Is Bazaar's document distributed under GPL?

[Martin Pool]

I think the next steps here are:

 - Regardless of what we do in the future, it is desirable that our
documents be clearly labeled with the terms that pertain to them now,
which is GPL.  If someone would like to update it, that would be good.

 - Is a CC licence better than GPL, especially with regard to
encouraging more documentation, translation or redistribution?  It
seems possibly so, but I'd like to know from Inada or others whether
it appeals to translators?

 - Canonical's policy states a preference for CC-BY-SA (sharealike, ie
a kind of copyleft iiuc) -- is that better or worse for our purposes
than CC-BY?

 - Should we move all our docs to be CC-BY-SA or CC-BY?  Consistency
seems good.  There may be some questions about docs autogenerated from
code etc but they should be soluble.

 - Should/can it be dual CC/GPL?  Is that even possible?

 - What is the FSF's opinion?

 - What is Canonical's opinion?

"All docs are CC-BY-SA and GPL, all code is GPL" is fairly clear and simple.

> That is roughly equivalent to BSD/MIT licensing. I'm currently
> reevaluating what licences I want to use for my own works [which is
> wildly offtopic here]. I think CC-BY is fine for docs we'll be writing
> anyway. It is however more relaxed than the GPL because it doesn't
> prevent tighter restrictions being placed on the work by others. I don't
> know that we need to do that, but it is strange to have docs for
> something that is GPL under a license with different terms - it makes it
> harder for folk that are remixing.
>
> For instance, you cannot copy documentation in from the user manual into
> the migration guide without relicencing the migration guide. And ditto
> for help topics in the code itself
>
> I think its a very good idea to use a single licence across the whole
> suite, to avoid such problems.

Meaning the code and documentation?  I see your point but that seems
to lock us to GPL, since a non-copyleft licence for the code is not on
the cards.

-- 
Martin <http://launchpad.net/~mbp/>