[Fsf-friends] Re: PDF issues

[Anand Babu]

,----[ Sandip Bhattacharya <sandip@lug-delhi.org> ]
| Tathagata Banerjee wrote:
| > cumbersome for sustained use. dipankar das's book was created
| > using microsoft office on microsoft windows, and pdf-ed directly
| > from there because the fonts were windows-specific. this is the
| > problem that faces us now - whether we should own up to this or
| > not.
| 
| I think there is no shame in mentioning the method in which the book
| was created. Bengali (and other Indic scripts) are at a transitional
| stage in Freedom.
| 
| Just as the initial Free tools were created on non-free platforms
| till they became "self-hosting", I think the use of non-free
| document creation tools is perfectly ok as long as we have a public
| plan or intention to move toward Free tools as and when that
| happens.
`----
I agree with both Ramanraj's and Sandip's feedback.

I think ripping of tags or signatures inserted by non-free programs to
disguise its creation method only makes our situation worse. Its like
ostriches sticking their heads in the sand.

By keeping this info public, We will always be under the pressure that
there are still non-free programs thats requires a free replacement.

This book and its source are free, except it has dependencies on
non-free software. Just like GNU programs initially required non-free
Unix kernels till we had our own.

But to publish them on our official GNU web site, we should to seek
RMS's advice. 

-- 
Anand Babu
Free as in Freedom <www.gnu.org>