On 11/23/20 12:45 PM, Joseph Myers wrote:
On Mon, 23 Nov 2020, Martin Sebor via Gcc wrote:
I never did understand what it was complaining about, or the point
of making us jump through these hoops for updates to the internals
manual when the (arguably far more impactful) changes to GCC source
code or the user-visible manual aren't subject to the same check.
The point of this check is that the FSF was unable to come up with a dual
licensing notice allowing a single source file with content explicitly
dual-licensed under the GPL and GFDL, so instead both GPL and GFDL copies
of that content (doc strings for target hooks) need to be checked into the
repository, and the check makes sure that the two copies are in sync. The
person contributing such documentation should commit it with both copies
in sync to ensure it's properly available under both licenses. Otherwise,
e.g. moving existing internals manual text documenting a target macro into
such a doc string for a target hook and so making it available under a new
license, a global reviewer or docstring relicensing maintainer can approve
the move.
I'd expect the best way to ensure the two copies of the contributed
text are in sync is to copy it automatically. If the only point of
asking the author to do it by hand each time they change the file
is to "Verify that they have permission to grant a GFDL license"
than that step could be done once, the result recorded somewhere
(e.g., in the MAINTAINERS file), and automated when making changes
by having the script look it up.
Is making this change feasible?
Martin
