[Mailman-Developers] Documentation status?

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Barry Warsaw writes:
 > I think the GFDL would probably be more appropriate:
 > 
 > http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html#FDL
 > 
 > I'm not as well versed on this license; what do people think about that?

"Gratuitous license proliferation" about sums it up.

The big problem with GFDL is that it means that documentation and code
can't be copied between GPL program and GFDL docs without explicit
permission of the authors.  This problem can be mostly solved by dual
licensing the documentation (including all docstrings) GFDL/GPL, of
course, but that doesn't stop downstream from reverting to single
licensing.  And it can't: requiring dual licensing is an additional
restriction prohibited by both licenses.  Nor does it help with
copying code snippets into the documentation as examples, and dual
licensing the code is right out: the GFDL is not a free software
license according to the FSF.

A possible problem is that any downstream derivative can add a cover
text or Invariant Section, and effectively fork the documentation
(unless we're willing to go nonfree to incorporate their required
texts.)  If cPanel/Plesk adds nothing else to Mailman documentation, I
bet they'll add cover texts!  And putting advertisements for their
products in cover texts and Invariant Sections is encouraged by the
FSF; that's what those provisions are there for.

In practice, these don't seem to be real problems; the FSF has
regularly looked the other way from massive unpermitted relicensing
(eg, Wikipedia) and while cPanel/Plesk might not permit removal of
their cover texts, they're not exactly famous for improving Mailman
docs.

OTOH, the only real advantage to GFDL is that we can borrow from other
GFDLed docs.  Do we want to do that?