Re: Patch to make generated manpages use GFDL

["Joseph S. Myers" <jsm28 at cam dot ac dot uk>]

On 11 Oct 2001, Free Software Foundation wrote:

> I'm sorry for the slow response to this question - we have a huge backlog
> of licensing questions.
> 
> I am confused about what you want to do here - can you explain the situation
> from the beginning, so that I can understand what is being asked?

The GCC and GNU Binutils manuals are distributed under the GFDL and
include a copy of the GFDL.  Manpages are automatically generated from
parts of these manuals.  What is the correct license notice to put in the
generated manpages, and does a copy of the GFDL need to be included in
them?  (Including it in the gcov manpage, for example, extracted from a
small part of the GCC manual, would make that manpage more than twice as
long.)

The ld manpage in GNU binutils currently says

       Copyright  (c)  1991, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 2000
       Free Software Foundation, Inc.

       Permission is granted to copy,  distribute  and/or  modify
       this  document  under the terms of the GNU Free Documenta-
       tion License, Version 1.1 or any later  version  published
       by  the  Free  Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sec-
       tions, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with  no  Back-Cover
       Texts.   A  copy of the license is included in the section
       entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".

but that section with the text of the GFDL is only present in the full
manual, not the manpage.

The gcc and gcov manpages currently still contain the old permissive
notice for manuals, while awaiting an answer about how to handle the GFDL
in this case.

The cpp manpage contains the following notice

       Copyright (c) 1987, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995,
       1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Founda-
       tion, Inc.

       Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify
       this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documenta-
       tion License, Version 1.1 or any later version published
       by the Free Software Foundation.  A copy of the license is
       included in the accompanying manual for GCC, in the sec-
       tion ``GNU Free Documentation License''.  This manual con-
       tains no Invariant Sections, and has no Front-Cover Texts
       or Back-Cover Texts.

while the CPP Texinfo manual contains much the same notice (referring to
the GCC manual for the text of the GFDL), but does have Front-Cover and
Back-Cover texts.

Is this referring to another manual for the GFDL text valid?

Is it appropriate for a generated manpage under the GFDL to remove
Front-Cover and Back-Cover texts that apply to the full manual?  Is it
appropriate for it to specify no Invariant Sections, where the relevant
parts of the full manual are not included in the manpage?  (For example,
the gcc manpage does not include the Invariant Sections "GNU General
Public License" and "Funding Free Software" from the full GCC manual.)

-- 
Joseph S. Myers
jsm28@cam.ac.uk