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Re: License for DOCs in main?



On 26 Jan 1999, Henning Makholm wrote:

> Jules Bean <jmlb2@hermes.cam.ac.uk> writes:
> 
> > IMHO, the restrictions below do not prevent us distributing on CD, and
> > I believe that we already have docs in main with licenses as harsh as
> > this.
> 
> E.g. the GPL itself, as a document, is under copyright conditions that
> would definitely make it non DFSG-free had it happened to be a source
> code.
> 
> > >     02.  Any  translation  or derivative work of The Linux Net-
> > >          work Administrators' Guide must be approved by the au-
> > >          thor in writing before distribution.
> 
> > This is awful.  
> 
> I don't think that clause has any legal significance compared to if
> it wasn't present. If distribution of derived work is not *explicitly*
> allowed, it is forbidden.
> 
> Would you require that any documentation on the CDs should come with
> copyright statemtents that explicitly allowed modification?

In an ideal world, I would, yes.

I believe that all the arguments levelled at free software apply to
technical documentation.

I believe that many of them apply to many other works which are not
documentation.

However, this is not (explicitly) debian policy at the moment.

I will bring up the argument on -policy again soon, when I have the
energy.  If anyone else wants to, go for it..

Jules

/----------------+-------------------------------+---------------------\
|  Jelibean aka  | jules@jellybean.co.uk         |  6 Evelyn Rd	       |
|  Jules aka     | jules@debian.org              |  Richmond, Surrey   |
|  Julian Bean   | jmlb2@hermes.cam.ac.uk        |  TW9 2TF *UK*       |
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|  War doesn't demonstrate who's right... just who's left.             |
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