2001 15:55:21 -0800 (PST) Received: (from mwlucas@localhost) by blackhelicopters.org (8.11.6/8.11.6) id fB4NtJw95165; Tue, 4 Dec 2001 18:55:19 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from mwlucas) Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2001 18:55:19 -0500 From: Michael Lucas To: "Gary W. Swearingen" Cc: doc@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: request for review on patch Message-ID: <20011204185519.A95107@blackhelicopters.org> References: <20011204073549.A91381@blackhelicopters.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: ; from swear@blarg.net on Tue, Dec 04, 2001 at 11:26:51AM -0800 Sender: owner-freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Tue, Dec 04, 2001 at 11:26:51AM -0800, Gary W. Swearingen wrote: > > Bottom line: The patch seems harmless. OK, thanks. I think what we have here is a slightly different perspective on things. Most good professional writers (which is, sadly, a small subset of professional writers), prefer to be as explicit and exact as possible. > > 2) Plural "goals", but only one goal listed. The patch changes this > > to the singular, rather than creating another goal for the Project to > > work forwards. > > > ! The goal of the FreeBSD Project is to provide software > > that may be used for any purpose and without strings attached. > > Again, we have omitted words (after "and"). There are two goals: Yes, but that's diff -c. No selective editing intended. :) This is one goal, with two aspects. Although I will happily concede that this topic has caused no amount of bloodshed on alt.flame.english-usage. > But this is a FAQ where there should be a high tolerance for such things. Well, yes and no. Some documentation is unquestionably better than no documentation. But I'd far rather see the documentation be exact, precise, and correct. The OS is high-quality professional-grade code written by professional coders, I'd like to see the documentation be of similar quality whenever possible. > P.S. The following is OT in regards this patch, but the second goal above > is not true. People who put copyright claims on software, even when they > offer a very liberal license, don't have a goal of providing the > software without strings. Just few strings. I do hate to see us making > extravagant, strictly untrue claims like that project with more strigns. This is certainly a legitimate thought. I'll edit the patch and submit it here for review. -- Michael Lucas mwlucas@FreeBSD.org, mwlucas@blackhelicopters.org http://www.blackhelicopters.org/~mwlucas/ Big Scary Daemons: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/q/Big_Scary_Daemons To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message