From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: David Kastrup Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Copyright question Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 11:51:09 +0200 Message-ID: <86ve0dirxu.fsf@lola.quinscape.zz> References: <82BFC2C8-9E38-491F-863D-1C420AB13882@uva.nl> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1213350746 7941 80.91.229.12 (13 Jun 2008 09:52:26 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 09:52:26 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Carsten Dominik , emacs-devel@gnu.org To: rms@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Jun 13 11:53:09 2008 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1K75x7-0004Uw-8H for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 13 Jun 2008 11:52:13 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:48415 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1K75wJ-00064v-FY for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 13 Jun 2008 05:51:23 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1K75wC-00063z-Lj for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 13 Jun 2008 05:51:16 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1K75wA-00060q-6T for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 13 Jun 2008 05:51:15 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=43995 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1K75w9-00060f-Um for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 13 Jun 2008 05:51:13 -0400 Original-Received: from mail.quinscape.de ([212.29.44.217]:49742) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1K75w9-0003wM-8Z for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 13 Jun 2008 05:51:13 -0400 Original-Received: (qmail-ldap/ctrl 9607 invoked from network); 13 Jun 2008 09:51:11 -0000 Original-Received: from unknown (HELO lola.quinscape.zz) ([10.0.3.43]) (envelope-sender ) by quinx.quinscape.de (qmail-ldap-1.03) with SMTP for ; 13 Jun 2008 09:51:10 -0000 Original-Received: by lola.quinscape.zz (Postfix, from userid 1001) id 6C40D8EFE7; Fri, 13 Jun 2008 11:51:10 +0200 (CEST) In-Reply-To: (Richard M. Stallman's message of "Fri, 13 Jun 2008 00:06:34 -0400") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.0.60 (gnu/linux) X-AntiVirus: checked by AntiVir MailGate (version: 2.1.3-2; AVE: 7.8.0.55; VDF: 7.0.4.188; host: quinx) X-detected-kernel: by monty-python.gnu.org: Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) 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: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:99084 Archived-At: Richard M Stallman writes: > Debian's policy is foolish and unfriendly to us. So we do not cater > to it. If they don't like the results, they should change the policy. There are two points at issue here. One is standalone documents (typically perused in one piece), and one might disagree or not disagree with Debian: only the documents themselves are affected. But in this case we have documentation where the most important form is the info form, and it gets more and more intertwined with Emacs as whole, to a point where we distribute both together because they form an integrated whole. Now the GPL states for modification: c) You must license the entire work, as a whole, under this License to anyone who comes into possession of a copy. This License will therefore apply, along with any applicable section 7 additional terms, to the whole of the work, and all its parts, regardless of how they are packaged. This License gives no permission to license the work in any other way, but it does not invalidate such permission if you have separately received it. But this means that if somebody comes across an Emacs without Emacs manual, and a separate Emacs manual, that he can't legally recombine both into one project. Also freely copying and pasting back and forth between Emacs code and Emacs manual is not permitted. While I have no problem with the GFDL as a licence for the printed Emacs manual and a separately distributed manual, I find that in its form integrated in the Emacs distribution, the borders between manual and code are more or less arbitrarily set by the copyright holder, and they become inviolable for any subsequent person working on them. And that sort of defeats the purpose of a "public" license in that the copyright holder remains the only person capable of doing essential maintenance and restructuring tasks. So even while we need not bend over for Debian's sometimes rather wild ideas in particular with regard to the GFDL, my problem here is not with the GFDL per se, but that GFDL and GPL don't mix and are incompatible. And yet we form an integrated whole without a really sharp functional borderline and distribute it, and people have to adhere to the fuzzy borderline and hope for the best legally. For that reason, I would very much welcome dual-licensing GPL/GFDL where the principal form of a manual will be info, and where code and manual form as tightly a whole as it does nowadays with Emacs. Since the GPL demands redistribution of the corresponding machine-readable source, I doubt that the dual-licensing will lead to much GPL-licensed output in actual print. So in short: never mind what people (in particular Debian) think about the GFDL per se, but the GPL incompatibility is something that worries me where the documentation is an integrated part of a GPLed project. And Emacs is probably the boilerplate example. Of course, we got there gradually: at one point the manual was much more concise, and much more a separate thing (and we also distributed it separately and DOC strings and customization menus did not link into it). While the GFDL was not a problem for the Emacs manual at the start, I think at the current point of time making it dual-licensed GPL/GFDL would put the "Public" in GPL for Emacs as a distributed whole project back into perspective. In the end, this is for the copyright holder to decide, so there is not much sense in fighting or debating about it, in particular on Emacs-devel. So I'll try very hard not to debate or defend this view of mine. I just felt I should state it since I have the feeling that Emacs is moving more and more into making the manuals an integrated part of it, and I feel that this makes our way of distributing it more problematic with regard to the spirit of the "Public" in "GPL". Because I feel less and less like we ourselves are distributing the work "as a whole" under the terms of the GPL, and yet demand that others do. A dual-license would remove that concern for me. -- David Kastrup