Re: Copyright question

[David Kastrup]

Carsten Dominik <address@hidden> writes:

> On Jun 12, 2008, at 9:33 PM, Stefan Monnier wrote:
>
>>> I would like to switch the copyright of the Org-mode manual to GPL.
>>> Currently it is GFDL, with front/back cover texts, and I am told
>>> that the Debian cannot include this in their distribution - 
>>> therefore,
>>> the Org-mode package in Debian is currently without Manual.
>>
>> Actually, Debian can and does include such things in their
>> distribution,
>> but in the `non-free' section.  This is the case for the Emacs online
>> docs (in package emacs22-common-non-dfsg).
>>
>> Also, you do not need to abandon the GFDL to be allowed in the main
>> section of Debian.  You "only" need to use the GFDL without any
>> front&back matters (IIRC).
>
> Well, I am happy with this solution, so I am going to remove these
> parts from the copyright notice.  The copyright notice will now read:
>
> @quotation
> Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
> under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or
> any later version published by the Free Software Foundation.
> @end quotation
>
> Any objections?

General GNU project policy is to distribute with certain front&back
matters.  So I'd ask Richard whether he is ok with it since he still is
pretty much the one setting the project licensing policies in Emacs.

Note that for the distribution as an integral part of Emacs, this is
sort of pointless, since the Emacs manuals are "Debian non-free" anyway
and so it is not particularly useful if org-mode is different here.

For the org-mode distributed separately by yourself, I believe it is
utlimately your own call to make, though it would be appropriate, if it
is registered as a GNU project, to apply the general guidelines to it.

-- 
David Kastrup