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Re: Suggestion to maintainers of GFDL docs



* Brian T. Sniffen (bts@alum.mit.edu) wrote:
> The MIT/X11 license and the GPL would both work, depending on whether
> you want a copyleft.  The MIT license can probably be used just by
> itself.  To use the GPL, though, you should probably put in a section
> which explains how your document can be viewed as software, along the
> lines of:
> 
>     This section is for clarification only.  It is intended to expand
>     on the wishes of the author, but should not be interpreted to
>     change the license or copyright status of the work.  The author
>     intends that the LaTeX2e source for this document be treated as
>     the "preferred form for modification", which is to say the "Source
>     Code".  All other formats -- even open, transparent formats such
>     as plain text or HTML -- are hard for the author to use in
>     integrating changes to his copy of the document, and so should be
>     considered "Object Code".  Again, this isn't a binding statement,
>     and any distribution in a preferred form for modification, such as
>     plain text or clean HTML, is acceptable as "Source Code" under the
>     license.  Distribution in a closed, hard to modify format such as
>     PDF, generated HTML or PostScript, or a Microsoft Word document
>     should always be treated as "Object Code".

perhaps change 'clean HTML' to 'w3c valid HTML', with a link to w3c.org's
validation site?

and possibly avoid referring directly to MSWord as well - a reference to
'binary, closed file formats' would probably do the same job.

iain

-- 
wh33, y1p33 3tc.

"If sharing a thing in no way diminishes it, it is not rightly owned if it is
not shared." -St. Augustine



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