On Thu, Apr 27, 2006 at 03:46:18PM -0700, Walter Landry wrote: > Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org> wrote: > > On Thu, Apr 27, 2006 at 05:35:51AM -0700, Walter Landry wrote: > > > debian@martin-kittel.de wrote: > > > > I have verfified that the actual sources for the generated HTML are > > > > Microsoft Word documents and that those will not be > > > > distributed. Does the mean that the maxdb-doc package will have to > > > > be pulled from the repository? > > > Yes, unless you get a license exemption from the copyright holder > > > allowing Debian and its mirrors to distribute the HTML as is. They > > > will probably agree. In that case, it goes into non-free. > > It's not obvious to me that either the license exemption or the non-free > > categorization are necessary here. GPL requires the "preferred form for > > modification", which for most people working on derivative works would > > probably *not* be the Word docs? > The people actually doing modifications use the Word format, not the > HTML format. It seems clear to me that the Word format is > "preferred". I prefer html over Word. If I modify the document, I'm going to modify the html, not the Word document. (Not just because I don't have the Word doc, but because I think Word docs are a lousy source format.) To my understanding, the only thing required to show that a certain file format is the "preferred form" is to use it as the basis for modifications. This seems like a pretty easy standard for the package maintainer to meet, if indeed the html format is the preferred form. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. vorlon@debian.org http://www.debian.org/
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