RE: License problem in Ubuntu Desktop Guide (Re: Incorporating Gnomedocs into ours) sec=unclassified

[Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org>]

On Wed, 2006-09-06 at 10:04 +0100, Joachim Noreiko wrote:
> --- Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org> wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, 2006-09-05 at 14:42 +0100, Joachim Noreiko
> > wrote:
> >
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-doc/2006-September/thread.html
> > > 
> > 
> > I think the much bigger question is, why does Ubuntu
> > feel the need to have its own desktop guide, and
> > what
> > can Mallard to do help?
> > 
> > Was that two questions?  Does that make this four?
> > 
> 
> As far as I can tell:
> 
> 1a. Ubuntu Desktop Guide covers things that we can't.
> Eg installing packages, using ubuntu with a dual boot
> system, getting MP3s to play, getting hardware to
> work.  We can't cover those because of this whole
> linux/gnome/distro stack business, which, if you read
> slashdot, is *apparently* a strength of free software.
> meh.

This is exactly the sort of problem that Mallard is
designed to address.  So we get a +1 for being on
the right track.

> 1b. Ubuntu Desktop Guide has a more "get started"
> approach. Eg 'how do I play my music?', 'how do I
> print stuff?', 'how do I get onto the internet?' See
> here for example:
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-doc/2006-August/006986.html
> This is stuff we could have in the user guide, but
> probably not to the depth Ubuntu covers it.

This, on the other hand, depends entirely on how we
structure the User Guide.  But I think Ubuntu has
the right idea with this approach, and we should
try to do this in the Mallardified User Guide as
well.

> 2. Mallard would allow us to define a structure for a
> comprehensive User Guide, leaving gaps for material
> from the Ubuntu docs to slot in. 
> This appears to be a not-so-recent merging of the
> GNOME UG and the Ubuntu UG:
> http://doc.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/desktopguide/C/index.html
> The split there seems pretty clean (1-8 is gnome,
> beyond that is ubuntu).
> With Mallard, we could work together, devise a super
> all-singing, all-dancing structure for a user guide,
> and figure out which bits gnome does, and which bits
> ubuntu (or another distro) does.
> 
> But here's a 5th question: does Ubuntu's
> dual-licensing prevent material from Ubuntu docs
> moving upstream and coming into our user guide?

I AM NOT A LAWYER.  THIS IS NOT LEGAL COUNSEL.

That's a really good question.  My take is that each page
in a Mallard document is a distinct entity.  It has its
own authorship and copyright information, and Yelp will
display that information on a per-page basis.  Therefore,
each page should be able to be copyrighted by separate
entities and released under separate (free) licenses.

It's something like sticking a web page into a directory.
The GNU licenses explicitly except aggregation from being
considered derived works.  There is one glitch, though.
The mere presence of a new page, say ubuntu-page-1, can
cause links (i.e. content) to be inserted into another
page, say gnome-node-1.  Does that mean ubuntu-page-1
is creating a derived work of gnome-node-1?

I don't think so.  If we view the markup as a simplistic
programming language (and Mallard as the runtime), then
gnome-node-1 is a simple program that displays links to
various things under various conditions.  In that sense,
it's not much different from the Applications menu in
the panel.  Or, for that matter, the current TOC pages
in Yelp.

That's my take, at least.  In the end, maybe we should
just switch to a license that people hate less.

--
Shaun