Free documentation licenses

[kmself at ix.netcom.com]

on Tue, Nov 28, 2000 at 01:43:59PM -0500, John Cowan (jcowan at reutershealth.com) wrote:
> kmself at ix.netcom.com wrote:
> 
> > In the general case, if the documentation is to be freely
> > redistributable to a large license, a license which allows distribution
> > under terms at least as liberal as the software license should be
> > sufficient.
> 
> Indeed, but that is a general point not specific to documentation.
> It is commonplace for parts of a GPLed software package to be released under
> newBSD/MIT.

No, it is specific to documentation, so long as the documentation
doesn't incorporate code from the project.  

Software and its accompanying documentation are generally considered two
seperate works.  There is no licensing compatibility requirement between
the docs and the code.  Even where short samples of code could be used
in the document, they could be incorporated under fair use 107
exemptions or (possibly) by turning the document as a whole into a
collective work.  I don't believe there's anything in the GNU GPL, e.g.,
which prohibits publishing of the source code within a book, so long as
the source itself is clearly identified as GPLd.

Your example is backwards:  newBSD/MIT software can be relicensed under
GPL.  GPLd software cannot be relicensed, by third parties, under any
other license (barring GPL versioning allowances), without specific
authorization from the copyright holder(s).

IANAL, this is not legal advice.

-- 
Karsten M. Self <kmself at ix.netcom.com>     http://www.netcom.com/~kmself
 Evangelist, Zelerate, Inc.                      http://www.zelerate.org
  What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?      There is no K5 cabal
   http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/        http://www.kuro5hin.org
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