Re: Clarify documentation license?

[Jonathan Corbet]

On Thu, 18 May 2017 17:15:17 -0400
Konstantin Ryabitsev  wrote:

> Would it be fair to say documentation is "GNU GPLv2 unless otherwise 
> indicated?" And if that's not the case (because I'm not sure GPLv2 is a 
> sane license for documentation), would it make sense to clearly indicate 
> the documentation license somewhere in the rendered docs?

The documentation is a part of the kernel as a whole, and much of it is
generated directly from (and is thus a derived product of) overtly
GPLv2-licensed source. So yes, GPLv2 is the license to assume for kernel
documentation.

I thought I had managed to chase the FDL references out of most of the
kernel documentation, since the FDL is not GPL-compatible.  The media UAPI
manual is a bit special, though.

It would make sense to describe the license explicitly, yes.  

jon
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Re: Clarify documentation license?

[Theodore Ts'o]

On Thu, May 18, 2017 at 05:15:17PM -0400, Konstantin Ryabitsev wrote:
> 
> I had someone ask me today whether https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/
> is covered by GNU GPL or GNU FDL, and honestly I wasn't sure, as there is
> actually no clear indication. There's places where FDL is listed
> (https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/media/uapi/fdl-appendix.html), but
> that particular instance appears to only cover items in "Linux Media
> Infrastructure Userspace API"), or at least that's the implication.
> 
> Would it be fair to say documentation is "GNU GPLv2 unless otherwise
> indicated?" And if that's not the case (because I'm not sure GPLv2 is a sane
> license for documentation), would it make sense to clearly indicate the
> documentation license somewhere in the rendered docs?

Given that there is no indication, and kernel as a whole is under
GPLv2, I think "GNU GPLv2 unless otherwise indicated" is an accurate
summary of the current state of affairs.

As far as whether or not GPLv2 is "sane" license for documentation,
the stated reasons[1] by the FSF for why they use the GFDL instead of the
GPL are:

1) They want to make it easier for somene to create printed
documentation which can be sold without requiring that "source" be
distributed, and

2) The FSF includes statements (some might describe them as political
screeds) which they want to designate as invariant.

[1] 
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0-faq.en.html#TOCWhyNotGPLForManuals


I don't think either of these reasons matter for kernel documentation.
For the first, the details of the kernel's internals too quickly for
it to be at all sane for anyone to want to create printed manuals.
For the second, we don't have anything that could be described as a
political manifesto in the kernel Documentation folder that we would
want to exempt from change.

- Ted





> 
> Best,
> Konstantin
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