[Pkg-doc-linux-devel] LDP "non-free" documents

[Emma Jane Hogbin]

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Hello,

I am the current maintainer for the LDP Author Guide. I'm working on the
section on licensing right now. It has been brought to my attention that
the LDP documents have been divided into "free" and "non-free" packages. I
would like to give our authors a succinct explanation on the distinction so
that they may choose the best license for their document.

I have read:
	http://packages.debian.org/unstable/doc/doc-linux-nonfree-html
and see that:
	The documents in this package fail to meet the Debian Free Software
	Guidelines for various reasons. For the most part this is due to
	significant restrictions on modification or on commercial
	redistribution, neither of which can be allowed for packages in the
	main distribution. See /usr/share/doc/doc-linux-nonfree-html/copyright
	for full details.

I have read:
	 /usr/share/doc/doc-linux-nonfree-html/copyright
and see that it explains why each document has been included in this
package.

Could you please tell me how you make the decision whether a document is
considered "free" (I see how these specific documents are "non-free")? I=20
am hoping that there is some kind of (published) checklist that I could=20
point authors to. I have no problem with the distinction as some documents=
=20
are clearly not modifiable and cannot be redistributed, but I would like=20
to know by what criteria this distinction is made. The decision does not
seem to be based on license alone as there are some GNU FDL documents in
the "non-free" package, but not all GNU FDL documents are "non-free."

I look forward to your response so that I may update the LDP Author Guide.

thank you,
emma

--=20
Emma Jane Hogbin
I18N Coordinator, The Linux Documentation Project
www.tldp.org

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