Re: [Savannah-hackers-public] News: Licenses clarification

[Walter Landry]

Sylvain Beucler <address@hidden> wrote:
> On Sat, Feb 18, 2006 at 02:40:09PM -0800, Walter Landry wrote:
> > Sylvain Beucler <address@hidden> wrote:
> > > >   2) My project includes a 56 page manual under GPL v2 only.  The only
> > > >      license I will use for documentation is the same as for the code.
> > > >      Since even RMS does not think that the GFDL is a free software
> > > >      license [3], that rules out the GFDL.
> > > 
> > > This is a borderline case since the source for the manual is not
> > > hosted at Savannah, but the manual is still available at
> > > www.nongnu.org.
> > 
> > The manual's source is available in the tarball available from Savannah.
> > 
> > > Is there a precise reason why the manual's license is bound to ArX's?
> > 
> > Because I want to be able to intermix code and documentation.
> 
> What do you mean by intermix?
> 
> For example if you want to include bits of text from the manual in the
> program output, you can do so by fetching the text at run time
> independently of the licenses.

There are three problems here:

  1) This won't work in all cases.  For example, taking a comment and
     incorporating it into the manual or vice-versa.  It also makes
     the program more fragile, because it is no longer self contained.

  2) This runs afoul of section 2 of the GPL, the relevant part of which is

       But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole
       which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the
       whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions
       for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to
       each and every part regardless of who wrote it.

  3) Unnecessary licenses conflicts are determining technical details.

Cheers,
Walter Landry
address@hidden