Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 14:47:36 -0600
From: "Ross J. Reedstrom" <reedstrm@rice.edu>
To: pgsql-docs@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: PL/SQL-to-PL/pgSQL-HOWTO
Message-ID: <20010226144736.B14049@rice.edu>
References: <20010225103315.A21512@cc.usu.edu>
	<20010226083536.A6615@cc.usu.edu>
	<3A9AA0A3.61D1400C@alumni.caltech.edu>
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	from lockhart@alumni.caltech.edu on Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at
	06:29:55PM +0000

On Mon, Feb 26, 2001 at 06:29:55PM +0000, Thomas Lockhart wrote:
> >         In pgsql-hackers I was told to submit the HOWTO to pgsql-docs and
> > didn't know that this was a list. I apologize for those in the list for
> > the big sgml file you've received. I thought this was a submission address
> > for Thomas Lockhart.
> 
> No need to apologize; afaik it is appropriate to submit content to this
> list (it isn't *that* high traffic, and documentation-types should be
> interested in this).
> 
> OTOH, I apologize for my ignorance here: what is the "GNU documentation
> license"?

http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html

Another interesting license is the Open Publication License:

http://opencontent.org/openpub/

Actually, that's a good question. We've had the regular go-arounds on
HACKERs regarding code licensing (short answer: it'll stay BSD for the
forseeable future), but never discussed documentation licenses. It
sort of came up when Bruce's book came out, but not much was said.

For code, we've been less selective about what's in contrib than the
core tree, isn't that the case? I count 12 occurences of files license
under the GPL in contrib. So, for doco, do we need to make the same 
restriction?

Are there real differences in how docs should be licensed, compared to
software? Personally, I find the distinction between BSD and GPL like
licenses almost meaningless in the world of docs: either license allows
unlimited copying, and require crediting the original authors. THe
biggest difference is requiring the 'source code' to be provided. The
'source code' for a doc is easily recoverable from the distributed
'compiled' version, unlike the case for software.

So, what do people think?

Ross