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Re: [OctDev] Clarification about PDF file license



On Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:33:42 +0200 Rafael Laboissiere wrote:

[...]
> Question to the debian-legal crowd:
> 
> Would a less-constraining version of GFDL be okay in this case?

No, unless you add so many permissions that really few GFDL features
would survive...

> There are
> packages in Debian for which the .info file is released under these terms:
> 
>      Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this
>      document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License,
>      Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software
>      Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and
>      no Back-Cover Texts.  A copy of the license is included in the
>      section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".
> 
> which are DFSG-compatible.

Which is *considered* to meet the DFSG by the Debian Project as a whole
through GR-2006-001.  I strongly disagree with the GR outcome, but
that's another story...

However, these license terms are GPL-incompatible, so they are no
solution for the case under consideration. 

> The manual contains scraps of the function
> documentation strings contained in the *.el files, which are GPL'ed. One
> example of this is the remember-el package.
[...]

If *.el files and the manual are copyrighted by the same people, they
can do what they like, even this horrid license mixing...
The question is whether *others* are actually allowed to distribute
such a manual with incompatibly licensed parts.  One could probably
claim that the documentation strings are effectively dual-licensed, so
no problem here.

On the other hand, if *.el files are copyrighted by different people
from the copyright holders of the manual, I think there's a significant
license compatibility issue.


Once again: IANAL, TINLA, IANADD, TINASOTODP.

-- 
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 The nano-document series is here!
..................................................... Francesco Poli .
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