Re: Permission to use portions of the recent GNU Emacs Manual

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

Brian Palmer <bpalmer@gmail.com> writes:

> On Mon, 13 Dec 2004 02:22:14 +0000 (UTC), Robert J. Chassell
> <bob@rattlesnake.com> wrote:
>> Evidentally, I have not been clear.  Nothing in this thread that I
>> said should have suggested that interest from independent
>> publishers drives the use of the GFDL with regard to the elisp
>> reference manual.
>> 
>> Instead, I have tried to say that the goal is to persuade others to
>> choose the GFDL over a `Creative Commons license with a commercial
>> restriction' or similar license.  The GFDL is better.
>
> If using the GFDL on the emacs manual is as a persuasive example
> rather than to benefit the emacs project directly with the
> restrictions of the GFDL, why wouldn't licensing it both under the
> GPL and as GFDL serve the same purpose?

Because it still is impossible to move GPLed material into a manual
that is supposed to be dual-licenced under the GPL and the GFDL, for
anyone except the copyright holder on the GPLed software?

It would solve some problems with Debian et al, in that their
guidelines would then permit them to distribute Emacs including its
manuals under the GPL: so those usages where the manual is not
actually intended to go into print are covered.  It would also mean
that a publisher wanting to print the Emacs manual under the GFDL
might have to get it from the FSF even though he might have a Debian
CD flying around (if patches to the manual are done GPL-only).  And it
might cause derived versions of the Emacs manual around that are not
publishable under the GFDL.

Really, we need a version of the GPL that applies tolerably well to
manuals...

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum