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Date:   Wed, 2 Jun 2021 00:37:43 +0200
From:   Samuel Thibault <samuel.thibault@ens-lyon.org>
To:     Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>,
        Christopher Brannon <cmbrannon@cox.net>,
        William Hubbs <w.d.hubbs@gmail.com>,
        collins@gene3.ait.iastate.edu,
        Steve Holmes <steve.holmes88@gmail.com>
Cc:     Igor Matheus Andrade Torrente <igormtorrente@gmail.com>,
        gregkh@linuxfoundation.org, grandmaster@al2klimov.de,
        rdunlap@infradead.org, linux-doc@vger.kernel.org,
        linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2] docs: Convert the Speakup guide to rst
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Mail-Followup-To: Samuel Thibault <samuel.thibault@ens-lyon.org>,
        Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>,
        Christopher Brannon <cmbrannon@cox.net>,
        William Hubbs <w.d.hubbs@gmail.com>, collins@gene3.ait.iastate.edu,
        Steve Holmes <steve.holmes88@gmail.com>,
        Igor Matheus Andrade Torrente <igormtorrente@gmail.com>,
        gregkh@linuxfoundation.org, grandmaster@al2klimov.de,
        rdunlap@infradead.org, linux-doc@vger.kernel.org,
        linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
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Jonathan Corbet, le mar. 01 juin 2021 16:18:46 -0600, a ecrit:
> The problem is that the kernel docs, when built, include a great deal of
> code and text taken directly from the kernel source.  The built docs are
> thus a derived product of the kernel and the result needs to carry a
> GPL-compatible license.

Ah...

> I've spent some time talking with lawyers about
> this, and they have confirmed that view of things.

Yes, sure.

> As a standalone .txt file there is probably no legal problem, but that
> changes as soon as you bring it into RST TOC tree.

Yes.

> >> What are the chances that we can get the authors to agree on a change to
> >> a GPL-compatible license for this file?
> >
> > I don't know about Collins' opinion on this, Cc-ing him with the latest
> > mail my archives know for him (which dates 2008...)
> >
> > The copyright "the Speakup Team" is a more complex thing to look for.
> 
> Do you have a history of contributors to the file in its previous home?

Checking more closely, it seems we have it. The detail is in
git@github.com:linux-speakup/speakup.git in ./doc/spkguide.txt, but that
seems relatively simple:

- The initial import of the file (bddef0d280cd) wears only the Gene
  Collins copyright notice.
- I made some changes and added my copyright notice.
- Christopher Brannon (now in Cc) made various changes and added the
  "the Speakup Team" copyright notice.
- William Hubbs (now in Cc) made some changes.
- Steve Holmes (now in Cc) added one sentence.

So we'd need Gene's, Christopher's, William's, and Steve's ack on adding
the GPL alternative to the GFDL-1.2 licence.

Samuel