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 > -- > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-doc" in > the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-doc" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
