Bob Friesenhahn <bfriesen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes: > But do the distribution restrictions of GPL apply to Autoconf > documentation which is already formatted into regular ASCII text or > HTML? These can not be construed to be source for a "program" Well, the GPL is not limited to programs. Section 0 says "This License applies to any program or other work which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General Public License." Clearly ASCII and HTML versions of the Autoconf documentation are such works. > so modifying these forms does not appear to incur the GPL > requirement to make source available for the modified "program". I don't quite follow your point here. If someone decided to make the ASCII or HTML version the preferred format for editing the Autoconf documentation (unlikely, but possible), then they could do so under the GPL, so long as they followed the usual GPL provisions. It would be akin to using Autoconf to generate a "configure" script from somebody else's GPLed configure.ac, then hand-editing "configure" and redistributing the resulting file under the GPL without redistributing the (now-obsolete) configure.ac. The GPL already allows this, so long as hand-editing is the preferred way to update the resulting "configure" file. Conversely, if someone hand-edited autoconf.texi, and generated the ASCII or HTML version, and distributed the results without distributing autoconf.texi, that would clearly violate the GPL. So I guess I still don't understand why the GPL doesn't apply to autoconf.texi. Anyway, this part of the discussion seems to be a bit of a sideshow now. If the main objection to the GNU FDL for Autoconf is that code examples can't be copied into GPLed code, then your suggestions of placing them under the GPL should suffice; we needn't put the whole manual under the GPL. _______________________________________________ Autoconf mailing list Autoconf@xxxxxxx http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/autoconf
