From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Florian Weimer Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel,gmane.emacs.xemacs.beta Subject: Re: Permission to use portions of the recent GNU Emacs Manual Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 20:49:53 +0100 Message-ID: <87k6rnfg9q.fsf@deneb.enyo.de> References: <87llc49kn1.fsf@floss.red-bean.com> <87fz2bgy3j.fsf@deneb.enyo.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: deer.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1102881111 12860 80.91.229.6 (12 Dec 2004 19:51:51 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 19:51:51 +0000 (UTC) Cc: kfogel@red-bean.com, bob@rattlesnake.com, xemacs-beta@xemacs.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Dec 12 20:51:45 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 1CdZkv-00055w-00 for ; Sun, 12 Dec 2004 20:51:45 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.33) id 1CdZuy-0004TL-Q2 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 12 Dec 2004 15:02:08 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.33) id 1CdZuh-0004Rp-4a for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 12 Dec 2004 15:01:51 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.33) id 1CdZuf-0004QJ-JE for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 12 Dec 2004 15:01:49 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.33) id 1CdZuf-0004QG-Gl for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 12 Dec 2004 15:01:49 -0500 Original-Received: from [212.9.189.169] (helo=albireo.enyo.de) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (TLSv1:RC4-SHA:128) (Exim 4.34) id 1CdZjB-0006WO-O1; Sun, 12 Dec 2004 14:49:58 -0500 Original-Received: from deneb.enyo.de ([212.9.189.171]) by albireo.enyo.de with esmtp id 1CdZj9-0007mi-CZ; Sun, 12 Dec 2004 20:49:55 +0100 Original-Received: from fw by deneb.enyo.de with local (Exim 4.43) id 1CdZj7-0005zl-Rw; Sun, 12 Dec 2004 20:49:53 +0100 Original-To: David Kastrup In-Reply-To: (David Kastrup's message of "Sun, 12 Dec 2004 20:24:59 +0100") 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:31038 gmane.emacs.xemacs.beta:17424 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:31038 * David Kastrup: > Well, ok, so we just substituted one idea I don't like with another > one. So what terms in the old licence were GPL-incompatible? For reference, the old license was: @ifinfo This file documents the GNU Emacs editor. Copyright (C) 1985, 1986, 1988, 1992 Richard M. Stallman. Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies. @ignore Permission is granted to process this file through Tex and print the results, provided the printed document carries copying permission notice identical to this one except for the removal of this paragraph (this paragraph not being relevant to the printed manual). @end ignore Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided also that the sections entitled ``The GNU Manifesto'', ``Distribution'' and ``GNU General Public License'' are included exactly as in the original, and provided that the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission notice identical to this one. Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this manual into another language, under the above conditions for modified versions, except that the sections entitled ``The GNU Manifesto'', ``Distribution'' and ``GNU General Public License'' may be included in a translation approved by the author instead of in the original English. @end ifinfo Those invariant sections are GPL incompatible because they restrict modification in a rather drastic way. I don't really think that invariant sections are a good solution. If I don't want my users to read them, I can modify the Info viewer to hide them (or replace them with texts of my own), without actually changing the manual itself. > And, putting back the XEmacs manual problem for a moment, do we have a > reasonable chance to place the GPL on the manual source code in a > sensible way, without causing insurmountable problems for printed > manuals? In theory, one could dual-license it. However, this might undermine some goals of the GNU FDL. > Since this problem does not seem restricted to GNU Emacs and its > printed manual, is there a more appropriate list where we could try > discussing how to cope with the general problem that gets exhibited > here? There are already ongoing deliberations between the Debian Project and the FSF which deal with a very similar topic: the fact that the GNU FDL is definitely *not* a free software license (software in the sense of machine-executable code). However, these discussions seem to be stuck for some reason.