Branden Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Thu, Aug 14, 2003 at 04:57:09PM -0400, Mark Jason Dominus wrote: > > I am the original author of the manual page in question. I am > > presently negotiating with CMP, who acquired the Perl Journal a few > > years ago, to obtain complete and unambiguous copyright on the > > article. If I succeed, I will release the original article and > > 'perlreftut', the derived manpage, under the GNU FDL or whatever other > > license the Debian maintainers think appropriate. > > Sounds great! Thanks for letting the Debian Legal team know about this. > > I should advise you though, in all fairness, that the GNU FDL (any > version released to date) is not regarded by the Debian Project as a > DFSG-free[1] license, so relicensing the works in question under the GNU > FDL alone would not result in a material difference in their handling by > the Debian Project. > > One reason for this assessment by the Debian Project is that the GNU FDL > is not GNU GPL-compatible, so it is not possible for third parties to > move FDL-licensed documentation into Perl code via POD, for instance, at > least not without negotiating with the copyright holder of the GNU > FDL-licensed documentation.
I also think that you should chose a license that is compatible with the license of the code that you are documenting, to allow cut/pasting examples between the two. The GFDL doesn't fulfil that. However, just to correct Branden, being GPL-imcompatible does not make the GFDL non-free. There are other reasons that make the GFDL non-free. Thanks, Peter