Re: [bug-idutils] idutils documentation license for Debian

[Greg McGary]

I must have had some hand in initial authorship of the info manual, though it has been so many years now, I can't say how much it has changed over the years.  In any case, I am willing to dual-license whatever might be my part.

G

On 08/10/13 18:24, Brad Bosch wrote:

Looks like I had some old email addresses for Jim, Greg, and Tom.  Here is another try.  But I can't find another address for Tom.  Is anyone still in contact with him?

On Sat, Aug 10, 2013 at 11:05 AM, Brad Bosch <address@hidden> wrote:

Gentlemen,

I am the Debian developer who has maintained the id-utils package for many years.  Some time ago, it was brought to my attention that the current idutils documentation license is not compatible with Debian policy because of the invariant first and last pages/section.  I understand that the FSF has been rather inflexible in this regard with other packages.

The documentation has been removed from recent versions of the package to allow it to continue to be a part of the Debian distribution, but I would like to be able to restore it to the package.  I could create a new documentation only package and place it in the non-free Debian package archive, but this is inconvenient and potentially confusing for users and extra work for me.  I know that the documentation was once explicitly not copyrighted, so I suppose I could also locate and adopt an older version, but this is clearly not ideal and also involves duplicated effort to update the old version to some extent.

I understand that the FSF allows authors to dual license their work under the GPL.  I am unsure if all of you are considered document authors or even if I may have missed someone.  Can you clarify the actual authorship of the document for me please?  If you are a copyright worthy author, are you willing to dual-license your idutils documentation under some version of the GPL?

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide in this matter!

--Brad Bosch

address@hidden

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