The existing text of the Guide hints at this point but doesn't discuss
it directly. This FIXME is merely a reminder note to investigate this
issue in further detail and perhaps add text here on the question.
Historically, this project used (more-or-less) a file-by-file copyright
inventory. This commit ends that practice. The project now has a
single toplevel copyright inventory, stored exclusively in
comprehensive-gpl-guide.tex (so that it appears also in compiled
versions of the Guide as well).
The side-effect of this commit is that the parts may no longer be easily
publishable separably without (at least) the additional work of
copyright notice reconstruction. This may in particular create a
challenge for the FSF, who has historically selectively published
sections of this Guide as materials for its CLE classes.
However, without this change, this Guide will eventually suffer from the
inherent problems in maintaining file-by-file copyright inventory.
Circumstances simply dictate a single, top-level copyright and license
notice for the entire Guide.
In addition to consolidation of copyright notices, I've also herein
updated my historical copyright notices to properly credit me for my own
work done in 2003 through 2005.
I've also updated the license notice to reflect the changes made by the
previous commit and related issues.
As alluded to in 2ea19b71d4 's commit
message on 2014-12-17 19:52:15 -0500, keeping any information on a
part-by-part basis is difficult and error-prone, since there exists no
reliable way to auto-generate such information accurately.
Therefore, citations to third-party works, in addition to remaining
fully documented in the commit log as they always have been, are now
placed in specifically one location in the body of the text itself: a
single appendix specifically designed for that purpose.
In this manner, contributors have no house-keeping work regarding
citations. Contributors need only list third party works and links in
one place: third-party-citations.tex.
Documentation in CONTRIBUTING.md for making contributions of third-party
works is left as a TODO.
I think Fontana's change a few commits back which s/it/such software/ in
this sentence is a useful one. However, the entire sentence reads even
worse because "such software Free Software" looks so strange as a string
of words in the middle of the sentence.
This change is the best rework I could find that resolved the problem.
It's probably not the best option but is certainly an improvement.
My personal comment here, which I wrote on 2003-05-26 (see
f05ce6c657 ), is probably not particularly
useful. I still tend to use the phrasing as original stated in the
removed text herein; however, I'm admittedly the only one. I don't deny
that I hope to coin some terminology usage through my work on this
Guide, but this particular use of "nonfree software" to mean
"noncommercially proprietary" is not so important IMO that this Guide
must coin it.
The FSF's page on this doesn't make that distinction, and has much more
detail on this issue than this section does. Therefore, the
personal statement is removed, and the organizational statement on the
FSF's site is instead linked to.
Commenting on one: the initial-caps stylistic preference for "Free
Software" (though it contradicts prevailing usage, including that of RMS
and the FSF) ought to be respected, but I think it is confusing to
capitalize the 'S' when referring to nonfree software as "non-Free
Software". So I changed this to "non-Free software" and also implicitly
acknowledged that the preference for "non-Free" over "nonfree" is the
editor-in-chief's stylistic idiosyncrasy.
The lists of authors in each part has been continually out of date and
incomplete. There are multiple examples, here are a few:
* In September 2005, John Sullivan made improvements and was not placed on
the Authors lists until I did so in a March 2014 commit.
* In March 2014, Martin Michlmayr submitted many patches, but was not
placed on the Authors lists until I did so in an April 2014 commit.
There is no easy way to keep these Authors lists current, and they aren't
necessary under CC-BY-SA-4.0 anyway, so I herein remove the Authors lists.
Additionally, previous commit added "published sources" in each part, which
is more static and easier to keep up to date and provides similar
information.
References and details regarding these published works from which some
text was incorporated already appeared in the commit logs in great
detail. The information, already fully available in the Guide's Git
logs in full compliance with CC-BY-SA-4.0 §3(a)(1-2), now appears in
summary form additionally in the compiled PDF/HTML/Postscript output.
