Re: updating templates

[John Fleck <jfleck inkstain net>]

On Wed, Oct 31, 2001 at 04:44:28PM +0000, Pat Costello wrote:
> 
> Some time ago, the Sun documentation team put forward a suggestion for a 
> separate area for all the boilerplate type information, as Sasha says in his 
> mail snip. As well as improving information accessibility for the user, this 
> approach - essentially a title page - conforms to the GFDL requirements. 
> However, there was an issue about liability and warranty that we needed to clear 
> up. At the moment, all parties who contribute to GNOME documentation are exposed 
> to legal action, due to the absence of such clauses. This is a potentially 
> serious issue. 
> 
> Legal representatives from Sun have just completed discussions with Richard 
> Stallman and with the Free Software Foundation to resolve the license issue. 
> Whereas the FSF recognises the need for the liability and warranty clauses, they 
> do not want to amend the GFDL. They suggest that the liability and warranty 
> clauses accompany each piece of documentation. This requirement creates another 
> benefit for having a title page, because it gives us a suitable place where we 
> can put these essential legal clauses. Another benefit of the title page 
> approach is that all of the purely technical information remaining in the manual 
> is easier for translators to process. 
> 
> A sample of a proposed title page is attached. The legal text for the liability 
> and warranty sections was written by a member of the Sun legal team. The concept 
> of the title page is that a user can open the title page from a Title Page link 
> that appears at the bottom of the manual TOC. 
> 
> Sun has already reworked a number of applet manuals as per the GNOME Style 
> Guide, and we are keen to put our work back into the community, plus 
> translations in nine languages. Now that the license question appears to be 
> close to resolution, Sun is in a position to start releasing that documentation. 
> If the Sun approach to the title page is workable for community usage, then the 
> Sun documentation will be generally usable. 
> 

Pat -
This looks fine to me. Thanks to the folks who have worked so hard on
this.

Does it have to be in ALL CAPS? It seems as though we're shouting our
legal disclaimers. :-)

Cheers,
-- 
John Fleck
jfleck inkstain net (h), http://www.inkstain.net/fleck/
"Any man left on the Rio Grande is the King of the World as far as I know."
 - Becker and Fagen, 1973