Wireshark · Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] checklicenses.py

[João Valverde <joao.valverde@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 08/09/2016 02:52 AM, Guy Harris wrote:
> On Aug 8, 2016, at 6:30 PM, João Valverde <joao.valverde@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > > What license, if any, should we put on our man pages?
> >
> > I think we can just use the standard Wireshark GPLv2+ header here, with copyright to Gerald and contributors.
>
> Is the GPL an appropriate license for documentation, or would the GFDL be more appropriate?
>
> 	https://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html#FDL
>
> For what it's worth, the Bison man page on my machine has no license on it.  I don't know whether any other GNU software that comes with a man page puts a license on the man page; perhaps they don't care enough about man pages, as opposed to Texinfo documents, to bother with a license.  bison.texinfo is licensed under the GFDL:
>
> 	https://opensource.apple.com/source/bison/bison-14/doc/bison.texinfo

The reasonable assumption is that past contributions were made under the 
same licensing terms as the rest of Wireshark. I'm not sure we can just 
slap any license on it without some effort to ask people who made 
significant contributions (IANAL).

See this for a practical concern about the GDFL:

https://www.debian.org/vote/2006/vote_001