From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Brian Palmer Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Permission to use portions of the recent GNU Emacs Manual Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 09:56:34 -0700 Message-ID: <847aaaf204121208564f6e85cf@mail.gmail.com> References: <87k6rollef.fsf-monnier+emacs@gnu.org> <87r7lw9xay.fsf@floss.red-bean.com> Reply-To: Brian Palmer NNTP-Posting-Host: deer.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1102870644 21376 80.91.229.6 (12 Dec 2004 16:57:24 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 16:57:24 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Dec 12 17:57:18 2004 Return-path: Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by deer.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1CdX26-0004bd-00 for ; Sun, 12 Dec 2004 17:57:18 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.33) id 1CdXC9-0007BX-P5 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 12 Dec 2004 12:07:41 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.33) id 1CdXBo-00078z-2N for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 12 Dec 2004 12:07:20 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.33) id 1CdXBn-00078H-3l for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 12 Dec 2004 12:07:19 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.33) id 1CdXBn-000789-0s for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 12 Dec 2004 12:07:19 -0500 Original-Received: from [216.239.56.243] (helo=mproxy.gmail.com) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.34) id 1CdX1P-0004Yr-Ty for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 12 Dec 2004 11:56:36 -0500 Original-Received: by mproxy.gmail.com with SMTP id w67so168116cwb for ; Sun, 12 Dec 2004 08:56:34 -0800 (PST) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:reply-to:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:references; b=raA4L1g6nh1m65yQbyHl8mzU/xz5D+IH/qF8L9q2/fBMe/84+4GgaPmbfEqq5q2z046k1QqcIuHF8cI7j6ghihXghFyOteQDam0KKBbK6ogkO7X2JuLU6KpGoDItF/As/WjHIMUMBmaf/FN7csVz6aU0bX82H/cav/Ot3Akdj/w= Original-Received: by 10.11.117.59 with SMTP id p59mr1098860cwc; Sun, 12 Dec 2004 08:56:34 -0800 (PST) Original-Received: by 10.11.117.51 with HTTP; Sun, 12 Dec 2004 08:56:34 -0800 (PST) Original-To: David Kastrup In-Reply-To: X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:31031 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:31031 On Sun, 12 Dec 2004 09:57:56 +0100, David Kastrup wrote: > Karl Fogel writes: > > > Stefan Monnier writes: > >> I don't see any benefit from using the GFDL over the GPL that would justify > >> the downside of preventing the XEmacs people from using our documentation. > >> [ Unless we consider that as an upside, but I really don't see any good > >> reason why we should be so antagonizing. ] Similarly, the licensing problems > >> it can cause when extracting docs and doc-skeletons out of code > >> is worrisome. > > > > I agree. > > > > It is bad that our docs are license-incompatible with XEmacs's GPL'd > > docs. > > It's bad for the XEmacs developers and other Emacs forks, irrelevant > for us, since only FSF copyright assigned contributions are accepted > into Emacs and its manual, anyway, and the copyright holder is free to Not true, e.g., lao.el is Copyright (C) 1997 Electrotechnical Laboratory, JAPAN. I'm also going to say it's a bad thing for everybody, in second order effects if not primary. The more cooperation that exists between the many emacs forks out there, the more cooperation that can be built on. Emacs profits from that cooperation, too. The question that comes , then, is this obstacle to cooperation so very valuable to emacs? What is the net benefit of having the emacs manual only available under the GFDL? > move stuff between licences within the scope of the assignment > contracts. > > > It is also confusing how the GFDL interacts with extracted docs from > > non-GFDL code, as you point out. > > Again, this is not a problem for Emacs development itself (the > copyright all being by the FSF), but for every fork of it. And for every elisp application built on emacs. There are any number of elisp applications out there which will involve the authors looking through the emacs manual for reference. The GFDL status of the manual has clear implications on their ability to copy info out for docstrings or basing any functions on examples given in the manual.