[Bf-docboard] OCL vs FDL

[Felix Rabe]

Hi.

On Mon, 25 Nov 2002 22:25:59 +0000
Ramanan Selvaratnam <rama@uklinux.net> wrote:

(Moved from further down to here.)

> I am not sure whether OCL in texinfo format will qualify as libre docs. 

I think it will not.  If a license is non-free, the format cannot make
the document free.

> To qualify as truly libre documentation the licence will have to be free 
> (GFDL) and the format too. Sadly the Docbook DTD is not free from my 
> understandings.

How is this possible?  I would be a really bad law student if
http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.2/docbookx.dtd would carry a
notice that would even just make it incompatible with the GNU GPL - I
think it is even compatible with the GNU GPL.

Also, http://www.gnupress.org/potentialauthors.html mentions DocBook
without any negative comment about it.  The FSF would not tolerate such
a link on their website if the format was non-free.

> FSF's manuals (obviously) qualify as libre documentation. They are mosty 
> copyrighted to the FSF, I believe.

> Why cannot/ should not we have libre documentation copyrighted to the Blender 
> foundation?

The FSF has the reason of being only one party that needs to be
represented in court if any of their projects should get into legal
troubles.

If many copyright holders may cause a problem for the BF as well (for
example, if it wanted to make changes to the licensing terms), then it
could also need it, but I don't exactly see why we would need that.

cu,
Felix