Free documentation licenses

[John Cowan]

On Wed, 29 Nov 2000, Nelson Rush wrote:

> The GPL shouldn't be used for documentation, it is intended for use with
> software. I think RMS one time agreed with me on this when it came up in one
> of my other projects. Which is why he created the FDL, which is specifically
> designed for documentation.

Be that as it may, if you publish a book which contains full source with
detailed commentary (like the TeX and METAFONT sourcebooks or the
Lions Book), the book is going to be a derivative work of the
program.  Do you suppose that if you got ahold of the Windows
source code and published it in such a book that Microsoft wouldn't
scream "Copyright violation!", and rightly so?

What is, or is not, a derivative work is a matter for the law
(ultimately, the courts), not the wording of any license, and the
GPL goes out of its way to say so.

Very simply:

	book containing full source is a derivative work of the source
	source is under the GPL
	GPL says derivative works must be under the GPL too
	--------------------------------------------------------------
	book can only be published under the GPL

None of this applies to a book that merely comments on the program,
or uses at most fair-use excerpts from it, like the Linux kernel book.

-- 
John Cowan                                   cowan at ccil.org
One art/there is/no less/no more/All things/to do/with sparks/galore
	--Douglas Hofstadter