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Re: GFDL/GPL issues
Mark Mitchell <mark@codesourcery.com> writes:
> Basile Starynkevitch wrote:
>> Does that mean that even if a MELT plugin package appears in Debian, it
>> could not contain any documentation?
> I thought Debian didn't like the GFDL at all. But, in any case, that's
> really a question for the Debian folks; I don't have any involvement in
> Debian.
This is not the place to discuss this in any further detail, obviously,
but just to clarify for those watching this part of the discussion: Debian
is not horribly happy with the GFDL, but does consider it to be a free
license provided that there are no Front Cover or Back Cover texts and no
Invariant Sections. Debian judges all licenses for all material by the
same DFSG standards as software licenses and considers the presence of
texts covered by those three provisions of the GFDL to be unmodifiable
sections, hence non-free, and not permitted in the Debian distribution.
But as long as that aspect of the license is not used, the GFDL is a
DFSG-free license.
Provided that the software does not conflict with the terms of the GPL or
GFDL by combining things with conflicting terms in such a way as to make
them unredistributable (and dual-licensing would resolve that, obviously),
I don't believe Debian would have a problem with the situation that you
describe.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@stanford.edu) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>