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Re: Could /Documentation/technical/commit-graph.txt be relicensed under a permissive license?

From
brian m. carlson <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net>
Date
Dec 13, 2019, 00:58 UTC
Message-ID
<20191213005820.GD1334263@camp.crustytoothpaste.net>
In-Reply-To
<20191210205056.GA14079@coredump.intra.peff.net>
On 2019-12-10 at 20:50:56, Jeff King wrote:
Show 14 quoted lines
> On Tue, Dec 10, 2019 at 03:38:35PM -0500, Derrick Stolee wrote:
> 
> > (Insert "I am not a lawyer" warning.)
> > 
> > I think this is the correct interpretation. One can interact with
> > binary files as you want. In fact, there are likely privately
> > licensed products that interact with Git's pack-files even though
> > their format documentation is under GPL.
> > 
> > What _could_ be problematic is repeating the documentation directly
> > in another permissive-licensed repository.
> 
> That's my understanding as well. That said, I would not be opposed to
> some kind of statement in the documentation making our view explicit.

This is consistent with my interpretation as well. I view the documentation as a specification, and implementers are free to license their software as they see fit. They need only comply with the GPL if they wish to copy, modify, or distribute the documentation itself (or other parts of Git).

I see this exactly as the situation with RFCs (e.g., TCP): they are documentation licensed under non-free terms, but there are multiple independent implementations of those RFCs under different terms (Linux, FreeBSD, and Windows, for example). The license terms of the RFCs apply only to those documents, not the implementations.

-- 
brian m. carlson: Houston, Texas, US
OpenPGP: https://keybase.io/bk2204
Previous: Johannes SchindelinNext: Jakub Narebski
Message 10 of 11 in “Could /Documentation/technical/commit-graph.txt be relicensed under a permissive license?”
  1. KOLANICHDec 10, 2019
  2. Junio C HamanoDec 10, 2019
  3. Derrick StoleeDec 10, 2019
  4. Jeff KingDec 10, 2019
  5. Derrick StoleeDec 10, 2019
  6. Ed MasteDec 10, 2019
  7. Junio C HamanoDec 10, 2019
  8. KOLANICHDec 11, 2019
  9. Johannes SchindelinDec 11, 2019
  10. brian m. carlsonDec 13, 2019
  11. Jakub NarebskiDec 15, 2019

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