Re: license & copyright patch to MELT for dual GPLv3+ & GFDL1.2+

[Basile Starynkevitch <basile at starynkevitch dot net>]

On Wed, Jun 09, 2010 at 12:11:01PM -0700, Mark Mitchell wrote:
> 
> I think that "literate programming" approaches (whether the full Knuth
> version, or the more mild JavaDoc version, or auto-extraction of
> command-line options or whatever) are valuable.  RMS, based on my
> communications with him, is less convinced that they are valuable.  I
> think he agrees that his opinions of the technical merits shouldn't
> override a consensus opinion of the developers, but it does influence
> how hard he wants to work on changing the licensing regime, and it is a
> legitimately hard problem to solve.
> 
> Meanwhile, I think we should try to make use of the fact that RMS is
> permitting auto-generated reference documentation (which I have been
> instructed not to call a manual) using JavaDoc/Doxygen tools.  If we use
> those tools, and demonstrate their value, we're then in a stronger
> position to say how generation of actual manuals is important.
> 

What I don't understand is what is so special about Doxygen.

MELT is a lispy dialect, and is bootstrapped in the sense of being its 
own tranlator.

Could you understand that for me Basile (who don't know doxygen's 
internals), since I am MELT designer & implementor, and since MELT 
translator (i.e. the code generating C code from MELT source) has been 
implemented by me Basile in MELT, it is much easier to implement MELT 
documentation's generator in MELT than to patch Doxygen for that 
purpose.

So why using Doxygen is permitted for documentation generation, while 
using a GCC plugin or branch (this is what MELT is) is prohibited?

Could people understand at least my misunderstanding? Why generating 
documentation with Doxygen (probably not a GNU, FSF copyrighted, 
software like GCC is) is permitted, while generating the documentation 
of a branch of GCC [=MELT] with itself, [MELT=] a branch or plugin of GCC is 
prohibited?

Sorry, I don't understand the logic here. And I am not sure it is only a 
cultural (I am French, not US American) or language issue (I am not a 
native English speaker).


OF course, I don't claim that MELT documentation generating mode is as 
powerful & as complete as Doxygen. It is actally a very simple hack 
(only generating .texi format) much less powerful than doxygen.

Please explain me why using Doxygen is permitted, while using a branch 
of GCC is not permitted, to generate that same's branch documentation.

Sorry, I don't understand the logic.


Please also explain who should I contact, and how? Please also explain 
how the GNU Emacs is generated. I guess it is by a software of the GNU 
emacs package.

Cheers.

PS. What I probably did understand or at least guess, is that to be 
permitted to redistribute the generated documention of MELT, I'll have 
to wait many [dozens?] years. I probably will lose interest in GCC by 
then, or perhaps even I'll be already dead (and perhaps RMS also, since 
he is born in 1953, and I was born in 1959). I even could imagine that 
GCC won't be very relevant by then (hint: the SIGPLAN programming 
language award went to a C compiler which is free -at least for some 
definition of free- but not GCC).



-- 
Basile STARYNKEVITCH         http://starynkevitch.net/Basile/
email: basile<at>starynkevitch<dot>net mobile: +33 6 8501 2359
8, rue de la Faiencerie, 92340 Bourg La Reine, France
*** opinions {are only mines, sont seulement les miennes} ***