On 2024-10-12 12:16, Richard Stallman wrote:
2. Should we change this policy? That question is harder.
From what you've said
We already have many gnu and non-gnu groups in savannah
that use the same license for code and docs; and a documentation
licensed under GPL is certainly libre,
there are already many packages that use a code license for
the documentation. (How many are there? How many of them
are GNU packages?)
I’ll defer this to Bob or corwin
We recommend the FDL because that works better for distributing printed manuals. But with many instances already of packages that use the code license for the documentation too, maybe we should decide that that is ok.
You mentioned "FDL..better for distributing printed manual": how about docs that are only distributed digitally, not printed? After all, most programs are not important enough to have the docs to be published in paperback, and a lot of docs are in the form of html, texinfo, manpage, rst, yaml, etc., and they are a lot like code rather than printed manuals. Not just nongnu packages on Savannah, it might even worth reconsidering the policy of requiring docs to be under FDL for GNU.
In the 90s people would want to buy a paperback of GCC reference manual, but I’m not sure it is still true today, and the copies that FSF shop sells are for GCC 3.x (or 4.x ?), very out of date. Maybe people buy/distribute it as a souvenir or a gift or something.
We also have a list of "other free books" that are libre but not all compatible with FDL: https://www.gnu.org/doc/other-free-books.html
Also, I just thought of another thing: if we say GPL is not compatible with FDL, does it mean that we cannot distribute the source code (GPL) and the manuals (FDL) together? If this is the case then I wonder if there are any GNU packages distributing them together.
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