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The LDP and Debian

Posted by michael on from the documentation-always-a-weak-spot dept.

Guylhem writes: "The former LDP license was the first license used for our documentation. While we are now recommending the GNU FDL and the OPL 1 without options A or B, many documents are still licensed under the LDPL. David Merril, our Collection Coordinator, noticed that the LDPL is "not free" according to the Debian Free Software Guidelines. We have to get in touch with the authors as soon as possible or 2/3 of the LDP document collection will be removed from the base Debian distribution because the code freeze is happening in 2 days. Maybe some of the LDP unreachable authors are reading slashdot and could take 1 minute to submit an updated document licensed under the FDL or OPL v1 -A -B ? Another solution is to find volunteers to rewrite from scratch the concerned documents."

5 of 279 comments (clear)

  1. Re:As an author by lupercalia · · Score: 5, Informative

    Sorry, you're incorrect. They are being moved into non-free, not being dropped.

    David Merrill,
    LDP Collection Coordinator

  2. Re:Questions by lupercalia · · Score: 5, Informative

    I can see where this is confusing. What has happened is that there have been several versions of the LDP License, and also a sample "boilerplate" license listed in our manifesto.

    Some of them are Free, some are Non-Free.

    We are doing our best to get as many documents licensed to suit Debian guidelines as we can. However, the LDP is not a Free project, and we do not require a Free license. We DO want to keep our documents in Debian as much as we possibly can, so I am asking the LDP authors to consider seriously a relicensing in order to do that. I'm not forcing anyone to do anything. Allegations to the contrary just show you didn't bother to read the announcement.

    Now if I may be permitted a micro-rant...

    I'm a volunteer just like the other LDP volunteers, and I give lots of my time trying to create and improve the documentation you all count on. I'm doing my best to deal appropriately with a difficult situation, and I'd appreciate receiving some support for that rather than endless flames and gripes over things I'm not even doing.

    And Flower, that isn't directed at you. :-)

    David Merrill
    LDP Collection Coordinator

  3. Re:As an author by lupercalia · · Score: 5, Informative

    There is now a list of the documents which are not GFDL or OPL on the LDP website.

    I know that some of these are free, not non-free, but I wanted to get the preliminary list up, especially now that this is a SlashDot story. This list is a list of all documents where the license isn't GFDL or OPL, or public domain (only a few LDP documents are under other free licenses).

    Also, it doesn't show documents relicensed in the last few days.

    Thanks again for the good idea.

    David Merrill
    LDP Collection Coordinator

  4. Re:Cutting off you nose to spite your face by Guylhem · · Score: 5, Informative

    I will do my best for our documentation not to be removed from the "free" section during this freeze. 3 years ago, we did draft the LDPL "non free" with a purpose: most of our authors did want it that way! Documentation is not software.

    Moreover, there was no really free documentation license. Now we have 2 of them which please most of our authors. Fine. Let's move forward.

    Your solution (requesting an exception, or a different code freeze date) is the last resort.

    I would feel better if the authors did accept the license change. I will contact each one of them - if most of them change the license, I don't think debian would have a problem granting us a separate code-freeze date while we fix the remaining documents.

    Else I would welcome any volunteer to join the LDP and rewrite the documents.

    Guylhem P. Aznar
    LDP coordinator

  5. "Debian fanatics"? No ... Here are the facts. by cjwatson · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm the maintainer of the Debian packages containing the English-language HOWTOs distributed by the Linux Documentation Project.

    A few days ago, during a discussion we were having about other things, David Merrill brought it to my attention that many of the LDP documents didn't belong in our main distribution. With the evidence in front of me, it was hard for me not to agree, and, once I knew of the problem, I felt bound to do something about it.

    The timing, of course, was unfortunate, coming as it did so close to the woody freeze. Yes, I should have noticed it earlier, but to be honest I've been kind of busy writing code and fixing bugs in the three months or so since I've been working on Debian's HOWTO packages. I certainly wouldn't have planned it this way; the situation now leaves me with less than three weeks to implement a bunch of code to parse the LDP database and to split the packages up, which is definitely not something I enjoy doing at the end of a release cycle, so we aren't doing this for our own amusement.

    Personally, I am extremely disappointed that much of the doc-linux packages will have to become doc-linux-non-free-html and doc-linux-non-free-text. I didn't become the doc-linux maintainer with the intention of removing documentation from the standard installation! I'll be doing my best to ensure that any documents that we start being able to distribute in main are moved back into main as soon as possible, including submitting updates for point releases of woody and persuading the release manager to include them. I'll also be checking by hand as many of the documents in non-free as I can just in case they really are free. The two days mentioned in the story, incidentally, are when the relevant part of the freeze starts, not when it ends, so the notice that's been given to authors isn't quite so ridiculously short as it sounds. Any documents that get relicensed in the next month and a bit will be included in main for woody, and it wouldn't surprise me if that deadline could be allowed to slip a bit.

    I find it fascinating that lots of people seem to think that Debian is somehow beating its chest, stirring trouble, or being generally obnoxious. This is simply not true. First of all, we're reacting to concerns from the LDP, and secondly all the conversations I've had with LDP people, especially David Merrill, have been very civil and friendly. (Incidentally, David, if you're reading this, I owe you a drink of your choice.)

    If you'd like to see where this discussion started, try the thread about this on debian-legal. Although David's original mail to me wasn't sent to that mailing list, I think the linked article quotes everything important.

    I wish David and the LDP volunteers all the best, and I dearly hope that the current situation will be temporary.