From: "Robert J. Chassell" <bob@rattlesnake.com>
Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org, xemacs-beta@xemacs.org
Subject: Re: Permission to use portions of the recent GNU Emacs Manual
Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 00:12:37 +0000 (UTC) [thread overview]
Message-ID: <m1CeMmT-0004R4C@rattlesnake.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <x5hdmo7csg.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> (message from David Kastrup on Tue, 14 Dec 2004 23:09:03 +0100)
DOC strings and manual entries are material that are frequently
copied between those differently licenced items.
Now I see what you are saying. The legal question is,
when you are basing additions to a Texinfo manual on a large
number of doc strings from functions, are the changes you are
likely to make big enough so that the manual does not become a
derivative work?
(Presumably, fair use means the issue is not relevant to a small
number of doc strings. And the issue not relevant to additions that
are quite different.)
I don't know the legal answer. Presuming that neither RMS nor anyone
else has thought of this, it becomes necessary to ask some people who
understand the laws in all the major countries of concern. That is a
major undertaking.
My hunch is that a legally valid expectation is that any one's write
up will be sufficiently different, simply because he or she is trying
to write a document, not a doc string. Put another way, only poorly
written documentation would be illegal....
But maybe not. As for
... code snippets ... [which include doc strings]
at the end of the node,
(emacs)GNU Free Documentation License
says
If your document contains nontrivial examples of program code, we
recommend releasing these examples in parallel under your choice
of free software license, such as the GNU General Public License,
to permit their use in free software.
which handles this issue unless you are moving others' code into a
Texinfo manual without rewriting it more appropriately for a manual.
If my hunch is right, that would be no problem since it would be
reasonable to expect you to rewrite it suitably. Otherwise, as far as
I can see, you have a reasonable point.
--
Robert J. Chassell
bob@rattlesnake.com GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8
http://www.rattlesnake.com http://www.teak.cc
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2004-12-15 0:12 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 76+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2004-12-09 22:28 Permission to use portions of the recent GNU Emacs Manual Ben Wing
2004-12-10 23:14 ` Richard Stallman
2004-12-11 0:59 ` Ben Wing
2004-12-11 1:06 ` Miles Bader
2004-12-11 10:27 ` Alan Mackenzie
2004-12-11 18:19 ` Eli Zaretskii
2004-12-11 20:43 ` David Kastrup
2004-12-11 19:02 ` Stefan Monnier
2004-12-12 0:26 ` Karl Fogel
2004-12-12 8:57 ` David Kastrup
2004-12-12 16:56 ` Brian Palmer
2004-12-12 13:31 ` Matthew Mundell
2004-12-12 13:40 ` David Kastrup
2004-12-12 2:03 ` Robert J. Chassell
2004-12-12 4:59 ` Karl Fogel
[not found] ` <m1CdWGG-0004R2C@rattlesnake.com>
2004-12-12 17:43 ` David Kastrup
2004-12-12 18:39 ` Florian Weimer
2004-12-12 19:24 ` David Kastrup
2004-12-12 19:49 ` Florian Weimer
2004-12-12 19:43 ` Robert J. Chassell
2004-12-12 19:59 ` David Kastrup
2004-12-12 20:46 ` Robert J. Chassell
2004-12-12 21:00 ` Andy Piper
2004-12-13 1:59 ` Robert J. Chassell
2004-12-13 2:23 ` David Kastrup
2004-12-13 12:34 ` Thien-Thi Nguyen
2004-12-13 16:53 ` Robert J. Chassell
2004-12-15 14:23 ` Stephen J. Turnbull
2004-12-15 19:14 ` Robert J. Chassell
2004-12-15 20:19 ` David Kastrup
2004-12-15 23:32 ` Robert J. Chassell
2004-12-17 5:36 ` Stephen J. Turnbull
2004-12-15 23:20 ` Richard Stallman
2004-12-16 10:58 ` David Kastrup
2004-12-16 12:18 ` Eli Zaretskii
2004-12-16 12:29 ` Kim F. Storm
2004-12-17 0:53 ` Richard Stallman
2004-12-18 10:20 ` Ben Wing
2004-12-18 23:32 ` Miles Bader
2004-12-19 6:31 ` Ben Wing
2004-12-19 6:32 ` Ben Wing
2004-12-19 13:54 ` Robert J. Chassell
2004-12-19 15:40 ` David Kastrup
2004-12-19 16:10 ` Paul Pogonyshev
2004-12-19 21:32 ` David Kastrup
2004-12-19 23:48 ` Paul Pogonyshev
2004-12-20 8:07 ` David Kastrup
2004-12-20 14:05 ` Robert J. Chassell
2004-12-20 0:19 ` Ben Wing
2004-12-20 7:20 ` David Kastrup
2004-12-20 10:58 ` Stephen J. Turnbull
2004-12-20 10:56 ` Richard Stallman
2004-12-20 12:47 ` David Kastrup
2004-12-17 1:32 ` Stephen J. Turnbull
2004-12-12 4:39 ` Richard Stallman
2004-12-12 6:16 ` Stefan Monnier
2004-12-12 21:28 ` Eli Zaretskii
2004-12-12 21:43 ` David Kastrup
2004-12-13 2:22 ` Robert J. Chassell
2004-12-13 6:48 ` Brian Palmer
2004-12-13 10:05 ` David Kastrup
2004-12-13 17:44 ` Bruce Stephens
2004-12-14 13:09 ` Stephen J. Turnbull
2004-12-14 2:56 ` Karl Fogel
2004-12-14 14:16 ` Robert J. Chassell
2004-12-13 4:23 ` Dhruva
2004-12-13 19:51 ` Richard Stallman
2004-12-13 20:03 ` David Kastrup
2004-12-14 10:03 ` Per Abrahamsen
2004-12-14 10:14 ` David Kastrup
2004-12-14 14:09 ` Robert J. Chassell
2004-12-14 14:25 ` David Kastrup
2004-12-14 20:19 ` Robert J. Chassell
2004-12-14 22:09 ` David Kastrup
2004-12-15 0:12 ` Robert J. Chassell [this message]
2004-12-15 8:03 ` Per Abrahamsen
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