Re: Documenting Gnome apps with the GPL

[Alexander Kirillov <kirillov math sunysb edu>]

This has been discussed in gnome-docs mailing list. Here is the summary
of what we decided and not decided - as I remember it; if I missed
something, please  correct me. 

I. All docs need to be released under GNU FDL and contain standard legal
junk - not only reference to FDL but also "no liability" and "no
warranty", document history (this is required by FDL), etc. The legal
stuff was suggested by Sun legal dept. who discussed it with FSF; I
believe it was also discussed with GNOME Foundation board (or not yet?).
The module gnome-docu/gdp/templates in CVS contains beta version of how
it will be done; namely, this info should be put in <articleinfo>
section of the DocBook file.  When rendered in help browser, all this
will be placed in a separate titlepage which is linked to from the
document top page (table of contents). Again, there are (very
preliminary) stylesheets which do this, in gnome-docu/gdp/xsl 

II. As for the copyright notice and license info about the program (not
documentation!), it should be in "about" box. Whether it should also be
included in the manual is less clear. Options:

a. Include it in the titlepage of the manual (this is what the current
templates do, but in a  rather clumsy way). 
b. include it as a separate subsection of the manual 
c. Do not include this in the manual at all but only in the "about" box.
Opinions? 


III. The FDL and GPL in DocBook form  are included in gnome-core, and
all other docs just link to them using URI ghelp:fdl, ghelp:gpl. 
In addition, the FDL and GPL are also included in every package as plain
text files COPYING-DOCS, COPYING. 


On Sat, 2001-12-22 at 04:42, Adrian Custer wrote:
> Hey everyone,
> 
> sorry for the cross-posting, not sure where this issue belongs. I have
> three questions:
> 
> I.
> The GNOME project could use a standard location where copyright notices
> and the license are supposed to appear. Copyright notices are in lots of
> places but the GPL tends to be buried. This is where I found it.
> 
> Galeon: bottom of the second page of manual
> XChat: online?
> Evolution: middle of the fifth page of manual
> Abiword: about box
> gftp: a tab in the about box
> gnumeric: the docs seem to license themselves under the GPL
> 
> Places it could be.
> 
> 1) the bottom of the manual page.
> many apps are skipping this document nowadays.
> 
> 2) a command-line argument.
> I have a really vague memory that this used to be a requirement of all
> GNU project software but I can't find a reference. Also there was a
> distinction between command-line programs and gui programs and how they
> were supposed to do things.
> 
> 3) in the help menu:
> either as part of the About... dialog or in a separate entry.
> 
> *****************************
> 
> II.
> Can we start assigning copyright to the foundation? 
> 
> ****************************
> 
> III.
> Are all our docs to be licensed under the GNU free documentation
> license?
> 
> cheers,
> adrian
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> gnome-doc-list mailing list
> gnome-doc-list gnome org
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-doc-list

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