Is man-pages-posix redistributable?

Is man-pages-posix redistributable?

[Christoph Erhardt]

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Hi list,

I have a question regarding the redistribution of man-pages-posix.
Prior to the 2017-a release, the POSIX_COPYRIGHT file contained the following 
paragraph:
> Redistribution of this material is permitted so long as this notice and
> the corresponding notices within each POSIX manual page are retained on
> any distribution, and the nroff source is included. Modifications to
> the text are permitted so long as any conflicts with the standard
> are clearly marked as such in the text.

In the 2017-a release, that paragraph has disappeared. I would like to clarify 
the implications of that for downstream distributions.

The Fedora project, which is known to be very strict about licensing concerns, 
sees the new licence as impermissible and has dropped the POSIX man pages as a 
consequence: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2116859

Now, Fedora's quasi-official way of dealing with such licensing issues would 
be to add the item in question to RPM Fusion's 'nonfree' package repository. I 
have opened an inclusion request:
https://bugzilla.rpmfusion.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6396

However, the discussion there has raised the question whether the contents of 
man-pages-posix are redistributable *at all* - given that the clause 
mentioning redistribution has vanished from the licence.

Could someone please clarify?

Thanks a lot,
Christoph

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Re: Is man-pages-posix redistributable?

[Christoph Erhardt]

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Hi all,

who would be capable of answering that question?

Thanks,
Christoph

On Monday, 29 August 2022 08:14:22 CEST Christoph Erhardt wrote:
> Hi list,
> 
> I have a question regarding the redistribution of man-pages-posix.
> Prior to the 2017-a release, the POSIX_COPYRIGHT file contained the
> following
> paragraph:
> > Redistribution of this material is permitted so long as this notice and
> > the corresponding notices within each POSIX manual page are retained on
> > any distribution, and the nroff source is included. Modifications to
> > the text are permitted so long as any conflicts with the standard
> > are clearly marked as such in the text.
> 
> In the 2017-a release, that paragraph has disappeared. I would like to
> clarify the implications of that for downstream distributions.
> 
> The Fedora project, which is known to be very strict about licensing
> concerns, sees the new licence as impermissible and has dropped the POSIX
> man pages as a consequence:
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2116859
> 
> Now, Fedora's quasi-official way of dealing with such licensing issues would
> be to add the item in question to RPM Fusion's 'nonfree' package
> repository. I have opened an inclusion request:
> https://bugzilla.rpmfusion.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6396
> 
> However, the discussion there has raised the question whether the contents
> of man-pages-posix are redistributable *at all* - given that the clause
> mentioning redistribution has vanished from the licence.
> 
> Could someone please clarify?
> 
> Thanks a lot,
> Christoph


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Re: Is man-pages-posix redistributable?

[Christoph Erhardt]

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Anyone?

My preferred answer would be 'your question is stupid; *of course* man-pages-
posix is redistributable'. So if that is indeed the case, please don't 
hesitate to say so. ;-)

Thanks,
Christoph

On Monday, 29 August 2022 08:14:22 CEST Christoph Erhardt wrote:
> Hi list,
> 
> I have a question regarding the redistribution of man-pages-posix.
> Prior to the 2017-a release, the POSIX_COPYRIGHT file contained the
> following
> paragraph:
> > Redistribution of this material is permitted so long as this notice and
> > the corresponding notices within each POSIX manual page are retained on
> > any distribution, and the nroff source is included. Modifications to
> > the text are permitted so long as any conflicts with the standard
> > are clearly marked as such in the text.
> 
> In the 2017-a release, that paragraph has disappeared. I would like to
> clarify the implications of that for downstream distributions.
> 
> The Fedora project, which is known to be very strict about licensing
> concerns, sees the new licence as impermissible and has dropped the POSIX
> man pages as a consequence:
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2116859
> 
> Now, Fedora's quasi-official way of dealing with such licensing issues would
> be to add the item in question to RPM Fusion's 'nonfree' package
> repository. I have opened an inclusion request:
> https://bugzilla.rpmfusion.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6396
> 
> However, the discussion there has raised the question whether the contents
> of man-pages-posix are redistributable *at all* - given that the clause
> mentioning redistribution has vanished from the licence.
> 
> Could someone please clarify?
> 
> Thanks a lot,
> Christoph


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Re: Is man-pages-posix redistributable?

[Alejandro Colomar]

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Hi Christoph,

On 9/28/22 10:15, Christoph Erhardt wrote:
> Anyone?

Sorry, I was on vacation.

> 
> My preferred answer would be 'your question is stupid; *of course* man-pages-
> posix is redistributable'. So if that is indeed the case, please don't
> hesitate to say so. ;-)

I'd like to, but I can't.  I'm not sure if it's true, but the fact is 
that it's not obvious.

> 
> Thanks,
> Christoph
> 
> On Monday, 29 August 2022 08:14:22 CEST Christoph Erhardt wrote:
>> Hi list,
>>
>> I have a question regarding the redistribution of man-pages-posix.
>> Prior to the 2017-a release, the POSIX_COPYRIGHT file contained the
>> following
>> paragraph:
>>> Redistribution of this material is permitted so long as this notice and
>>> the corresponding notices within each POSIX manual page are retained on
>>> any distribution, and the nroff source is included. Modifications to
>>> the text are permitted so long as any conflicts with the standard
>>> are clearly marked as such in the text.
>>
>> In the 2017-a release, that paragraph has disappeared. I would like to
>> clarify the implications of that for downstream distributions.
>>
>> The Fedora project, which is known to be very strict about licensing
>> concerns, sees the new licence as impermissible and has dropped the POSIX
>> man pages as a consequence:
>> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2116859
>>
>> Now, Fedora's quasi-official way of dealing with such licensing issues would
>> be to add the item in question to RPM Fusion's 'nonfree' package
>> repository. I have opened an inclusion request:
>> https://bugzilla.rpmfusion.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6396
>>
>> However, the discussion there has raised the question whether the contents
>> of man-pages-posix are redistributable *at all* - given that the clause
>> mentioning redistribution has vanished from the licence.
>>
>> Could someone please clarify?

The person who could clarify this certainly is Michael Kerrisk.  I'm not 
sure if he will have the time to read this, though.

I'm sorry I have no idea.  POSIX is too closed for my taste.  I tried 
contacting them a long time ago regarding this, and I received no 
answer, and their website is a labyrinth to me.

I encourage you to try to contact them with this problem, and ask that 
they clarify it, and if possible, that they publish the source code 
(hopefully the roff(7), not HTML) with whatever license they wish, so 
that I can pick it easily.  I'm worried that if they don't do, I won't 
be able to provide manual pages for the next revision of POSIX, if they 
don't.

>>
>> Thanks a lot,
>> Christoph
> 

Thank you,

Alex

-- 
<http://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>

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Re: Is man-pages-posix redistributable?

[Christoph Erhardt]

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Thanks, Alex!

I have reached out to The Open Group via some contact form on their website; 
let's see if I'll get a reply from them.

On Wednesday, 28 September 2022 15:56:29 CEST Alejandro Colomar wrote:
> The person who could clarify this certainly is Michael Kerrisk.  I'm not 
> sure if he will have the time to read this, though.
> 
> I'm sorry I have no idea.  POSIX is too closed for my taste.  I tried 
> contacting them a long time ago regarding this, and I received no 
> answer, and their website is a labyrinth to me.
> 
> I encourage you to try to contact them with this problem, and ask that 
> they clarify it, and if possible, that they publish the source code 
> (hopefully the roff(7), not HTML) with whatever license they wish, so 
> that I can pick it easily.  I'm worried that if they don't do, I won't 
> be able to provide manual pages for the next revision of POSIX, if they 
> don't.
Hmm, that's a rather unsatisfying overall situation indeed. The description in
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/docs/man-pages/man-pages-posix.git/tree/README
is also vague on the details of how and where exactly to obtain the troff 
sources.

I'd really like to get back to a state where I can successfully type
`man pthread_cond_wait` into a terminal on Fedora.

Best,
Christoph

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