FDL (was: Free Music License?)

[Bernhard R. Link]

* Bernhard Reiter <bernhard at intevation.de> [050817 13:10]:
> 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.

But if I have only a free book, all the other things I can make with it
are lost.
There are not only books and API definitions, there are tutorials,
how-tos, references and manpages. There might be interactive help screens or
tooltips, literate programming, cups or mouse pads showing the most 
important commands.

Each of these adds another access to the program or system being
documented, none of them and not even two of them together can
alone be sattisfactory.

And while they have all obvious and subtle differences, and may be best
when written from scratch, this is just impossible. By sheer lack of
time I can neigther rewrite my Operating System every time I it for
some other target, nor can I write enough documentation without
heavily using everything else documentating this program including the
source code of it.

Thus the information and its copyrightable containers in forms of
sentences and paragraphs must be able to flow between all these
different forms and ideally the source code of the machine interpreted
code of the program, too.

Adding unnecessary limits to this flow between different aspects
(What is a title page of a manpage? What that of a cup? Where do 
I "include a unaltered copy" of the 3278 words license on a mouse 
pad? Does every manpage count as "document" and has to contain the 
license and all those possible invariant sections?) or between
the documentation and the program (Are the texts of the tooltips
only mere aggregation though all of this logik when to show which?
Or do I have to write them in a clear-room implementation on my
own?) keeps us away from getting free programs with free documentation.

So please, whenever you have or feel to release something under GFDL,
please consider dual-license it adding the permissions of the GNU GPL
or any other free software compatible with the program documented.

Hochachtungsvoll,
	Bernhard R. Link



P.S: Nice visiting when you want the other parts of the license in action is:
http://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/make.html 
(visited Wed Aug 17 16:42:56 2005, my browser telling me
 last changed Tue, 28 Oct 2003 20:40:35 GMT):

the html in one page version: The only place where I find
"permission is granted" (even in the html source) is in the
description within the licence how to apply it.

The ascii text version telling:
   Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
   under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or
   any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
   Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover
   Texts.  A copy of the license is included in the section entitled
   "GNU Free Documentation License".

But the best is the (hopefully old and forgotten) postscript version:
 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document 
 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or 
 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; 
 with the Invariant Sections being "GNU General Public License", the 
 Front-Cover Texts being "A GNU Manual", and with the Back-Cover Texts 
 being as in (a) below. A copy of the license is included in the section 
 entitled "GNU Free Do cumen tation License". 
 (a) The FSF's Back-Cover Text is: You have freedom to 
 copy and modify this GNU Manual, like GNU software. 
 Copies published by the Free Software Foundation raise funds for 
 GNU development.