Re: License for ATI driver documentation
Am Montag, den 30.01.2006, 00:42 -0800 schrieb Walter Landry:
> Daniel Leidert <daniel.leidert.spam@gmx.net> wrote:
> >
> > 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.
I used a lot of sources, but also this file. Shall I better still ask
ATI for permissions to use the contents of this file?
> > 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) ....
> > >
> > > [snip FreeBSD documentation license]
> > \--------------------
> >
> > 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".
Ok.
> 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.
Ok. I will remove this phrase.
> With that said, it looks like you just modified the BSD license.
The FreeBSD documentation license is a modified 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.
Maybe you are right. I better use the BSD license and modify it a bit
for my own usage.
> Something like
>
> Note: Source is here meant as the preferred form for modification,
> such as XML DocBook.
Ok. Here my suggestion:
/------------------
> Copyright (C) ....
> All rights reserved.
>
> Redistribution and use in source (the preferred form of modification, such as
> XML DocBook) and other forms (SGML, HTML, PDF, PostScript, RTF, Groff and so
> forth) with or without modification, are permitted provided that the
> following conditions are met:
>
> 1. Redistributions of source (the preferred form of modification, such as
> XML DocBook) code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of
> conditions and the following disclaimer.
>
> 2. Redistributions in other forms (transformed to other DTDs, converted
> to PDF, PostScript, RTF, Groff 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 nor the nor the names of its
> contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from
> this software 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.
\------------------
I included your suggestions and changed "documentation" to "software" in
item 3.) of the conditions list. Better?
Regards, Daniel
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