License for ATI driver documentation
Hello,
I hope you can help with some ideas and also clear a few of my
questions. I'm not a lawyer, so I hope, you can give a few hints. I'm
writing manpages for the proprietary ATI driver, which are included in
the Debian package. You can find the source here:
http://cvs.wgdd.de/cgi-bin/cvsweb/fglrx_man/
At the moment the sources miss a license statement. More about the
manpages can be found at Flavios fglrx mailing-list.
http://www.stanchina.net/~flavio/debian/fglrx-archive/msg00925.html
http://www.stanchina.net/~flavio/debian/fglrx-archive/msg01017.html
1) One thing I'm not sure about is, which license I should use, and if I
maybe clash with the ATI license. So what do you think about the latter
issue? Am I allowed to release the manpages under a free license or do I
need permissions from ATI or do I need to give ATI a partial copyright
or ...? To write the fglrx(4x) manpage I used information I found in
http://www2.ati.com/drivers/firegl/readme0325.txt. Now this file
states:
/---------------
> Please read the entire contents of this document. Information in this
> file may not appear in printed documentation or online help.
\---------------
Does it mean, that I'm not allowed to use this information? How do you
interpret this phrase?
2) I want to release them under a free license and therefor I plan to
choose a license, which is based on the FreeBSD documentation license.
It would read:
/---------------
> Copyright (C) ....
>
> Redistribution and use in source (XML DocBook) and 'compiled' forms (SGML,
> HTML, PDF, PostScript, RTF and so forth) with or without modification, are
> permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
>
> 1. Redistributions of source code (XML DocBook) must retain the above
> copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer
> as the first lines of the file unmodified.
>
> 2. Redistributions in compiled form (transformed to other DTDs, converted
> to PDF, PostScript, RTF and other formats) must reproduce the above
> copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer
> in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the
> distribution.
>
> 3. Neither the name of the copyright owner(s) nor the name of any contributor
> may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this documentation
> without specific prior written permission.
>
> THIS DOCUMENTATION IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS
> IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
> IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
> ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE
> LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR
> CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF
> SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS
> INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN
> CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE)
> ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS DOCUMENTATION, EVEN IF ADVISED OF
> THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
\--------------------
What do you think about this license? Is it DFSG-compliant? Can I apply
it? Would you change parts (and if yes -> why?). One thing, I'm not sure
about is the phrase "as the first lines". Normally the XML source will
look like this
/-------------
> <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
> <!DOCTYPE refentry PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.4//EN"
> "/usr/share/xml/docbook/schema/dtd/4.4/docbookx.dtd" [
>
> <!--
> Document $WgDD: ...$
> Summary Manpage for the ... application.
>
> Copyright (C) ....
>
> ... license ...
\-------------
So does this also follow my own license, that the necessary information
is printed in the "first lines"? Another question: Should I better add
the Manpage-format to the list of "compiled" formats?
Thanks in advance for any help.
Regards, Daniel
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