Rafael Laboissiere wrote:
Also, the TeXinfo source file contains scraps that are extracted from other files (*.cc) distributed in the tarball. These files are released under GPL-2+. Does that constitute a violation of the GPL?I can't identify which scraps were copied into fixed.txi from the links you gave, but I think so and I think you need extra permission from the copyright holders of the GPL-2+ scraps to release under this licence, or permission from Motorola to release with parts under the GPL.That was a misunderstanding of mine. I looked again in the texi file and there are no scraps coming from elsewhere (I though it was from fixed,cc). Sorry.
Rafael,Not its not a misunderstanding on your part. There are two scripts in octave-forge SVN called mkdoc and mktexi. The mkdoc script is used to recover all of the help strings listed in the INDEX file into a DOCSTRINGS file. Then the mktexi script takes the fixed.txi file and replaces the "@DOCSTRING(<func>)" macro with the appropriate strings. There are a couple of other macro but that is the basic idea, with the goal that changes in the functions help string will automatically end up in the docuementation (as in fact it does within Octave itself). The scripts mkdoc, mktexi aren't delivered with the fixed package however.
The terms of the internal agreement within Motorola allowing the release of this code specifically mentions that it gives "Written documentation of the use of the fixed point type", so nominally I don't need to seek further approval to release the documentation strings of the functions separately, and so the acceptance of Motorola to allow release of the documentation in its preferred form can be taken as given. License of distribution of the complete documentation as on the title page of the documentation
There remains the same issue with the comms toolbox where a similar mechanism is used to build the documentation. For my code (a large part of this toolbox) I give permission to release the documentation of the code I'm response for under the terms of the license on the title page of the comms.pdf file.
Regards David