On Tue, Aug 16, 2005 at 10:22:18AM +0200, Bernhard R. Link wrote:
- Bernhard Reiter bernhard@intevation.de [050815 12:15]:
the GNU FDL is a very decent documentation license. It touches some points that others would not have thought about before.
However it is not the last word on what freedom a documentation needs and how to archive this. Many have expected more, but for the focus of transporting technical instructions in books, the GNU FDL is among the best license I know, because clearly aimed at more freedom for society.
I think that's the main problem with the GNU FDL, it is a very nice free book license. It just is no free software license, an thus in my eyes totally unsuitable for documentation accompanying programs.
It was meant to not be a Free Software license, because it is for free documentation.
If you are documenting a program, it depends what the purpose of the documentation is to find out if the GNU FDL fits it.
API definition and source code comments, especially is used to create documentation automatically would better be considered source code and covered by the GNU GPL.
If you make an introductary course book or or an in-depth guide to usage, the GNU FDL can be best, because this basically is a free book then.
Bernhard