gbranden pushed a commit to branch master
in repository groff.
commit 9c99ba002c734eda4d37081fd18863ff838e915c
Author: G. Branden Robinson <[email protected]>
AuthorDate: Fri Dec 19 11:50:28 2025 -0600
groff_{char,font,tmac}(7): Update license notice.
Somehow these files never got updated to GNU GPLv3 with the rest of the
groff project in 2009, and also never adopted the same license as our
Texinfo manual, with which the man pages in our "man/" directory shared
much material even back then.
Because the GNU FDL is not compatible with the GNU GPL--the FDL imposes
"further restrictions", creating a "section 7 problem" as Bradley Kuhn
and other participants in the GPLv3 drafting conference[1] put it--
xplicit dual-licensing is necessary. See our "LICENSES" file and Werner
Lemberg's remarks on the subject in 2004, helpfully archived by the
Debian Project.[2]
We could also just relicense all our docs under GNU GPL, as Werner
contemplated, but for now FDL plus the explicit dual licensing statement
we have in "LICENSES" seems like a shorter path.
Documentation in "contrib/", or which doesn't need to be migrable to our
Texinfo manual, can use the GNU GPL--or the traditional GNU permissive
documentation license[4] as the following man pages already do.
contrib/mm/groff_mm.7.man
contrib/mm/groff_mmse.7.man
contrib/mm/mmroff.1.man
src/devices/grodvi/grodvi.1.man
src/devices/grohtml/grohtml.1.man
src/devices/grolbp/grolbp.1.man
src/devices/grolj4/grolj4.1.man
src/devices/gropdf/gropdf.1.man
src/devices/gropdf/pdfmom.1.man
src/devices/grops/grops.1.man
src/devices/grotty/grotty.1.man
src/preproc/eqn/eqn.1.man
src/preproc/eqn/neqn.1.man
src/preproc/grn/grn.1.man
src/preproc/pic/pic.1.man
src/preproc/preconv/preconv.1.man
src/preproc/refer/refer.1.man
src/preproc/soelim/soelim.1.man
src/preproc/tbl/tbl.1.man
src/roff/nroff/nroff.1.man
src/utils/addftinfo/addftinfo.1.man
src/utils/afmtodit/afmtodit.1.man
src/utils/hpftodit/hpftodit.1.man
src/utils/indxbib/indxbib.1.man
src/utils/lkbib/lkbib.1.man
src/utils/lookbib/lookbib.1.man
src/utils/pfbtops/pfbtops.1.man
src/utils/tfmtodit/tfmtodit.1.man
src/utils/xtotroff/xtotroff.1.man
tmac/groff_man.7.man.in
tmac/groff_ms.7.man
[1] Like Elrond, I was there, three thousand years ago.[3]
[2]
https://salsa.debian.org/debian/groff/-/blob/master/debian/copyright?ref_type=heads#L80
[3] https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2006/01/msg00014.html
[4] SPDX calls this the "Latex2e License", though I don't know who has
priority--the FSF/GNU or the LaTeX project. Back when I was a
participant in the SPDX license review and discussion standing
committee (early 2010s), I asked around, but nobody seemed to know.
---
man/groff_char.7.man | 15 +++++++--------
man/groff_font.5.man | 14 +++++++-------
man/groff_tmac.5.man | 15 +++++++--------
3 files changed, 21 insertions(+), 23 deletions(-)
diff --git a/man/groff_char.7.man b/man/groff_char.7.man
index 3e0f05e1e..7b8fa894c 100644
--- a/man/groff_char.7.man
+++ b/man/groff_char.7.man
@@ -14,15 +14,14 @@ special character and glyph repertoire
.\"
.\" This file is part of groff, the GNU roff typesetting system.
.\"
-.\" You can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU
-.\" General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation,
-.\" either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later
-.\" version.
+.\" Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this
+.\" document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License,
+.\" Version 1.3 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.
.\"
-.\" You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
-.\" along with this program.
-.\"
-.\" If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html>.
+.\" A copy of the Free Documentation License is included as a file
+.\" called FDL in the main directory of the groff source package.
.
.
.\" Save and disable compatibility mode (for, e.g., Solaris 10/11).
diff --git a/man/groff_font.5.man b/man/groff_font.5.man
index 5e19959cf..375fceede 100644
--- a/man/groff_font.5.man
+++ b/man/groff_font.5.man
@@ -13,14 +13,14 @@ device and font description files
.\"
.\" This file is part of groff, the GNU roff typesetting system.
.\"
-.\" You can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU
-.\" General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation,
-.\" either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later
-.\" version.
+.\" Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this
+.\" document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License,
+.\" Version 1.3 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.
.\"
-.\" You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
-.\" along with this program. If not, see
-.\" <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html>.
+.\" A copy of the Free Documentation License is included as a file
+.\" called FDL in the main directory of the groff source package.
.
.
.\" Save and disable compatibility mode (for, e.g., Solaris 10/11).
diff --git a/man/groff_tmac.5.man b/man/groff_tmac.5.man
index db2fa2225..960963457 100644
--- a/man/groff_tmac.5.man
+++ b/man/groff_tmac.5.man
@@ -13,15 +13,14 @@ typesetting system
.\"
.\" This file is part of groff, the GNU roff typesetting system.
.\"
-.\" You can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU
-.\" General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation,
-.\" either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later
-.\" version.
+.\" Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this
+.\" document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License,
+.\" Version 1.3 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.
.\"
-.\" You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
-.\" along with this program.
-.\"
-.\" If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html>.
+.\" A copy of the Free Documentation License is included as a file
+.\" called FDL in the main directory of the groff source package.
.
.
.\" Save and disable compatibility mode (for, e.g., Solaris 10/11).
_______________________________________________
groff-commit mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/groff-commit
