Re: license requirements for a book to be in free section
> On Wed, Jan 23, 2002 at 10:50:06AM -0500, Peter S Galbraith wrote:
> > > They also told me that they don't want to allow the commercial
> > > distribution of the book, anyway again in their opinion this doesn't
> > > violate the DFSG.
> >
> > As someone who has packaged documentation before, I'm surprised that
> > Debian would agree with this. It's clearly non-free for software, and
> I
> > don't see what's so special about documentation to be exempt. The GNU
> > Free Documentation License allows it.
>
> Not really, the key point is the following: for software DFSG allows the
> software to be used in a commercial environment, the same we can state
> for documentation i.e. you can use the documentation in a commercial
> environment.
> But does DFSG require that the documentation can be selled buy itself?
> Surely Gnu FDL require this, but does DFSG require the same?
The Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG)
1. Free Redistribution
The license of a Debian component may not restrict any party from
selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate
software distribution containing programs from several different
sources. The license may not require a royalty or other fee for
such sale.
Okay, so it says "aggregate", and selling _a_ book does not do in an
aggregate form. So I guess we need the right to modify and distribute
for documentation to be free.
I think we should clarify http://www.debian.org/intro/free which says:
Some of the features these licenses have in common.
* There is no restriction on distributing, or even selling, the software.
since selling is only needed to be permitted in an aggregate form.
Peter
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