I just run over some problem I'd like to get discussed here, as it
might effect wheather some GFDL documents are distributeable at
all and thus wheather they could be included in the non-free
section or the sarge distribution.
Consider a (hypothetical[1]) package with some info-page having the
following copyright statement:
|Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
|under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
|any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
|Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A
|copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free
|Documentation License".
|
|@ignore
|Permission is granted to process this file through TeX
|and print the results, provided the printed document
|carries a copying permission notice identical to this
|one except for the removal of this paragraph (this
|paragraph not being relevant to the printed manual).
|
|@end ignore
|Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
|under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
|any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
|Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A
|copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free
|Documentation License".
Consider next that this info file does not contain the advertised
section nor contains the GFDL at all.
Now my question: Is it legal to distribute[2] this?
For reference, the G"F"DL says in section 2:
|You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either
|commercially or noncommercially, provided that this License, the
|copyright notices, and the license notice saying this License applies
|to the Document are reproduced in all copies, and that you add no other
|conditions whatsoever to those of this License.
Hochachtungsvoll,
Bernhard R. Link
[1] As this specific info page is not yet in a package, though I do not
doubt there will be some that have the same problem.
[2] Consider first verbatim copies. Next difficulty is a .diff.gz modifying
this file.
