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Re: License for ATI driver documentation



Daniel Leidert <daniel.leidert.spam@gmx.net> wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I hope you can help  with some ideas and also clear a few of my
> questions. I'm not a lawyer, so I hope, you can give a few hints. I'm
> writing manpages for the proprietary ATI driver, which are included in
> the Debian package. You can find the source here:
> 
> http://cvs.wgdd.de/cgi-bin/cvsweb/fglrx_man/
> 
> At the moment the sources miss a license statement. More about the
> manpages can be found at Flavios fglrx mailing-list.
> 
> http://www.stanchina.net/~flavio/debian/fglrx-archive/msg00925.html
> http://www.stanchina.net/~flavio/debian/fglrx-archive/msg01017.html
> 
> 1) One thing I'm not sure about is, which license I should use, and if I
> maybe clash with the ATI license. So what do you think about the latter
> issue? Am I allowed to release the manpages under a free license or do I
> need permissions from ATI or do I need to give ATI a partial copyright
> or ...? To write the fglrx(4x) manpage I used information I found in
> http://www2.ati.com/drivers/firegl/readme0325.txt. Now this file
> states: 
> 
> /---------------
> > Please read the entire contents of this document. Information in this
> > file may not appear in printed documentation or online help.
> \---------------
> 
> Does it mean, that I'm not allowed to use this information? How do you
> interpret this phrase?

I interpret "may not" as meaning that the information will not
necessarily appear in the printed documentation etc., not that it is
not allowed to appear there.  Unless we are dealing with someone who
has a history of interpreting phrases in a bizarre manner
(e.g. U. Washington), you should be fine.

However, the end of the file says

  (c) Copyright 2002,2003 by ATI Technologies Inc. All rights reserved

which means that you can't use the text in that file for anything.
But if you got your information by synthesizing many different
sources, including that file, you should be fine.

> 2) I want to release them under a free license and therefor I plan to
> choose a license, which is based on the FreeBSD documentation license.
> It would read:
> 
> /---------------
> > Copyright (C) ....
> > 
> > Redistribution and use in source (XML DocBook) and 'compiled' forms (SGML,
> > HTML, PDF, PostScript, RTF and so forth) with or without modification, are
> > permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
> > 
> >   1. Redistributions of source code (XML DocBook) must retain the above
> >      copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer
> >      as the first lines of the file unmodified.
> >   
> >   2. Redistributions in compiled form (transformed to other DTDs, converted
> >      to PDF, PostScript, RTF and other formats) must reproduce the above
> >      copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer
> >      in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the
> >      distribution.
> > 
> >   3. Neither the name of the copyright owner(s) nor the name of any contributor
> >      may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this documentation
> >      without specific prior written permission.
> > 
> > THIS DOCUMENTATION IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS
> > IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
> > IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
> > ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE
> > LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR
> > CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF
> > SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS
> > INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN
> > CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE)
> > ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS DOCUMENTATION, EVEN IF ADVISED OF
> > THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
> \--------------------
> 
> What do you think about this license? Is it DFSG-compliant? Can I apply
> it? Would you change parts (and if yes -> why?). One thing, I'm not sure
> about is the phrase "as the first lines". Normally the XML source will
> look like this

There are two issues:

  1) Someone may want to use a different format for the documentation.
     For example, they may use LyX's internal format.  So I would
     change source to read "preferred form for modification (e.g. XML
     DocBook)".  Similarly, I would change "compiled form" to "other
     forms".

  2) The phrase "as the first lines" is problematic.  Someone may use
     a different format in which putting the list of claims and
     conditions in the first lines is impossible or silly.

With that said, it looks like you just modified the BSD license.  I
would recommend that you just use the BSD license, with a nonbinding
side note mentioning what you view as source and binary.  Something
like

  Note: Source is here meant as the preferred form for modification,
  such as XML DocBook.

Cheers,
Walter Landry
walter@geodynamics.org



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