Re: [OctDev] Clarification about PDF file license
Francesco Poli wrote:
> On Thu, 17 Apr 2008 16:00:06 +0200 David Bateman wrote:
>
>
>> Rafael Laboissiere wrote:
>>
> [...]
>
>>> * David Bateman <David.Bateman@motorola.com> [2008-04-10 11:15]:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Just a further question, if the documentation is distributed as part of
>>>> the package itself under a GPL license then the only issue is the
>>>> inclusion of the fixed.texi and/or fixed.txi file within the package
>>>> tar-ball.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Yes, distribution of the source is a requirement of the DFSG (see item 2,
>>> http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines).
>>>
>>>
>> Then I'll add the sources to the package and it'll be in the next
>> octave-forge release. I'd suggest adding the *.texi files as the perl
>> scripts mkdoc and mktexi from octave-forge then won't be needed.
>>
>
> I think it would be useful if you (David) clarified a bit how the PDF
> file is compiled from which source files licensed under which terms,
> since I am beginning to get lost in trying to follow this discussion!
> Sorry! :p
>
> If I understand correctly, the PDF file is a manual compiled from
> a .texi file, which, in its turn, is generated from a .txi file *and*
> from a significant number of parts extracted from some .cc files.
>
> *.cc --------> \
> |---> fixed.texi ---> fixed.pdf
> fixed.txi --> /
>
> The .cc files are released under the GNU GPL (which one? v2 only? v2 or
> later? v3 only? v3 or later? ...).
> fixed.txi is Copyright (C) 2004 Motorola Inc and released under the
> license that has been quoted previously in this same thread (and is
> GPL-incompatible). But everything in fixed.txi is written by you
> (David), and you have the permission from Motorola to relicense the
> text as you wish.
>
> Did I get it right?
>
> [...]
>
That is effectively correct though there is an intermediate step and a
couple of octave-forge specific build tools. The complete set of steps
together with the build tools are
comms.txi
fixed.txi -------------------> \
| comms.texi comms.pdf
*.m |----> fixed.texi ---> fixed.pdf
*.cc --------> DOCSTRINGS ----> /
/\ /\ /\
|| || ||
mkdoc mktexi texi2pdf
where mkdoc and mktexi are perl scripts that are part of octave-forge
itself. All of the *.m and *.cc files are GPL v2 or later licensed. As
are mkdoc and mktexi themselves as they are derived form another script
make_index that is GPL v2 or later. The *.txi files are under the
license previously discussed.
The Motorola release request process I went through made no specific
claim on what the documentation license of the code would, just that
documentation would be released together with GPL v2 or later code.
Therefore under the terms of that release there is nothing to stop a
change in the documentation license of fixed.txi, as it was I as an
employee of Motorola who wrote this code and got the permission for the
release.
>> Isn't the above license GPL compatible?
>>
>
> I don't think so...
>
Then the simplest solution is to make comms.txi and fixed.txi have a GPL
compatible license and be done with.
>
>> If it isn't I don't think there
>> is an issue of change the license of this and the comms.txi file to have
>> a GPL compatible license. All text in the fixed.pdf file is mine and I
>> have the release paper work internal that would allow me to re-release
>> under a GPL compatible documentation license. As for comms.pdf the fixed
>> text from comms.txi is all mine and the rest of the text is taken from
>> the functions that are GPLed. So a GPL compatible documentation license
>> would fixed that as well.
>>
>
> If the situation may be described as I did above (in the "If I
> understand correctly" part), then I think you could relicense the .txi
> files under a GPL-compatible license and solve the issue once and for
> all!
>
Exactly. But if the GFDL itself is not GPL compatible what is a GPL
compatible documentation license?
>
>> So if the above license isn't compatible with the GPL what is a
>> compatible license as I see no issues in changing it to something else.
>>
> [...]
>
> My usual recommendations are:
>
> * the GNU GPL itself, if you want a copyleft
>
That is a bit of an ugly solution but at least ensures compatible licenses..
> * the Expat license[1], if you don't want a copyleft on the text (but
> please note that the resulting PDF file would anyway be covered by the
> GNU GPL, because of the parts extracted from GPL'd .cc files)
>
> [1] http://www.jclark.com/xml/copying.txt
>
Huh? I'm not sure a see a significant difference in the above license to
the one the *.txi already have.. The above license doesn't require
distribution of the source code with the generated PDF file, which was
the original issue in this thread.. About the only difference I see with
this license is that it is explicitly mentioned that you can sell copies
of the manual..
D.
--
David Bateman David.Bateman@motorola.com
Motorola Labs - Paris +33 1 69 35 48 04 (Ph)
Parc Les Algorithmes, Commune de St Aubin +33 6 72 01 06 33 (Mob)
91193 Gif-Sur-Yvette FRANCE +33 1 69 35 77 01 (Fax)
The information contained in this communication has been classified as:
[x] General Business Information
[ ] Motorola Internal Use Only
[ ] Motorola Confidential Proprietary
Reply to: