Re: Using the GFDL properly

[Dan Mueth <d-mueth uchicago edu>]

On Tue, 5 Sep 2000, Richard Stallman wrote:

> One of the requirements of the GFDL is that the manual which is
> covered by it needs to contain a copy of the GFDL.  A link or
> reference to a separate copy doesn't qualify.
> 
> It looks like handbook/gdp-handbook doesn't contain a copy of the
> GFDL, just a link to it.  This means people redistributing the
> material verbatim will in fact be violating the license.  Would you
> please add a copy of the GFDL to it?  Just copying the contents of our
> web page into that directory and linking to it would be an easy way.
> 
> Using just a link or reference to the license is not reliable; a few years
> from now, the link could break.

It seems we have been mis-using the GFDL.  I thought we looked this over
carefully after GUADEC when we first moved to it, but the current version
of the license on the FSF's web page clearly states we are supposed to
include the entire FDL license in each document:

http://www.fsf.org/copyleft/fdl.html#SEC4

How should we do this? If I understand things correctly, the issue is that
we must ship a copy of the GFDL in every package that has a GFDL'd doc.  
(Is this right?) So I don't think we are allowed to ship one copy of the
GFDL in gnome-core and have all GNOME docs link to this one version or
pull it in as an entity.  Could we decide on one place where it gets
installed and then each package tries to install it there if it is not
already there?  

Thoughts?

Dan