arnold@audiofax.com (Arnold Robbins) (06/29/90)
In article <9372@odin.corp.sgi.com> close@sgi.com (Diane Barlow Close) writes: |As the principal author of the GAWK manual I think I can shed some light on |the recent ``controversy'' about in-bad-taste comments appearing in the GAWK |manual. Ms. Close is missing the original point, which was addressed here: |From: drw@pascal.mit.edu (Dale R. Worley) |Message-ID: <DRW.90Jun25214521@pascal.mit.edu> |Date: 26 Jun 90 04:45:21 GMT | |> I would doubt very much that FSF |> intends to extend the ideology behind GPL to published works, journals, |> etc. in a way expressed in Gnu AWK manual. | |Having talked to RMS about this, I assure you that he believes that |all embodiments of "intellectual property" are fundamentally immoral. |Thus, the concepts of the GPL should be extended to absolutely all |works now copyrighted. Disbelief that this could really be the case is what started the whole discussion. As evidenced by Dale's article, not encouraging non-free information is part and parcel of the FSF's ideals. Now back to Ms. Close: |>From the file gawk.ti, as distributed on the Usenet: |> line 49: |> @center @titlefont{The GAWK Manual} |> @sp 4 |> @center by |> @center Diane Barlow Close <-- That's me! |> @center Arnold D. Robbins This is me ---^ (:-) |> @center Paul H. Rubin |> @center Richard Stallman [ Ms. Close describes how she put together the first version and her thank you to BWK. Ommitted for brevity. ] |Now, if you remember your GNU manifesto lines, you know that ANYONE can make |changes to GNU source code (and that includes manuals) AS LONG AS THEY MAKE |THE CHANGES FREELY AVAILABLE. That's what happened here. | |When I finished with the manual I went on to work on the GNU operating system |utilities manual (as yet unreleased. After that, and continuing now, went on |to write the BASH manual for the Boune Again SHell). During some lag time |between official release of the GAWK manual, changes were made to the GAWK |program necessitating updating the GAWK manual. I wasn't available to make |those changes and two volunteers were brought in -- David J. Mackenzie and |Arnold Robbins. DJM made the changes to the GAWK program source and Mr. |Robbins updated the GAWK manual. David Trueman made most of the changes to gawk, but I also had a hand in the code, not just the manual. David deserves a world of credit for his work; gawk has been almost rewritten. Now, on to the manual. The manual as distributed on the net is almost *twice* the size of the one I started with. The original gawk was a buggy clone of the V7 awk. The current gawk is an very-close-to-production-quality clone of the S5R4 awk. The manual needed a lot of updating to make it describe the current version of the language. After my changes, RMS did a *LOT* of editing to improve the style and consistency. The current manual, although terse, and perhaps not stylistically perfect, is complete and correct. |In doing the GAWK update, Mr. Robbins inserted several personal-opinion |comments (such as those being aired on the net). As detailed below, I did what I thought the author of any reference work should do; I provided pointers to other sources of information. Not exactly "personal opinion". If you look at these sections in their contexts in the manual, you will see that they make sense there. However, as this is a GNU manual and not a regular book, non-free information isn't to be referred to. As I said in an earlier posting, working with the FSF means playing by their rules. |Owing to a lack of time the |GAWK manual did not go through a final pass with an editor. This is |unfortunate as the final manual reads like it was put together by several |people rather than flowing from one collective voice, and it contains several |inappropriate comments. This is one of the few times that the FSF has bowed |to pressure from the outside to release something ``early''. The manual didn't get released until I thought it was complete enough. And I would still have liked to add more example programs. At the time, I didn't even think to worry about comments in the manual that would not appear in either the printed or Info versions. |I wasn't even |informed of the changes to the GAWK text and its release until *after* it had |become fact. That's too bad. I spotted the ``faux pas'' immediately and |figured they cause a ruckus sooner or later. | |I can only hope that this incident encourages better editing and communication |within the FSF. It was my impression (although I can't say why) that Ms. Close was unavailable at the time, and therefore if the manual was to get worked on it would have to be by me. My changes took place over at least a good six months. |>From the file gawk.ti, as distributed on the Usenet: |> line 222: |> @comment We don't refer people to non-free information RMS wrote this line ----^ and commented out this paragraph ----\/ |> @comment In 1988, the original authors |> @comment published @cite{The AWK Programming Language} (Addison-Wesley, ISBN |> @comment 0-201-07981-X), as a definitive description of the @code{awk} |> language. |> line 1132: |> @c We don't refer to hoarded information. Ditto. RMS wrote this ---^ and commented out this ----\/ |> @c (See |> @c @cite{The UNIX Programming Environment} by Brian Kernighan and Rob Pike, |> @c Prentice-Hall, 1984, for more information on writing shell programs that |> @c use the Unix utilities. The most powerful version of the shell is the |> @c Korn shell. A detailed description of the Korn shell can be found in |> @c @cite{The KornShell Command and Programming Language} by Morris Bolsky |> @c and David Korn, Prentice-Hall, 1989.) |These two comments were inserted into the GAWK text by Arnold Robbins long |*after* I wrote my thank-you to Brian Kernighan et. al. *That's* why this |section doesn't seem to fit -- it was written by someone else. I would hope the gawk community would make their own judgement as to the quality of the gawk manual. Although it did not get a final pass, I don't think it's as bad as Ms. Close makes it sound. But then, I'm not a technical writer by profession. |> Everyone's griping about editorial commentary |>that doesn't appear in the formatted manual, and probably should have |>been removed before distribution (bets on whether or not it shows up |>in the next update?). The editor presumably felt that citing material |>that was not freely available contradicted the frequently-repeated |>political goals of the FSF. | |Exactly! It should have been removed before distribution, but remember too -- |anyone can change the GAWK manual to say *anything* as long as they make it |freely distributable. I could insert ``George Bush wears women's underwear'' |as a comment any time I please. :-) That doesn't make it right... As I said above, I wasn't out to spread useless and irrelevant personal opinion. Had the gawk manual been something being published as a regular book, it would have been appropriate to cite the other references. That the commentary got left in is something of an oversight, but there are other things in the manual that are commented out because more work needs to be done on them or they are vestigial. A manual is like a program in that it evolves over time. How many of you have programs with NO code commented out? Right, I thought so. :-) In any case, I'd just as soon lay this discussion to rest. If and when I make further changes to the gawk manual (and both POSIX and some fine points about the S5R4 awk will necessitate this), I look forward to working with Ms. Close to produce a useful, readable, manual. |Diane Barlow Close | close@lunch.wpd.sgi.com -- Arnold Robbins AudioFAX, Inc. | Laundry increases 2000 Powers Ferry Road, #220 / Marietta, GA. 30067 | exponentially in the INTERNET: arnold@audiofax.com Phone: +1 404 933 7600 | number of children. UUCP: emory!audfax!arnold Fax: +1 404 933 7606 | -- Miriam Robbins