Re: [Texi2html-bug] Re: about public domain code in texi2html

[Patrice Dumas]

On Mon, Nov 03, 2008 at 04:41:50PM -0600, Karl Berry wrote:
>     I think that it is very impractical. People not wanting to carry over
>     the GPL notice over their files have to think what is copyrightable and
>     what is not copyrightable.
> 
> It seems to me that whether users follow techno-legal procedures
> perfectly (for sure, I agree they won't) is not the point.  But rather,
> do we want to have any recourse in case of problems.

I would like the reverse, that is users know that we have no recourse
against them even if they use code from texi2html.init in any way.

>     Not all the scripts, only texi2html.init. I just want that people can
>     copy and paste the code and do whatever they want with the code,
>     including put it under a restrictive license. 
> 
> That's the part I don't understand.  texi2html.init is about 5000 lines
> and is clearly a nontrivial part of the program.  Why do you think it
> shouldn't be protected?

First I think that more than half is trivial (initialization, trivial
functions and maps). But more importantly, I want that users be able to 
copy a function from it, modify it and use it without having to think 
about license issues. In any case I don't think somebody would like to
steal the code to do proprietary code, so I think that practicality
comes first. Even the artistic license implies carrying over a license
notice, which is, in my opinion, too much to ask to users.

Now there are some parts that I would like to have under the same
license than the main program
t2h_default_init_split_indices
t2h_default_associate_index_element
t2h_default_index_rearrange_directions
t2h_default_printindex
but nothing else.

--
Pat

--
Pat