Re: Documenting Gnome apps with the GPL

[Dan Mueth <d-mueth uchicago edu>]

On Sun, 23 Dec 2001, 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.

Just to clarify, our plans in the past have been:

1) For documentation delivered with GNOME packages: We put one copy of
(each version of) the GFDL in a core GNOME package which must be installed
for the other packages to be installed.  (We took this to be gnome-core,
although gnome-libs or another library package may be a better choice.)
Then, all other GNOME packages and packages for misc. GNOME apps do not
ship the GFDL and have their documentation link to the local copy shipped
with gnome-core.  [Another solution would be to create a package called
"gfdl" and then have each package explicitly require this package.  This
is a solution which is not GNOME-centric, so an entire Linux distribution
could have just one copy of the GFDL instead of many.]

2) For HTML documentation on the web: The documents should link to a copy
of the GDFL which is also on the web, preferably on the same server (ie.
on www.gnome.org).

3) For documentation in formats intended to be printed, such as PS and
PDF: The documents should have the GFDL included in them.

I believe this satisfies the word and spirit of the GFDL without placing
undo burden on hackers, users, writers, computers, or trees.

Dan