[Pkg-scicomp-devel] Distribution problem with the Sundials documentation

[Alan Hindmarsh]

Hello Rafael,

I do not yet have input on these questions from the other two authors,
but here is my answer:

First, the BSD license agreeement restrictions apply only to the
software, not at all to the documentation.

Given that fact, I would suggest that you continue to freely
distribute the documentation in PDF form.  Even though that may not be
compliant with DFSG, I do not see what is lost to your user community
in that solution.

I am not in favor of releasing the documentation source files.

-Alan H


On Tue, 23 Jun 2009, Rafael Laboissiere wrote:

> Dear Sundial authors,
>
> We have been distributing Sundials in Debian since version 2.2.0 [1].
> The Debian GNU/Linux distribution has a high standards quality and we pay
> particular attention to the freeness of the software we distributed (cf the
> Debian Free Software Guidelines, DFSG [2]).
>
> We recently noticed that part of the package that we distribute is not
> compliant with the DFSG.  It regards the documentation in the PDF format
> (in doc.*/*.pdf).  First, it is not clear which are the licensing
> conditions of those files.  Second, the source files of the PDF files are
> not avaialble.
>
> The simplest solution for us, in order to make the package DFSG-compliant
> is to strip out the PDF files.  That would be a pity for our users,
> because the PDF documentation is a valuable addition to the package.
> Another solution would be that you state clear which are the licensing
> conditions of the documentation (and, obviously, it corresponds to a free
> license) and that you make the source files available.
>
> Would you be willing to do it?
>
> 1: http:// packages.debian.org/search?keywords=sundials
> 2: http:// www. debian.org/social_contract#guidelines
>
> Thanks for your attention.
>
> Cheers,
>
> --
> Rafael Laboissiere, Debian developer
>
>