Bug#929752: Changing quote signs in GPL allowed? [Was: Bug#929752: installation-guide: left quotes in gpl.xml are not correctly rendered in pdf ]
On Tue, 2019-08-06 at 21:05 +0200, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
> Quoting Holger Wansing (2019-08-06 20:30:56)
> >
> > [Adding debian-devel for a bigger audience]
> >
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > Holger Wansing <hwansing@mailbox.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > Control: retitle -1 Replace grave accents/single quotes by
> > > <quote></quote> in gpl.xml
> > >
> > > Samuel Thibault <sthibault@debian.org> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Hello,
> > > >
> > > > Changwoo Ryu, le jeu. 30 mai 2019 22:22:05 +0900, a ecrit:
> > > > >
> > > > > In en/appendix/gpl.xml, ordinary double quotes (") and grave
> > > > > accent character (`) are used for left single/double quotes.
> > > > > But
> > > > > they are not correctly rendered in pdf.
> > > > >
> > > > > See the English PDF at
> > > > > https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/install.pdf.en. ;
> > > > > Opening double quotes are rendered as right double quotes.
> > > > > And
> > > > > grave accents are rendered just as grave accents, not a left
> > > > > single quotes.
> > > > AIUI we should just replace "" and `' in the xml file with
> > > > <quote></quote>.
> > I was about to commit these changes, however it came to my mind if
> > such changes to the GPL are allowed?
> >
> > At least the English variant of the GPL is 'official' and is not to
> > be
> > changed, so what about changing the quoting signs into <quote>
> > </quote> entities?
> Some very narrow interpretation of "not to be changed" disallow
> making
> the text into a PDF at all, as it is not bit-by-bit identical.
>
> GNU GPL-1, GPL-2, and GPL-3 however all permit "verbatim copies"
> which I
> can only interpret as permitting changes to punctuation and
> whitespace.
IANAL. In my opinion, replacing punctuation with equivalent markup to
render correctly while still keeping the original wording is within the
spirit of GPL.
I think the best thing to do would be to contact the FSF and ask for
clarification. I'm sure they'd be happy to answer this.
Kyle
Reply to: