Rename VERBATIM license (was: Re: [RFC v3 8/9] Many pages: [Verbatim-man-pages] Use SPDX markings)

["Alejandro Colomar (man-pages)" <alx.manpages@gmail.com>]

Hi, Branden, and Michael!

On 9/8/21 6:35 AM, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> Hi, Alex!
> 
> I'd like to request a different choice of name for the SPDX license tag
> used by the man-pages documents affected by this change.  It's my
> understanding that there is freedom to make such a choice because the
> proposed tag does not yet appear in the SPDX license list[1].
> 
> I have a few reasons: (1) the license tag says "Verbatim" which implies
> to me that permission to modify the document is excluded--but it is not;

Completely agree!

I never understood why it was called Verbatim, and I even thought that 
my understanding of the concept "verbatim" was wrong, because it 
contradicted the license contents.  I had to re-read it (and google 
"verbatim") many times to arrive to the conclusion that the naming and 
the contents simply don't match.

> (2) with the exception of the paragraph about the kernel and system
> libraries being in flux, this license appears identical to what I (and
> some folks in Debian) started terming the "traditional GNU documentation
> license) about 18 years ago when debate over the GNU FDL was raging[2];
> this was in fact the license the GNU project used for most of its
> documentation before it promulgated the FDL.  As far as I know, this
> license text has no earlier provenance; I would appreciate correction on
> this point.  Thirdly, since that time, the GNU project has christened
> the license terms for many of its web pages the "GNU Verbatim Copying
> License"[3].  You can perhaps see how this might generate confusion.
> 
> Because the warranty-disclaiming third paragraph about the Linux kernel
> is unique to the Linux man-pages project and the term "verbatim" implies
> too much restriction in my view, I envision a few alternatives.
> 
> man-pages-doc
> man-pages-document-copyleft
> man-pages-copyleft
> 
> Any of the above could be further prefixed with "Linux-" to reinforce
> the specificity to this project, of course.  If pressed for a
> preference, I reckon I would pick "Linux-man-pages-copyleft".

I like that name.  Less historical, but more precise.  Michael?

Acked-by: Alejandro Colomar <alx.manpages@gmail.com>

I don't know if the Linux man-pages license has made it into other man 
pages, in which case, I would omit the "Linux-" prefix for 
compatibility.  I guess BSD man pages use the BSD license.

The identifier "Verbatim-man-pages" is already in SPDX, but it is yet 
unreleased.  They talked about releasing soon, so could you please jump 
in there and propose that change to SPDX?:
<https://github.com/spdx/license-list-XML/issues/1310#issuecomment-911876593>


BTW, does the "traditional GNU documentation license" have an SPDX 
identifier?

> 
> I feel that the "VERBATIM" string is similarly misleading, but it's not
> presented as an SPDX license tag, and I see that its use is already
> well-entrenched.  I expected to find something like a sed script in the
> man-pages scripts/ directory that manipulated lines matching
> '%%%LICENSE_START(' but failed to.  Perhaps a convenient new moniker
> could be adopted to supersede "VERBATIM" in this context, once the SPDX
> tagging initiative is complete?

The SPDX license text doesn't contain the LICENSE_START and LICENSE_END 
lines, so if we change the name, there will be no traces of VERBATIM 
(apart from the git history, that is).

Cheers,

Alex

> 
> Regards,
> Branden


-- 
Alejandro Colomar
Linux man-pages comaintainer; https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/
http://www.alejandro-colomar.es/