Hello All, I will attend the GCC Summit (unless some strikes in France will cancel all flights to Canada; I hope not, but I don't know...) and I am busy preparing my GCC MELT tutorial slides. [See http://gcc-melt.org/leaflet.html for more]
There are a few questions I will definitely ask to the Steering Commitee, most of them related to generating documentation from source code. As I explained in many long threads like http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-patches/2010-06/msg00460.html and http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2010-05/msg00539.html & many others the MELT technical documentation meltgendoc.texi is built by a MELT specific mode -i.e. by a MELT specific software tool- from MELT source code files *.melt I really want to generate documentation from code, because it is the only documentation I've got. Not being able to do that means losing documentation and a lot of work... I don't understand what is permitted or not... (I got too much contradicting advices). Several people gave me contradictory advices (potential GFDL vs GPL license conflict?!), and when meeting FSF persons (e.g. at OpenWorldForum in Paris a few weeks ago) I am also getting other advices. So I will ask face to face practical advices on these issues, in particular I need to understand who is able to give me constructive & "definitive" advices (apparently I asked on licens...@fsf.org and Karl Berry replied, but probably his opinion is not powerful enough). Perhaps a solution could be for GCC MELT to package the generated meltgendoc.texi in a document independent of gcc.texi or gccint.texi and licensed under GPLv3. But I really want to meet at the GCC Summit someone who is able to take decisions and has power to give good advices on these... I am very confused. If you are a member of the GCC "politburo" [that is the highest decision taking authority & decision about GCC, I don't understand what it is, who is there, and what it is called (SC or FSF?)] please give me a few minutes of your precious time at the GCC Summit. If possible, give me (perhaps by private email) your name & quality and most importantly fix a time to meet there. I need to explain things in a dozen of minutes with a laptop & face to face. I tried to explain by email to gcc@gcc.gnu.org & gcc-patc...@gcc.gnu.org & licens...@fsf.org but failed. What I want to avoid is to get advice from the "wrong" persons, or being told "do this" by person X and later by person Y "don't do this, X told you wrongly". What I hope is concrete enough advices telling put such & such licensing comments and such & such make rules to produce such & such MELT documentation which could be "freely" redistributed under such & such conditions (e.g. could be packaged in Debian). >From France, understanding the decision making inside GCC is next to impossible -very probably, as impossible it is for US people to understand why planes might not take off from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport... :-) :-) :-) [and even I cannot explain the details of transportation strikes in France] Cheers. BTW I strongly believe that such documentation issues are not specific to GCC MELT. They will & should happen, especially when going C++ & doxygen etc... So the question is of general interest... and should get a broad answer.... -- Basile STARYNKEVITCH http://starynkevitch.net/Basile/ email: basile<at>starynkevitch<dot>net mobile: +33 6 8501 2359 8, rue de la Faiencerie, 92340 Bourg La Reine, France *** opinions {are only mine, sont seulement les miennes} ***
