[Bug-jwhois] Bug#708956: Bug#708956: Bug#708956: [jwhois] GFDL non free license

[Mathieu Lirzin]

Hello,

Mathieu Lirzin <address@hidden> writes:

> Yuan-Chen Cheng <address@hidden> writes:
>
>> Shall we just remove those two file from the install list and live
>> with that ?
>>
>> I am interested to provide patch to do that if that’s the possible and
>> legal way to do.
[...]
> IIUC correctly the issue is that the license notice in Jwhois 4.0 manual is
>
> Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
> under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or
> any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
> Invariant Sections, with the Front-Cover Texts being ``A GNU Manual,''
> and with the Back-Cover Texts as in (a) below.  A copy of the
> license is included in the section entitled ``GNU Free Documentation
> License.''
>
> (a) The FSF's Back-Cover Text is: ``You have freedom to copy and modify
> this GNU Manual, like GNU software.  Copies published by the Free
> Software Foundation raise funds for GNU development.''
>
> which requires the FSF back-cover text.  Without this requirement the
> manual could be distributed as in Debian main.  Like what is done with
> GNU Automake manual which license is:
>
> Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
> under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License,
> Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software
> Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover texts,
> and with no Back-Cover Texts.  A copy of the license is included in the
> section entitled ``GNU Free Documentation License.''
>
> So to recap the situation, as a recent Jwhois contributor I have already
> modified (in the development repository) the license of Jwhois to match
> the one from Automake.  I will check with the FSF if they are OK with
> that.

The FSF is not willing to adapt its licenses to comply with Debian
Policy until a compromise between Debian and the FSF is negotiated on
the general GFDL issue.

This means that I have reverted my change in JWhois development
repository which mistakenly has removed the Front-Cover and Back-Cover
texts. As a consequence the current issue will remain valid in the next
JWhois release.

So in the short term, the best way to solve this issue would be to move
the manual from JWhois into a separate package 'jwhois-doc' in Debian
"non-free" repository, like what is done for GNU Bison.

Thanks.

-- 
Mathieu Lirzin