Re: License for documentation

[Henning Makholm <henning@makholm.net>]

bruce@perens.com writes:

> The source of the manual (the .texi file) is under the same license as
> the rest of the package, which is the one in the file "COPYING".

|		    GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
|   TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
|
|   0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains
| a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed
| under the terms of this General Public License.

The .texi file contains no such notice. To the extent that the manual
can be considered a separate work (which many manuals can; good manuals
are often not written by those who write the code) there is no
implicit reason to expect the GPL to cover the manual, especially
not given the facts that

1. The manual (either as .texi file or in hardcopy) itself contains
   independent, self-contained language that describe the copying
   terms. There is no logical need for it to be supplemented by
   the GPL.

2. The main feature of the GPL are mechanisms to ensure that "the
   preferred form for making modifications to the work" will always
   be available to everyone who gets a copy. The license in the
   manual explicitly allows distribution of hardcopies without
   also distributing the .texi source.

3. Every other source file in the package does contain comments with
   explicit references to the GPL.

Additionally, in the RMS article you referred to in your later post,
the following section appears:

| ... It is also no problem to ... have entire sections that may not be
| deleted or changed, as long as these sections deal with nontechnical
| topics. (Some GNU manuals have them.)

Those manuals cannot be covered by the GPL, because the GPL allows
one to change *everything*.

-- 
Henning Makholm