Re: [rfa] License clarification for observer.texi

[Daniel Jacobowitz <drow@false.org>]

On Tue, May 09, 2006 at 09:53:50PM +0300, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > Date: Tue, 9 May 2006 00:05:45 -0400
> > From: Daniel Jacobowitz <drow@false.org>
> > 
> > > > I am not permitted to include GFDL documentation in the main
> > > > tarball, but I must include observers.texi, in order to build GDB.
> > > 
> > > Why can't you simply include the generated observers.h in the main
> > > tarball?  It has the right license.
> > 
> > Because that would, in my opinion, violate at least the spirit of the
> > GPL.  "Preferred source for modification" is not that file, but the
> > manual.
> 
> I don't see how it would violate the spirit of the GPL.  That spirit
> is, in a nutshell, to let users have full freedom to modify the
> program.  By distributing observers.h you don't hamper that freedom in
> any way.

Different part of the freedom.  Section 3:

===

    a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
    source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections
    1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for
making modifications to it.  For an executable work, complete source
code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any
associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to
control compilation and installation of the executable.

===

observers.h is not "source code" according to this definition; we
_require_ contributors to modify observers.texi, so that new observers
are documented, therefore it is not the preferred form. Distributing
the header without distributiong observers.texi would violate this
paragraph.  I think that's what it says, anyway.

Maybe this is "letter" rather than "spirit".

-- 
Daniel Jacobowitz
CodeSourcery