I think you are trying to put documentation and programs into one box.
No, I'm telling that you cannot put programs and documentation shipped electronical in different boxes.
If they are different, then they should be in different boxes. Maybe you are speaking about physical boxes?
One should always examine what kind of work one is handling before licensing it. Sometimes it makes sense to use the modifed-BSD license, sometimes the Lesser GPL, sometimes the GPL. Same applies for `text', some `text' is better to be under the GPL, some is better to be under the GFDL.
The problem with your analogy is, that BSD, LGPL and GPL are all free, they only differ in how they protect against non-free stuff. The GFDL is different, in that if applied to programs it is simply non-free. It can be better for you to license something non-free, but I do not want to use it or recommend its usage.
Documentation and software are clearly different, different rules apply. Licensing a document under the GFDL does not make it non-free, it makes it `non-free software', but then, it isn't software at all so calling it `free software' is equally (in)correct.
Well, the need for freedoms for program source code is not clear either. Many people distpute that.
How are the freedoms for program source code not clear? I should be able to control what my machine does, what it does, and tell people what it did.
And change what it does and distribute it to others. But there are people telling me that is not needed for programs, and there are people like you telling me it is not needed for documention.
Can you explain to me why you require the right to modify what I have written at all times? Compared to why you need the right to modify a program I have written at all times?
The free software licenses do. The FDL does not allow modification in reasonable ways. (plus has some glitches with copying).
How doesn't it allow for it in a reasonable way? Last time I checked, I could modify a document in anyway I choose.
Now, let's take some example. Let's take the documentation of some protocol, assume it is only available as FDL. I want to write a protocoll sniffer for that protocol, so I take the tables for the different events and their structure from the documentation, use some editor macros and some hand-editing to make it a program source for a package printer. Thus I get source code for a program which I have only available as FDL. (And FDL for source is unsuitable, as for example I'll have problems getting it into some embedded chip with the whole license and perhaps some additional licenses in it).
So don't license the data structures, examples, etc, under the GFDL. Pick the proper license for the different works you use. No single license will work for everything.
A documentation unrelated to a program is useless. If it is related it should not be separated.
But they _are_ seperate, documents aren't programs. You can still distribute them in the same physical box if you wish, nobody stops you from doing this.
It's reasonable to expect stuff will move the one way or the other. A good small definition or description from the comments of a program is often a nice sentence in the documentation. A good short description from the documentation can sometimes be added as commentary in the program. Documentation source might include machine readable stuff to be transformed by some scripts or even human to code parts. Programs might get tooltips built in containing stuff from the documentation. Some part of documentation could be rewritten using an auto-generated stuff or docstrings or something like this from the code. There is exchange between them, and incompatible licenses make this impossible. Thus a license for documentation needs to be includeable in some free software license to be free.
Yes, and the GFDL allows for this. Nobody stops you from licensing your examples under the GPL and the rest of the document under the GPL, likewise with the code to be licensed under the GPL. The GNU C Library manual does this for example.
How can more freedom to change what I wrote be good? Would you be ok if you for example wrote "I Bernhard R. Link like dragons", and then someone comes and changes this (the text is licensed under the GPL or similar) to "I Bernhard R. Link hate freedom"? I don't think anyone has such a right.
There are laws against slander and other things like that coping with your example. But also for manifestos and personal opinions freedom is a useful thing. Other people might want to write manifestos too, and might want to express their opinion. Having to formulate them all from scratch is quite some work, and allowing people to save time is in general good. (Of course sometimes you like not to be good to persons you do not like, or that want to harm you. I do not want to say that such things should be free, only that it is nicer if they are.)
There is no law in the world that will protect you from slander if you explicitly allow for the right to modify a work. You cannot sue a person for using a free software program in a manner that you consider bad since you explicitly gave this right. Same applies if you give the explict right to modify a text in anyway or form.
Anything that is of a digital nature is sensible to include in an OS. This does not mean that you, or anyone, should have the right to change for example the GNU manifest to state something entierly different, while still making it sound as if it is the GNU project who wrote it.
Again, writing something making it soundas if someone else wrote it is libel or slander or any other such term layers might use and totaly unrelated to copyright.
Plain wrong if the license explicitly allows for such modifications.
I find it quite easy: Computer runs program, human reads text. I would like to see a single human who can actually run a program of sufficent size.
But humans read computer programs. (And with free software that is an important part of programs). And documentation is first read by computers, too.
It isn't read by a computer. It is read by a parser which is read by a computer. By your logic, since this text is `read' by emacs, which inturn is a program, you should have the explicit right to change what I wrote to something I simply disagree strongly with and claim that I actually wrote it.
Cheers.