Free documentation licenses

[kmself at ix.netcom.com]

on Tue, Nov 28, 2000 at 02:43:13PM -0800, Mitchell Baker (mitchell at mozilla.org) wrote:

> John Cowan wrote:
> 
> > kmself at ix.netcom.com wrote:

<...>

> >> 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 agree; my argument speaks to expediency, not necessity.

> We're also trying to figure out a documentation license for the
> Mozilla Project.  One reason we've talked about using the same license
> for documentation and code is that it can be difficult to separate the
> two.  For example, the Help documentation is included in electronic
> format as part of the source code.  It seems odd to treat this
> documentation under one license in this format and under another
> license if it's printed.  And even odder to say that the help
> documentation in the code is not governed by the MPL, but by a
> different documenation license.
> 
> Has anyone sorted through this type of problem?
> 
> Apologies if this has been discussed and I missed the thread. 

John and I were arguing slightly different points.  Where docs are
clearly differentiated from code, independent licensing is an *option*.
In the instance you describe, the close relationship makes the
distinction harder to draw.

I'd also look at some of the issues addressed in documentation licenses
which are different from those of software -- the GFDL deals with
several of these, though some could perhaps be more rigorously defined
(e.g.:  output-only HTML).

-- 
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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