Debian Documentation Policy (DRAFT)
Footnotes

1

Note that there is currently disagreement regarding wether or not documentation can be asked to be free in the DFSG sense. Arguably, the DFSG does not really apply to documentation since they are free software guidelines. Some other people think there is not really any distinction between documentation and software. The debate on this have not finished yet but it may be worthwhile reading the thread at debian-legal Proposed: Debian's Five Freedoms for Free Works.

2

For more information refer to this thread on the debian-doc mailing list.

3

This has been an issue discussed many times on the debian-legal and debian-doc mailing list. Relevant discussions (sorted chronologically, updated as of september 2003) include:

• The survey Is the GNU FDL a DFSG-free license?.

• The thread A possible approach in solving the FDL problem.

• The thread GFDL - status?.

• The thread The debate on Invariant sections (long).

• GFDL Freeness and Cover Texts.

• The thread various opinions on Debian vs the GFDL.

• Comments on GFDL, may be useful for statement.

• The Proposed statement with respect to GNU FDL.

• The thread Suggestion to maintainers of GFDL docs.

• FSF has published GNU FDL version 1.2.

• GNU FDL 1.2 draft comment summary posted, and RFD.

• Should the GFDL bee under /usr/share/common-licenses?.

• The GNU FDL is a free license!

• FDL 1.2 draft comment summary

• Problems in GNU FDL 1.2 Draft

• Comments on GNU FDL 1.2 Draft

• [summary] Interpretive Guideline regarding DFSG clause 3

• Final Draft: Interpretive Guideline regarding DFSG clause 3

• Proposed: interpretive guidelines regarding DFSG 3, modifiability, and invariant text

4

There is a workgroup to try to make the license version 3.0 compatible with the DFSG, as reported in debian-legal.

5

Some people think that some sections, such as IV.2, IV.4 and IV.5 might be too restrictive, and IV.3 might be more specific than needed. However, this license was discussed in the debian-legal mailing list in october 2001, january 2000, and november 1999 (old draft discussion).

6

The reasons for using of debiandoc-sgml is, among others, historical. When the DDP started producing documentation for Debian there was no SGML DTD that fit the needs of the documentation team. Linuxdoc-sgml, the DTD used by the Linux Documentation Project at the time, lacked some features, and the documentation team decided to create it's own DTD.

7

This has also been chosen by The Linux Documentation Project as its main format as described in the LDP Author Guide.

8

Note that there currently is no stylesheet made by the DDP to build documents in the right way (tm). Volunteers for this task should contact the debian-doc mailing list.

9

If you are a Debian developer you will access it through the :ext:ssh method, otherwise a pserver account will be created for you

10

Which will unfortunately include usually also a lot of spam due to his name being published in many places and making it a target for mail harvesters :-(

11

This makes it easier for the maintainer to apply the patch in case the document has changes a lot since the reader read it and reported the bug with a patch. Many documents are moving targets and might change quite a lot from one reader to another

Debian Documentation Policy (DRAFT)