Dear Mr Raman, (I'm the one who brought the issue up in Debian),
"T. V. Raman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The references to DEC and Adobe are legacy. Good to hear that. With that statement, IMO we can use emacspeak 21.0 as is without need for urgent changes. > Each lisp file clearly states it's not part of Emacs but the same > licensing rules apply --as far as I am concerned that's GPL. Yes, that was what I found so confusing - the statement in all the files contradicted that one file in etc/. However, there are a couple of files that don't have their own GPL statement, e.g. html-outline.el, sawfishrc, all the xml and au files etc. Most of it - especially the xml stuff and perhaps the au files, I didn't listen to all of them - might not even be copyrightable because they lacks the creative moment. > The .ram files etc are conveniences for blind users -- theyre no > more than a hotlist. Attempting to be legalistic and anal about > these will only cause me t delete those files; nay I'll probably > even stop bothering making releases. Frankly, I don't think the ram files need any license statement. Anyway, there are some files that would better have one. I think it would be best and easiest if you could, for a future release, change the COPYRIGHT file so that it simply says that all included files are under GPL, even those that don't state this explicitly - this would save you from deciding which of these files do deserve such a statement individually. There's one more small point, the license of the documentation. The info files currently don't permit modification, and the user's guide and install manual are under GFDL. You might have heard that Debian has a problem with the GFDL, while the FSF recommends it (and delegations of both groups are currently trying to sort this out). I don't want to bother you with these discussions. But to put it simple: In my opinion, it is best if the documentation that is shipped with some software has the same license as the software itself. This allows to change the documentation if the software is changed, and it allows to take parts of the documentation and copy them to the software as docstrings, or vice versa. With GFDL, this is only allowed to the copyright holder, so it won't be a problem as long as you are the maintainer of Emacspeak. But it might become relevant in the future, or if somebody wants to use parts of the code (and documentation) to develop something else (vispeak ;-) ...). Therefore, I and probably many others would be glad if you would be able to put these three texts under GPL, too, or at least allow modification for the info files. Formally, Debian doesn't care about GFDL or not GFDL for its upcoming sarge release; what happens later will depend on the outcome of the talks with the FSF. Kind Regards, Frank Küster -- Frank Küster Inst. f. Biochemie der Univ. Zürich Debian Developer
