Re: GFDL

[Carsten Dominik <carsten.dominik@gmail.com>]

Hi Alan,

thanks for chiming in.  As Achim quoted, the GFLD says that the license should be in the document, but that makes the GFDL almost unfit for anything below a book.

I have asked RMS about this, and he says that the license should be present in printed versions of the document.  I find it very hard to believe that this must be the case.  It bothers me mostly for the guide, where I did spend a lot of time to make it compact, and now something like one fifth of it is license text.  We may actually consider to re-release the guide under a different license.

Will try to find a solution here.

- Carsten

On 10.3.2013, at 01:43, Alan L Tyree <alantyree@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 10/03/13 02:11, Carsten Dominik wrote:
>> 
>> On 9.3.2013, at 16:02, Achim Gratz <Stromeko@nexgo.de> wrote:
>> 
>>> Carsten Dominik writes:
>>>> I am wondering, are we required to include the full text of the GFDL
>>>> in the manual?  I find it a big waste of space and feed that a link
>>>> should do.  But I have not been able to find the rules that say what
>>>> needs to be included in a document distributed under GFDL?
>>> 
>>> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-howto
>>> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-1.3.html
>>> 
>>> "To use this License in a document you have written, include a copy of
>>> the License in the document and put the following copyright and license
>>> notices just after the title page:[…]"
>>> 
>>> I read this: If there's just one document, it must contain the license
>>> in full, if there are several that reference each other, it is enough to
>>> include it in the top-level document.
>> 
>> Yes it sounds like it.  Thank you for the link.
>> 
>> I still think it is crazy to add these 8 pages to each time someone prints it....
>> 
>> Regards
>> 
>> - Carsten
>> 
> I also think it is crazy, and I don't think it is necessary. Although the FSF might prefer you to include the whole licence, in my opinion there is no need to do so. The manual is released under the GFDL and so is subject to the terms of the license.
> 
> In my view, this statement from Creative Commons is accurate:
> 
> "How can I license my work?
> 
> There is no registration to use the Creative Commons licenses.
> 
> Licensing a work is as simple as selecting which of the six licenses best meets your goals, and then marking your work in some way so that others know that you have chosen to release the work under the terms of that license."
> 
> The important part here is that "others know", that is, it must be very clear that the manual is released subject to the GFDL. As a courtesy, a link to the GFDL or including a copy as part of the package might be nice.
> 
> Alan
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Alan L Tyree                    http://www2.austlii.edu.au/~alan
> Tel:  04 2748 6206		sip:172385@iptel.org
> 
>