Re: New nail package -- parts of documentation with unclear license

[Hilko Bengen <bengen@debian.org>]

Hilko Bengen <bengen@debian.org> writes:

> nail 10.7 includes some ducomentation from seemingly non-free
> sources. The COPYING file includes the following lines which lead me
> to the conclusion that this documentation can't be included in
> Debian main:
>
>     The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and The Open
>     Group, have given us permission to reprint portions of their
>     documentation.
>
>     In the following statement, the phrase ``this text'' refers to
>     portions of the system documentation.
>
>     Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic
>     form in the 'nail' mail user agent, from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003
>     Edition, Standard for Information Technology -- Portable Operating
>     System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue
>     6, Copyright (C) 2001-2003 by the Institute of Electrical and
>     Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any
>     discrepancy between these versions and the original IEEE and The
>     Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard
>     is the referee document.
>
> How do I go about the upload? Do I have to remove the parts of the
> documentation from the .orig.tar.gz, or is a diff that removes those
> enough?

After mail exchange with the upstream author, I have come to the
conclusion that it would be ok to include the documentation beacuae it
is still legal to modify the software and documentation in every
aspect, as long as the POSIX copyright notice is not removed from the
documentaion (manpage).

I'll upload nail 10.7-1 with unmodified upstream source if nobody
objects.

-Hilko