Re: Gnus Manual License
Jérôme Marant <jerome@marant.org> writes:
> Le mercredi 04 octobre 2006 16:28, David Kastrup a écrit :
>
>> The text here differentiates between "invariant sections" and
>> "Invariant Sections", seemingly calling the Cover Texts, even though
>> the GFDL permits adding to them, an "invariant section" which happens
>> not to be the same as an "Invariant Section" defined by the GFDL.
>
> I think I did pay attention to this at that moment, thanks.
>
>> The wording clearly is fuzzy enough to cause confusion, yet I think
>> that the gist of the resolution is clear: requiring cover texts of "A
>> GNU manual" and "You are free to copy and modify this GNU Manual." on
>> mass-printed copies (never mind that the GPL, in contrast, does not
>> even make mass-printing feasible), as spelled out by the GNU project
>> maintainer guidelines at
>> <URL:http://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/html_node/License-Notices.html#Licens
>>e-Notices> will make Debian consider the documentation non-free and act
>> accordingly.
>
> I guess that not being able to rename or remove "A GNU Manual" makes
> impossible to make a derivative manual.
Not at all. It just places a requirement on the form a derivative
manual might take in the print.
>> Those two sentences are all that it takes to declare the
>> documentation of every GNU project following the GNU maintainer
>> guidelines unsuitable for Debian main.
>
> This is right. I just realized that. I guess the future SFDL will
> exist to avoid such issues.
I am not too sure of that. It exists for the case where somebody will
not use invariant parts at all, in order to make the license simpler
for that case. The "you are free to copy and modify" is wrapped in
the new license already. Whether the GNU maintainer guidelines will
offer using the SFDL as an option remains to be seen. One of the
reasons for the GFDL was that publishers refused publishing GNU
material if they could not at least tack some permanent recognition
on. So I am not really sure how much use the SFDL will see by the GNU
project itself.
--
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum
Reply to: