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Re: GFDL and man pages



Hans Fugal <hans@fugal.net> wrote:
> I am working on a package (csound) that has no manpages or documentation
> of any sort (include --help) in the source archive. There is, however, a
> detailed reference manual[1] with the GFDL license that includes command-line
> program documentation[2,3]. There are no invariant or cover sections, but
> there is an Acknowledgements section.
> 
> Am I safe to make manpages from this reference manual? Would that be a
> derivative work? What attribution do I need to include and where (in the
> manpages themselves, or in the copyright file, etc.)?

You can make a manpage, but you must

have to include inside the manpage

    1) Make a title page that is different from the original manual
    2) List yourself as the creator of the manpage plus up to five of 
       the original editors
    3) List the publisher of the manpage (you or Debian)
    4) Include the full text of the GFDL
    5) Include the copyright notices plus your own
    6) Include a license notice saying the GFDL applies to this manpage
    7) Preserve the list of Invariant Sections and Cover Texts
    8) Preserve the network location, if any, given in the Document
       for public access to a Transparent copy of the Document
    9) Preserve the Acknowledgements
    10) Delete any Endorsements

This is a summary of what you have to do.  The detailed requirements
are in section 4 of the GFDL.  Note that this all has to be _in_ the
manpage.  This may or may not make the manpage useless.  You also have
to include the "Transparent" version of the manpage, which is
presumably whatever format you used to create it in.

And some people wonder why I hate the GFDL.

Regards,
Walter Landry
wlandry@ucsd.edu



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