doc license section

doc license section

[Kevin Ryde]

I wonder if the guile license section in the manual could say a little
more about the terms guile is published on.  For a start I think it
ought to mention the readline module is gpl rather than lgpl.

I'm thinking of something like below.  Perhaps with a few more words
about what free software means, and/or about source code availablity.
The one-liners about what the terms mean in practice to applications
might want to be run past an expert, perhaps even rms.

Might be worth thinking about GFDL for the manuals, while on the
subject of licenses.



The Guile License
*****************

Guile is Free Software.  Guile is copyrighted, not public domain, and
there are restrictions on its distribution or redistribution, but these
restrictions are designed to permit everything a cooperating person
would want to do.

   * The Guile library (libguile) and supporting files are published
     under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License version
     2.1.  See the file `COPYING.LIB'.

   * The Guile readline module is published under the terms of the GNU
     General Public License version 2.  See the file `COPYING'.

   * The manual you're now reading is published under terms described at
     the start of the document (*note Top::).

   Basically you can give or sell copies of Guile to anyone, with or
without modifications, but you may not deprive others of these same
rights, and must clearly identify any modifications.

   C code linking to the Guile library is subject to terms of that
library.  Basically such code may be published on any terms, provided
users can re-link against a new or modified version of Guile.

   C code linking to the Guile readline module is subject to the terms
of that module.  Basically such code must be published on Free terms.

   Scheme level code written to be run by Guile (but not derived from
the Guile sources) is not resticted in any way, and may be published on
any terms.  We encourage authors to publish on Free terms.

   You must be aware there is no warranty whatsoever for Guile.  This is
described in full in the license terms.


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Re: doc license section

[Stephen Compall]

Kevin Ryde <user42@zip.com.au> writes:

>    * The manual you're now reading is published under terms described at
>      the start of the document (*note Top::).

Node `Top' is not available in TeX output (as is usual in Texinfo
manuals, it's @ifnottex-ized).  Perhaps this could best be fixed by
switching to the FDL, then referring to its node instead.

--
Stephen Compall or s11 or sirian

Probable-Possible, my black hen,
She lays eggs in the Relative When.
She doesn't lay eggs in the Positive Now
Because she's unable to postulate How.
		-- Frederick Winsor

wire transfer Compsec Defcon fissionable CDC MD4 CISU bootleg tempest
high security Vickie Weaver enforcers FIPS140 NWO supercomputer


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Re: doc license section

[Neil Jerram]

>>>>> "Kevin" == Kevin Ryde <user42@zip.com.au> writes:

    Kevin> I wonder if the guile license section in the manual could say a little
    Kevin> more about the terms guile is published on.  For a start I think it
    Kevin> ought to mention the readline module is gpl rather than lgpl.

    Kevin> I'm thinking of something like below.  [...]

Your text looks great to me, modulo Stephen's note about Top.

        Neil



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Re: doc license section

[Kevin Ryde]

Stephen Compall <s11@member.fsf.org> writes:
>
> Node `Top' is not available in TeX output

Ah yes.

I fixed that, gave it a bit more of a tweak and checked it in.

> Perhaps this could best be fixed by
> switching to the FDL,

Yep, but that's not a decision for me :).


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Re: doc license section

[Marius Vollmer]

Kevin Ryde <user42@zip.com.au> writes:

> Might be worth thinking about GFDL for the manuals, while on the
> subject of licenses.

Yes, indeed.  Maintain.texi says: "Manuals should use the GNU Free
Documentation License".

This would be the copyright notice, I'd say:

    Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this
    document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License,
    Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software
    Foundation; with the no Invariant Sections, with the Front-Cover
    Texts being ``A GNU Manual,'' and with the Back-Cover Texts as in
    (a) below.  A copy of the license is included in the section
    entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".

    (a) The FSF's Back-Cover Text is: ``You are free to copy and modify
    this GNU Manual.''


I'm also unhappy about the list of authors on the front cover.  It is
quite long already and not even complete.  What can we do about this?

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Re: doc license section

[Carl Witty]

On Wed, 2004-01-21 at 13:56, Marius Vollmer wrote:
> Kevin Ryde <user42@zip.com.au> writes:
> 
> > Might be worth thinking about GFDL for the manuals, while on the
> > subject of licenses.
> 
> Yes, indeed.  Maintain.texi says: "Manuals should use the GNU Free
> Documentation License".

Be aware that the feeling on the debian-legal mailing list is that the
GFDL is not sufficiently free for materials in Debian (for a number of
reasons which I personally find compelling).  See
http://people.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/Position_Statement.xhtml for more
information (or read the debian-legal archives).  It is likely that
GFDL-licensed materials will be removed from Debian after the next
Debian release.

(Marius: my e-mail message that mentioned "double-checked locking"
bounced from your ping.de address:
   (reason: 553 direct mail from dialups not accepted here)
I think there's something wrong with the filtering there, because the
e-mail was sent from my corporate e-mail server, which is definitely not
a dialup.)

Carl Witty




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Re: doc license section

[Kevin Ryde]

Marius Vollmer <mvo@zagadka.de> writes:
>
>     (a) The FSF's Back-Cover Text is: ``You are free to copy and modify
>     this GNU Manual.''

I collapsed that into the paragraph for gmp, since it had seemed
pretty short.

> I'm also unhappy about the list of authors on the front cover.  It is
> quite long already and not even complete.  What can we do about this?

A contributors section to say who did what might be a possibility,
then credit the manual to just "The Guile Developers" or something.
(Assuming those now credited would be happy with that.)

I guess a contributors section might be more or less what the AUTHORS
file has now, but with detail keep to minimum, so it's a short
paragraph per person, more or less.


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Re: doc license section

[Neil Jerram]

>>>>> "Kevin" == Kevin Ryde <user42@zip.com.au> writes:

    >> I'm also unhappy about the list of authors on the front cover.  It is
    >> quite long already and not even complete.  What can we do about this?

    Kevin> A contributors section to say who did what might be a possibility,
    Kevin> then credit the manual to just "The Guile Developers" or something.
    Kevin> (Assuming those now credited would be happy with that.)

    Kevin> I guess a contributors section might be more or less what the AUTHORS
    Kevin> file has now, but with detail keep to minimum, so it's a short
    Kevin> paragraph per person, more or less.

FWIW, I'd be happy with this.

        Neil



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Re: doc license section

[Kevin Ryde]

Carl Witty <cwitty@newtonlabs.com> writes:
>
> Be aware that the feeling on the debian-legal mailing list is that the
> GFDL is not sufficiently free for materials in Debian (for a number of
> reasons which I personally find compelling).

You'll need to bring that up with the maintainer of maintain.texi
then, since surely gnu projects are going to follow the gnu
directions.  (It'd be a full time job going around trying to convince
every project not to do so :-)


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Re: doc license section

[Marius Vollmer]

Carl Witty <cwitty@newtonlabs.com> writes:

>> Yes, indeed.  Maintain.texi says: "Manuals should use the GNU Free
>> Documentation License".
>
> Be aware that the feeling on the debian-legal mailing list is that the
> GFDL is not sufficiently free for materials in Debian [...]

Yes, but I'm going with the FSF here, simply because Guile is a GNU
package.

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Re: doc license section

[Marius Vollmer]

Marius Vollmer <mvo@zagadka.de> writes:

>> Be aware that the feeling on the debian-legal mailing list is that the
>> GFDL is not sufficiently free for materials in Debian [...]
>
> Yes, but I'm going with the FSF here, simply because Guile is a GNU
> package.

To elaborate a bit: I don't see how Guile is different from any other
GNU package when it comes to the license of its manual.  When there
are convincing reasons why Guile shouldn't use the FDL, no GNU package
should use it.  This issue should be decided by the 'upper
management', for all of GNU...

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Re: doc license section

[Pierre Bernatchez]

Marius Vollmer wrote:
> Marius Vollmer <mvo@zagadka.de> writes:
> 
> 
>>>Be aware that the feeling on the debian-legal mailing list is that the
>>>GFDL is not sufficiently free for materials in Debian [...]
>>
>>Yes, but I'm going with the FSF here, simply because Guile is a GNU
>>package.
> 
> 
> To elaborate a bit: I don't see how Guile is different from any other
> GNU package when it comes to the license of its manual.  When there
> are convincing reasons why Guile shouldn't use the FDL, no GNU package
> should use it.  This issue should be decided by the 'upper
> management', for all of GNU...
> 
This may be off topic, but since I did not bring
up the subject, I am justified in voicing a
dissenting opinion before going back
to my role of guile beginner lurking the list.

'upper management' deciding for the underlings
is the evil empire way of doing things.  If GNU
had fallen into 'upper management' oriented
methods, it would be a sign that GNU lost
sight of the objective and were morphing into
what they most oppose.

GNU's role is to provide advice, guidelines and
a rallying point, not dictating decisions.
Leadership not autocracy, the decisions are for
participants to arrive at by consensus.

GFDL raises questions for which adequate answers
have yet to be given.

Any knowing programmer infers from the word 'source' the
meaning 'source and accompanying explanations and instructions'.
So libre source includes libre documentation.

Documentation which is published under more restrictive license
further restricts the combination 'source and instructions'

What's most unclear in the GFDL, is the reason behind these
further restrictions.  The Debian group (of which I am not
a member to date) have registered some objections to the
GFDL which at least appear valid and well founded.

Your comment implies to me that rather than getting bogged
down in legal jargon religious wars, you would prefer to pick
a default choice, get on with the real work and let the
debate find its way to a conclusion somewhere else.

At first glance a sound proposition.
But you are picking the wrong default.

The correct default, pending further debate should be
the status quo, what our community has been doing all along,
publishing both source and its documentation under the same
license.

Adopting this current change in licensing as the new
default choice without further debate  is tantamount to
blind obedience.

The success of the libre software movement hinges on people
thinking for themselves.





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Re: doc license section

[Paul Jarc]

[IANAL.]

Pierre Bernatchez <pbz@ogopogo.biz> wrote:
> GNU's role is to provide advice, guidelines and
> a rallying point, not dictating decisions.
> Leadership not autocracy, the decisions are for
> participants to arrive at by consensus.

AIUI, the FSF also takes on the responsibility of legally defending
the copyright and license of some free software.  For a given package
to benefit from this protection, its copyright must be assigned to the
FSF; the FSF is not able to defend it otherwise.  But since the FSF is
the copyright holder, they are entirely within their rights to decide
what license to use - since they are taking on the burden of defending
the license, it's reasonable that they should get to choose which
license to defend.

For your own code and documentation, if you don't want the FSF to
decide the license, don't assign copyright.  It's a tradeoff, and the
choice is yours to make.  For the code and documentation of Guile, the
contributors have already made their respective choices.

The same issues would arise if a single individual, instead of an
organization, were handling this legal work.  On these issues, you can
relate to the FSF just as you would relate to another individual.

> GFDL raises questions for which adequate answers
> have yet to be given.

I agree.

> The correct default, pending further debate should be
> the status quo, what our community has been doing all along,
> publishing both source and its documentation under the same
> license.

AIUI, Marius isn't legally entitled to decide the license anyway.  If
you want the license to change, you'll have to make this argument to
the FSF's legal decision-makers.

It may be that the FSF delegates this legal decision-making power to
each package maintainer and merely provides recommendations instead of
exercising its authority directly, but I'm unaware of it, and it would
surprise me.


paul


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Re: doc license section

[Marius Vollmer]

Pierre Bernatchez <pbz@ogopogo.biz> writes:

> 'upper management' deciding for the underlings
> is the evil empire way of doing things.  If GNU
> had fallen into 'upper management' oriented
> methods, it would be a sign that GNU lost
> sight of the objective and were morphing into
> what they most oppose.

I think your fears are unfounded.  I did think for myself and came to
the conclusion that this issue is not one that can be decided locally
for the Guile project.  The issue is not whether Guile should use the
GNU FDL or not, the issue is whether the GNU FDL is a viable license
in general.  The FSF says yes, Debian says there are problems to
solve.  Since Guile is an FSF project, I go with what they say.

I do wish that the FSF would publically comment on the concerns of the
Debian people.  Maybe they did, but I haven't found it yet.

If nothing else, more projects adopting the GNU FDL will increase the
pressure to resolve the problems that Debian has raised.

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Re: doc license section

[Marius Vollmer]

Neil Jerram <neil@ossau.uklinux.net> writes:

>>>>>> "Kevin" == Kevin Ryde <user42@zip.com.au> writes:
>
>     >> I'm also unhappy about the list of authors on the front cover.  It is
>     >> quite long already and not even complete.  What can we do about this?
>
>     Kevin> A contributors section to say who did what might be a
>     Kevin> possibility, then credit the manual to just "The Guile
>     Kevin> Developers" or something.

Yes, I have done this now, and asked the old authors about their
opinion.

Now we only need to add some stuff about new authors...

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