Some parts of this should perhaps be entered to the bug tracker, but I'm not sure how to group the issues, so I'll just post everything here.
I built Classpath --with-gjdoc from CVS and want to put the API HTML documentation on a local HTTP server so that it loads faster. This server can be accessed by several persons and might be visible from the Internet in the future. Now I need to know what requirements I must satisfy in order to be legally allowed to distribute the files in this manner. I have found the following evidence: * classpath/doc/api/html/java/lang/Object.html and other class-specific HTML files end with a copyright+license notice that states that "This file is part of GNU Classpath" which can be used under GNU GPL v2 or later plus extra permissions for linking. However, it is not clear whether the notice is just part of the documentation of the class or actually applies to the documentation itself. If the HTML file is indeed part of "this library", then the wording of the notice would seem to claim that linking to it is "making a combined work" that must be covered by the GPL because the process does not "produce an executable". * http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath/license.html#documentation says that Classpath documentation used to be licensed under the GNU GPL or an unnamed copyleft license, and that the GNU FDL was created; but it does not say how the documentation is licensed now. * In http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/classpath/2002-05/msg00035.html and http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/classpath/2002-05/msg00065.html, Mark Wielaard stated that the documentation is derived from the source code of Classpath and the GNU GPL thus applies, but the FSF would like to license the documentation under the GNU FDL. Thus, I presume the API documentation is indeed licensed under the same GPL+exception as the source code, and any relicensing to FDL does not affect my copy. To put the documents on my server, I'll have to accompany them with the source code from which they were generated (the exact version from CVS; I can put that in a .tar.bz2) and the text of the GNU GPL v2 (which is already part of the source tree). I would like you to make the following changes to clarify the situation: * Describe the licensing of the whole API HTML tree in one place, such as about.html. (That's where I looked.) If all the HTML files are licensed the same way, put the license here; otherwise state which parts are licensed differently, or even that licensing may vary from file to file (which would discourage distributing the documentation). * Make http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath/license.html#documentation point to that place for the licensing of API documentation. * Change the "This file is part of GNU Classpath" text to make clear whether it also applies to documentation files and whether the linking clause applies to HTML links.
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