Re: Documentation license

[Randy Dunlap]

On 12/14/2017 04:49 PM, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
> 
> I've written a couple of thousand words of documentation for the XArray.
> I need to decide how to license it.  There are no SPDX tags in Documentation/
> to date, so I have no examples to crib from.
> 
> 1. How does one add an SPDX tag to an rst file?
> 
> 2. What license should I use?  I'd like people to be able to produce
>dead tree versions of the documentation, but if they make improvements
>to it, I want to see them.  Something in the CC BY-SA 4.0 vein?
> 
> 3. Is there a problem with extracting kernel-doc from a GPLv2 licensed
>file and then redistributing the result under CC BY-SA?  They seem to
>have the same broad intent, but lawyers may grumble.

Maybe you should address this to the legalese people who worked on
the new licensing text?  since WANAL.

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~Randy
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Re: Documentation license

[Jani Nikula]

On Thu, 14 Dec 2017, Matthew Wilcox  wrote:
> 1. How does one add an SPDX tag to an rst file?

Do we want the SPDX tags visible in the generated documentation or not?

If not, you have to put it in an rst comment:

.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0

If yes, I'd go for using bibliographic data field lists [1]. They can be
and are already used for authorship and copyright, for example
Documentation/driver-api/device-io.rst which is rendered like [2]. There
are some alternatives for the field names, though none of the
"registered field names" seem to apply. For example:

:License: SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
:SPDX: SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
:SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0


BR,
Jani.


[1] 
http://docutils.sourceforge.net/docs/ref/rst/restructuredtext.html#field-lists
[2] https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/driver-api/device-io.html


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Jani Nikula, Intel Open Source Technology Center
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Documentation license

[Matthew Wilcox]

I've written a couple of thousand words of documentation for the XArray.
I need to decide how to license it.  There are no SPDX tags in Documentation/
to date, so I have no examples to crib from.

1. How does one add an SPDX tag to an rst file?

2. What license should I use?  I'd like people to be able to produce
   dead tree versions of the documentation, but if they make improvements
   to it, I want to see them.  Something in the CC BY-SA 4.0 vein?

3. Is there a problem with extracting kernel-doc from a GPLv2 licensed
   file and then redistributing the result under CC BY-SA?  They seem to
   have the same broad intent, but lawyers may grumble.

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Re: Clarify documentation license?

[Jonathan Corbet]

On Thu, 18 May 2017 17:15:17 -0400
Konstantin Ryabitsev <konstan...@linuxfoundation.org> 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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