Re: Documenting Gnome apps with the GPL

[Alexander Kirillov <kirillov math sunysb edu>]

On Sun, Dec 23, 2001 at 09:57:09PM -0700, Richard Stallman wrote:
> Using one copy of the GNU FDL in gnome-core, and making individual
> manuals link to it, is ok for manuals that are always distributed with
> gnome-core.  You need to set them up as a collection of manuals
> sharing one copy of the GNU FDL (see section 6).  This should not be
> hard.
> 
> However, manuals that are distributed separately (not with gnome-core)
> have to have their own copies of the FDL.  When manuals are printed,
> the printed versions should include a copy of the GNU FDL.  This is
> because one requirement of the FDL is that every copy of the manual
> must come with a copy of the FDL.
> 
> The reason our licenses have this requrement is because every program
> and every manual should come with a copy of its license.  Otherwise
> there is a risk that they will get disconnected, and users will not be
> able to see what their rights are.

We do include FDL as a plain text file COPYING-DOCS with any package
that contains FDL-covered docs, and the suggested titlepage of every
doc will read something like 
"This document is covered by GNU Free Documentation License. A copy of
this license can be found at this link (link to DocBook version
included in gnome-core) or in the file COPYING-DOCS included with this
package"

I believe this is enough to satisfy the requirements of FDL (if I
remember correctly, we had this same discussion here half a year ago
and at that time everyone agreed with this solution). Or am I missing
something?

As for the printed version, GNOME Doc Project does not distribute
them, so strictly speaking it is not our responsibility but that of
distributors of printed documents to include a copy of FDL. I assume
all the companies that distribute printed docs are aware of the
requirements of FDL - e.g. Mandrake does include FDL as an appendix to
their manuals. 

Sasha