Re: [IDEA] New pages for types: structs and typedfefs

Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)
2020-09-23T08:36:22Z

[Thorsten, I have removed you from the CC because I get persistent
bounce messages whenever I send you mail. Hopefully you see this reply
via the list.]

Thorsten, thanks for your input.

On Tue, 22 Sep 2020 at 22:40, Thorsten Glaser <tg@mirbsd.org> wrote:
>
> Michael Kerrisk (man-pages) dixit:
>
> >I think quoting POSIX is fine (fair use etc.)
>
> “fair use” only applies to the USA. For pieces quoted under
> USA “fair use” copyright still applies in all other countries,
> and, worse, you can’t issue a licence for it (as you don’t own
> it).

Yes, it's complicated in theory at least. (I suspect it's simpler in practice.)

> https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/frontmatter/notice.html
> specifically reserves the copyright for POSIX.
>
> https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/help/terms.html
> specifically does not issue a licence for reproduction.

Obviously, it is a gray area, but there's a significant difference
between quoting a sentence or three from the standard and
reproducing/redistributing the standard.

> I know that some POSIX documents were re-released under a free-ish
> licence some time ago for inclusion into some manual pages, but I
> don’t have a reference for that and don’t know the scope.

Yes:
https://lwn.net/Articles/581858/

> Please get explicit permission from The Open Group before quoting
> from POSIX in anything you intend to distribute to the general public.

While I'm pretty sure they would allow this without problem, I'm
wondering if it's worth the effort. Ideally, we'd have text written by
someone in their own words. Reproducing the text of the standard has
limited value, since people can in any case consult the standard
directly.

Alex, how about we just go much simpler, saying something like:

[[
This type represents floating-point status flags; for further details
see fenv(3).
]]

Thanks,

Michael

--
Michael Kerrisk
Linux man-pages maintainer; http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/
Linux/UNIX System Programming Training: http://man7.org/training/