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Re: I wrote a C tutorial
Siward de Groot
Re: I wrote a C tutorial
Wed, 4 May 2005 02:57:40 +0200
On Monday 02 May 2005 16:29, Jonathan Bartlett wrote:
| > Descriptions and prototypes of these functions
| > have been taken from info libc ;
| > Descriptions have been (heavily) edited,
| > Prototypes have been included nearly unaltered.
| If you don't want to use the GNU license, I suggest the following:
| * delete the chapter
| * copy the prototypes
| * describe it entirely in your own words, using the libc manual for
| reference only, not for wording
OK. if i can use the prototypes literally, then i don't have a problem,
just a bit of work.
I'll lay text of that chapter next to text of info,
and replace anything i copied verbatim.
It'll still be a bit similar to info libc,
because one of goals is to accustom readers to use that,
but i can do that in my own words too.
| The issue with proprietary licenses is that they REMOVE rights while the
| GFDL and GPL GRANT additional rights.
| > Specifically: clause that says that
| > it can be distributed under any later version of
| > a license with same name if that is published by FSF.
| > In effect, this transfers copyright of my manual to FSF,
| Incorrect. You still remain copyright, and can re-license the part of
| the material that is your own under any license you wish.
I'm not saying that FSF is as proprietary as microsoft,
for practical purposes, FSF is quite similar to freedom.
Technically however, if FSF decided that in a newer version of licence
some type of invariant section in my work would be allowed to be varied,
then they could, and this would effectively limit my copyright,
that's what i mean with 'proprietary' here,
as part of my copyright effectively becomes FSF's property.
(not a problem for me, my work doesnt have invariant sections).
I got a reply from John Hasler in which he says that i can
specify a licence-version,
and then this 'or any later version' clause doesn't apply ;
is that true ?
would i need to state explicitly which clause overrides which other ?
(i just ask this out of curiosity, i'll use my naive licence for my work,
at least until i find it too naive to prevent abuse).
| > (Is 'obligation to give FSF carte blanche'
| > your interpretation of 'free licence' ?)
| > Why would anybody ever want to include a clause like that ?
| Future compatibility.
Hm? You just claimed that my ability to relicence my work
was sufficient for showing that i still had same copyright ;
Do GNU folks consider FSF to be (legal) part of their organization ?
In that case they'lld be giving themselves carte blanche,
which would make this clause a lot more understandable.
| This is incorrect. INFORMATION cannot be copyrighted. If you read
| through the libc documentation, the information you grasp from there is
| not copyrighted. The presentation of the information is. To the extent
| that there is only one way of communicating certain information (for
| example, C interface definitions), copyright does not apply.
AHA! I didn't know that, thanks for telling.
It wasn't clear to me from text of GFDL either,
maybe (wishlist) add a note about it ?
Is this true for every country in the world ?
| You are certainly free to learn from the libc manuals and then retell
| the same information in your own way. What is not permitted is verbatim
| copying of GNU's creative work.
Yeah, well, i thought that creating and documenting the compiler etc
was the creative work.
If it's just the arbitrary parts of the presentation,
then it's a lot freeer than i thought.
Thanks for your reply.
It has shown me a good way to handle my problem.
Long live free software. :-)