4.1 Copyright Papers

If you maintain an FSF-copyrighted package certain legal procedures are required when incorporating legally significant changes written by other people. This ensures that the FSF has the legal right to distribute the package, and the standing to defend its GPL-covered status in court if necessary.

Before incorporating significant changes, make sure that the person who wrote the changes has signed copyright papers and that the Free Software Foundation has received and signed them. We may also need an employer’s disclaimer from the person’s employer.

To check whether papers have been received, look in /gd/gnuorg/copyright.list. If you can’t look there directly, fsf-records@gnu.org can check for you. Our clerk can also check for papers that are waiting to be entered and inform you when expected papers arrive.

The directory /gd/gnuorg is found on the GNU machines, currently fencepost.gnu.org; if you are the maintainer of a GNU package, you should have an account on them. Contact accounts@gnu.org if you don’t have one. (You can also ask for accounts for people who help you a large amount in working on the package.)

In order for the contributor to know person should sign papers, you need to ask per for the necessary papers. If you don’t know per well, and you don’t know that person is used to our ways of handling copyright papers, then it might be a good idea to raise the subject with a message like this:

Would you be willing to assign the copyright to the Free Software Foundation, so that we could install it in program?

or

Would you be willing to sign a copyright disclaimer to put this change in the public domain, so that we can install it in program?

If the contributor wants more information, you can send per /gd/gnuorg/conditions.text, which explains per options (assign vs. disclaim) and their consequences.

Once the conversation is under way and the contributor is ready for more details, you should send one of the templates that are found in the directory /gd/gnuorg/Copyright/; they are also available from the doc/Copyright/ directory of the gnulib project at http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/gnulib. This section explains which templates you should use in which circumstances. Please don’t use any of the templates except for those listed here, and please don’t change the wording.

Once the conversation is under way, you can send the contributor the precise wording and instructions by email. Before you do this, make sure to get the current version of the template you will use! We change these templates occasionally—don’t keep using an old version.

For large changes, ask the contributor for an assignment. Send per a copy of the file request-assign.changes. (Like all the ‘request-’ files, it is in /gd/gnuorg/Copyright and in gnulib.)

For medium to small changes, request a personal disclaimer by sending per the file request-disclaim.changes.

If the contributor is likely to keep making changes, person might want to sign an assignment for all per future changes to the program. So it is useful to offer per that alternative. If person wants to do it that way, send per the request-assign.future.

When you send a request- file, you don’t need to fill in anything before sending it. Just send the file verbatim to the contributor. The file gives per instructions for how to ask the FSF to mail per the papers to sign. The request- file also raises the issue of getting an employer’s disclaimer from the contributor’s employer.

When the contributor emails the form to the FSF, the FSF sends per papers to sign. If person signs them right away, the whole process takes about two weeks–mostly waiting for letters to go back and forth.

For less common cases, we have template files you should send to the contributor. Be sure to fill in the name of the person and the name of the program in these templates, where it says ‘NAME OF PERSON’ and ‘NAME OF PROGRAM’, before sending; otherwise person might sign without noticing them, and the papers would be useless. Note that in some templates there is more than one place to put the name of the program or the name of the person; be sure to change all of them. All the templates raise the issue of an employer’s disclaimer as well.

You do not need to ask for separate papers for a manual that is distributed only in the software package it describes. But if we sometimes distribute the manual separately (for instance, if we publish it as a book), then we need separate legal papers for changes in the manual. For smaller changes, use disclaim.changes.manual; for larger ones, use assign.changes.manual. To cover both past and future changes to a manual, you can use assign.future.manual. For a translation of a manual, use assign.translation.manual.

For translations of program strings (as used by GNU Gettext, for example; see Internationalization in GNU Coding Standards), use disclaim.translation. If you make use of the Translation Project (http://translationproject.org) facilities, please check with the TP coordinators that they have sent the contributor the papers; if they haven’t, then you should send the papers. In any case, you should wait for the confirmation from the FSF that the signed papers have been received and accepted before integrating the new contributor’s material, as usual.

If a contributor is reluctant to sign an assignment for a large change, and is willing to sign a disclaimer instead, that is acceptable, so you should offer this alternative if it helps you reach agreement. We prefer an assignment for a larger change, so that we can enforce the GNU GPL for the new text, but a disclaimer is enough to let us use the text.

If you maintain a collection of programs, occasionally someone will contribute an entire separate program or manual that should be added to the collection. Then you can use the files request-assign.program, disclaim.program, assign.manual, and disclaim.manual. We very much prefer an assignment for a new separate program or manual, unless it is quite small, but a disclaimer is acceptable if the contributor insists on handling the matter that way.

If a contributor wants the FSF to publish only a pseudonym, that is ok. The contributor should say this, and state the desired pseudonym, when answering the request- form. The actual legal papers will use the real name, but the FSF will publish only the pseudonym. When using one of the other forms, fill in the real name but ask the contributor to discuss the use of a pseudonym with assign@gnu.org before sending back the signed form.

Although there are other templates besides the ones listed here, they are for special circumstances; please do not use them without getting advice from assign@gnu.org.

If you are not sure what to do, then please ask assign@gnu.org for advice; if the contributor asks you questions about the meaning and consequences of the legal papers, and you don’t know the answers, you can forward them to assign@gnu.org and we will answer.

Please do not try changing the wording of a template yourself. If you think a change is needed, please talk with assign@gnu.org, and we will work with a lawyer to decide what to do.

4.2 Legally Significant Changes

If a person contributes more than around 15 lines of code and/or text that is legally significant for copyright purposes, we need copyright papers for that contribution, as described above.

A change of just a few lines (less than 15 or so) is not legally significant for copyright. A regular series of repeated changes, such as renaming a symbol, is not legally significant even if the symbol has to be renamed in many places. Keep in mind, however, that a series of minor changes by the same person can add up to a significant contribution. What counts is the total contribution of the person; it is irrelevant which parts of it were contributed when.

Copyright does not cover ideas. If someone contributes ideas but no text, these ideas may be morally significant as contributions, and worth giving credit for, but they are not significant for copyright purposes. Likewise, bug reports do not count for copyright purposes.

When giving credit to people whose contributions are not legally significant for copyright purposes, be careful to make that fact clear. The credit should clearly say they did not contribute significant code or text.

When people’s contributions are not legally significant because they did not write code, do this by stating clearly what their contribution was. For instance, you could write this:

/*
 * Ideas by:
 *   Richard Mlynarik <mly@adoc.xerox.com> (1997)
 *   Masatake Yamato <masata-y@is.aist-nara.ac.jp> (1999)
 */

Ideas by: makes it clear that Mlynarik and Yamato here contributed only ideas, not code. Without the Ideas by: note, several years from now we would find it hard to be sure whether they had contributed code, and we might have to track them down and ask them.

When you record a small patch in a change log file, first search for previous changes by the same person, and see if per past contributions, plus the new one, add up to something legally significant. If so, you should get copyright papers for all per changes before you install the new change.

If that is not so, you can install the small patch. Write ‘(tiny change)’ after the patch author’s name, like this:

2002-11-04  Robert Fenk  <Robert.Fenk@gmx.de>  (tiny change)

4.3 Recording Contributors

Keep correct records of which portions were written by whom. This is very important. These records should say which files or parts of files were written by each person, and which files or parts of files were revised by each person. This should include installation scripts as well as manuals and documentation files—everything.

These records don’t need to be as detailed as a change log. They don’t need to distinguish work done at different times, only different people. They don’t need describe changes in more detail than which files or parts of a file were changed. And they don’t need to say anything about the function or purpose of a file or change–the Register of Copyrights doesn’t care what the text does, just who wrote or contributed to which parts.

The list should also mention if certain files distributed in the same package are really a separate program.

Only the contributions that are legally significant for copyright purposes (see Legally Significant Changes) need to be listed. Small contributions, bug reports, ideas, etc., can be omitted.

For example, this would describe an early version of GAS:

Dean Elsner   first version of all files except gdb-lines.c and m68k.c.
Jay Fenlason  entire files gdb-lines.c and m68k.c, most of app.c,
              plus extensive changes in messages.c, input-file.c, write.c
              and revisions elsewhere.

Note: GAS is distributed with the files obstack.c and obstack.h, but
they are considered a separate package, not part of GAS proper.

Please keep these records in a file named AUTHORS in the source directory for the program itself.

You can use the change log as the basis for these records, if you wish. Just make sure to record the correct author for each change (the person who wrote the change, not the person who installed it), and add ‘(tiny change)’ for those changes that are too trivial to matter for copyright purposes. Later on you can update the AUTHORS file from the change log. This can even be done automatically, if you are careful about the formatting of the change log entries.

4.4 Copying from Other Packages

When you copy legally significant code from another free software package with a GPL-compatible license, you should look in the package’s records to find out the authors of the part you are copying, and list them as the contributors of the code that you copied. If all you did was copy it, not write it, then for copyright purposes you are not one of the contributors of this code.

Especially when code has been released into the public domain, authors sometimes fail to write a license statement in each file. In this case, please first be sure that all the authors of the code have disclaimed copyright interest. Then, when copying the new files into your project, add a brief note at the beginning of the files recording the authors, the public domain status, and anything else relevant.

On the other hand, when merging some public domain code into an existing file covered by the GPL (or LGPL or other free software license), there is no reason to indicate the pieces which are public domain. The notice saying that the whole file is under the GPL (or other license) is legally sufficient.

Using code that is released under a GPL-compatible free license, rather than being in the public domain, may require preserving copyright notices or other steps. Of course, you should do what is needed.

If you are maintaining an FSF-copyrighted package, please verify we have papers for the code you are copying, before copying it. If you are copying from another FSF-copyrighted package, then we presumably have papers for that package’s own code, but you must check whether the code you are copying is part of an external library; if that is the case, we don’t have papers for it, so you should not copy it. It can’t hurt in any case to double-check with the developer of that package.

When you are copying code for which we do not already have papers, you need to get papers for it. It may be difficult to get the papers if the code was not written as a contribution to your package, but that doesn’t mean it is ok to do without them. If you cannot get papers for the code, you can only use it as an external library (see External Libraries).

4.5 Copyright Notices

You should maintain a proper copyright notice and a license notice in each nontrivial file in the package. (Any file more than ten lines long is nontrivial for this purpose.) This includes header files and interface definitions for building or running the program, documentation files, and any supporting files. If a file has been explicitly placed in the public domain, then instead of a copyright notice, it should have a notice saying explicitly that it is in the public domain.

Even image files and sound files should contain copyright notices and license notices, if their format permits. Some formats do not have room for textual annotations; for these files, state the copyright and copying permissions in a README file in the same directory.

Change log files should have a copyright notice and license notice at the end, since new material is added at the beginning but the end remains the end.

When a file is automatically generated from some other file in the distribution, it is useful for the automatic procedure to copy the copyright notice and permission notice of the file it is generated from, if possible. Alternatively, put a notice at the beginning saying which file it is generated from.

A copyright notice looks like this:

Copyright (C) year1, year2, year3 copyright-holder

The word ‘Copyright’ must always be in English, by international convention.

The copyright-holder may be the Free Software Foundation, Inc., or someone else; you should know who is the copyright holder for your package.

Replace the ‘(C)’ with a C-in-a-circle symbol if it is available. For example, use ‘@copyright{}’ in a Texinfo file. However, stick with parenthesized ‘C’ unless you know that C-in-a-circle will work. For example, a program’s standard --version message should use parenthesized ‘C’ by default, though message translations may use C-in-a-circle in locales where that symbol is known to work. Alternatively, the ‘(C)’ or C-in-a-circle can be omitted entirely; the word ‘Copyright’ suffices.

To update the list of year numbers, add each year in which you have made nontrivial changes to the package. (Here we assume you’re using a publicly accessible revision control server, so that every revision installed is also immediately and automatically published.) When you add the new year, it is not required to keep track of which files have seen significant changes in the new year and which have not. It is recommended and simpler to add the new year to all files in the package, and be done with it for the rest of the year.

Don’t delete old year numbers, though; they are significant since they indicate when older versions might theoretically go into the public domain, if the movie companies don’t continue buying laws to further extend copyright. If you copy a file into the package from some other program, keep the copyright years that come with the file.

Do not abbreviate the year list using a range; for instance, do not write ‘1996--1998’; instead, write ‘1996, 1997, 1998’.

For files which are regularly copied from another project (such as ‘gnulib’), leave the copyright notice as it is in the original.

The copyright statement may be split across multiple lines, both in source files and in any generated output. This often happens for files with a long history, having many different years of publication.

For an FSF-copyrighted package, if you have followed the procedures to obtain legal papers, each file should have just one copyright holder: the Free Software Foundation, Inc. You should edit the file’s copyright notice to list that name and only that name.

But if contributors are not all assigning their copyrights to a single copyright holder, it can easily happen that one file has several copyright holders. Each contributor of nontrivial text is a copyright holder.

In that case, you should always include a copyright notice in the name of main copyright holder of the file. You can also include copyright notices for other copyright holders as well, and this is a good idea for those who have contributed a large amount and for those who specifically ask for notices in their names. (Sometimes the license on code that you copy in may require preserving certain copyright notices.) But you don’t have to include a notice for everyone who contributed to the file (which would be rather inconvenient).

Sometimes a program has an overall copyright notice that refers to the whole program. It might be in the README file, or it might be displayed when the program starts up. This copyright notice should mention the year of completion of the most recent major version; it can mention years of completion of previous major versions, but that is optional.

4.6 License Notices

Every nontrivial file needs a license notice as well as the copyright notice. (Without a license notice giving permission to copy and change the file, the file is non-free.)

The package itself should contain a full copy of GPL in plain text (conventionally in a file named COPYING) and the GNU Free Documentation License (included within your documentation, so there is no need for a separate plain text version). If the package contains any files distributed under the Lesser GPL, it should contain a full copy of its plain text version also (conventionally in a file named COPYING.LESSER).

If you have questions about license issues for your GNU package, please write licensing@gnu.org.

• Canonical License Sources
• License Notices for Code
• License Notices for Documentation
• License Notices for Other Files

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or
any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the
Invariant Sections being ``GNU General Public License'', with the
Front-Cover Texts being ``A GNU Manual'', and with the Back-Cover Texts
as in (a) below.  A copy of the license is included in the section
entitled ``GNU Free Documentation License''.

(a) The FSF's Back-Cover Text is: ``You have the freedom to
copy and modify this GNU manual.  Buying copies from the FSF
supports it in developing GNU and promoting software freedom.''

Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
notice and this notice are preserved.  This file is offered as-is,
without any warranty.

4.7 External Libraries

When maintaining an FSF-copyrighted GNU package, you may occasionally want to use a general-purpose free software module which offers a useful functionality, as a “library” facility (though the module is not always packaged technically as a library).

In a case like this, it would be unreasonable to ask the author of that module to assign the copyright to the FSF. After all, person did not write it specifically as a contribution to your package, so it would be impertinent to ask per, out of the blue, “Please give the FSF your copyright.”

So the thing to do in this case is to make your program use the module, but not consider it a part of your program. There are two reasonable methods of doing this:

1. Assume the module is already installed on the system, and use it when linking your program. This is only reasonable if the module really has the form of a library.
2. Include the module in your package, putting the source in a separate subdirectory whose README file says, “This is not part of the GNU FOO program, but is used with GNU FOO.” Then set up your makefiles to build this module and link it into the executable.

   For this method, it is not necessary to treat the module as a library and make a ‘.a’ file from it. You can link with the ‘.o’ files directly in the usual manner.

Both of these methods create an irregularity, and our lawyers have told us to minimize the amount of such irregularity. So consider using these methods only for general-purpose modules that were written for other programs and released separately for general use. For anything that was written as a contribution to your package, please get papers signed.

9.1 Distribution tar Files

The tar file for version m.n of program foo should be named foo-m.n.tar. It should unpack into a subdirectory named foo-m.n. Tar files should not unpack into files in the current directory, because this is inconvenient if the user happens to unpack into a directory with other files in it.

Here is how the Makefile for Bison creates the tar file. This method is good for other programs.

dist: bison.info
        echo bison-`sed -e '/version_string/!d' \
          -e 's/[^0-9.]*\([0-9.]*\).*/\1/' -e q version.c` > .fname
        -rm -rf `cat .fname`
        mkdir `cat .fname`
        dst=`cat .fname`; for f in $(DISTFILES); do \
           ln $(srcdir)/$$f $$dst/$$f || { echo copying $$f; \
             cp -p $(srcdir)/$$f $$dst/$$f ; } \
        done
        tar --gzip -chf `cat .fname`.tar.gz `cat .fname`
        -rm -rf `cat .fname` .fname

Source files that are symbolic links to other file systems cannot be installed in the temporary directory using ln, so use cp if ln fails.

Using Automake is a good way to take care of writing the dist target.

9.2 Distribution Patches

If the program is large, it is useful to make a set of diffs for each release, against the previous important release.

At the front of the set of diffs, put a short explanation of which version this is for and which previous version it is relative to. Also explain what else people need to do to update the sources properly (for example, delete or rename certain files before installing the diffs).

The purpose of having diffs is that they are small. To keep them small, exclude files that the user can easily update. For example, exclude info files, DVI files, tags tables, output files of Bison or Flex. In Emacs diffs, we exclude compiled Lisp files, leaving it up to the installer to recompile the patched sources.

When you make the diffs, each version should be in a directory suitably named—for example, gcc-2.3.2 and gcc-2.3.3. This way, it will be very clear from the diffs themselves which version is which.

If you use GNU diff to make the patch, use the options ‘-rc2P’. That will put any new files into the output as “entirely different.” Also, the patch’s context diff headers should have dates and times in Universal Time using traditional Unix format, so that patch recipients can use GNU patch’s ‘-Z’ option. For example, you could use the following Bourne shell command to create the patch:

LC_ALL=C TZ=UTC0 diff -rc2P gcc-2.3.2 gcc-2.3.3 | \
gzip -9 >gcc-2.3.2-2.3.3.patch.gz

If the distribution has subdirectories in it, then the diffs probably include some files in the subdirectories. To help users install such patches reliably, give them precise directions for how to run patch. For example, say this:

To apply these patches, cd to the main directory of the program
and then use ‘patch -p1’.   ‘-p1’ avoids guesswork in choosing
which subdirectory to find each file in.

It’s wise to test your patch by applying it to a copy of the old version, and checking that the result exactly matches the new version.

9.3 Distribution on ftp.gnu.org

GNU packages are distributed through directory /gnu on ftp.gnu.org. Each package should have a subdirectory named after the package, and all the distribution files for the package should go in that subdirectory.

See Automated FTP Uploads, for procedural details of putting new versions on ftp.gnu.org.

9.4 Test Releases

When you release a greatly changed new major version of a program, you might want to do so as a pretest. This means that you make a tar file, but send it only to a group of volunteers that you have recruited. (Use a suitable GNU mailing list/newsgroup to recruit them.)

We normally use the FTP server alpha.gnu.org for pretests and prerelease versions. See Automated FTP Uploads, for procedural details of putting new versions on alpha.gnu.org.

Once a program gets to be widely used and people expect it to work solidly, it is a good idea to do pretest releases before each “real” release.

There are two ways of handling version numbers for pretest versions. One method is to treat them as versions preceding the release you are going to make.

In this method, if you are about to release version 4.6 but you want to do a pretest first, call it 4.5.90. If you need a second pretest, call it 4.5.91, and so on. If you are really unlucky and ten pretests are not enough, after 4.5.99 you could advance to 4.5.990 and so on. (You could also use 4.5.100, but 990 has the advantage of sorting in the right order.)

The other method is to attach a date to the release number that is coming. For a pretest for version 4.6, made on Dec 10, 2002, this would be 4.6.20021210. A second pretest made the same day could be 4.6.20021210.1.

For development snapshots that are not formal pretests, using just the date without the version numbers is ok too.

One thing that you should never do is to release a pretest with the same version number as the planned real release. Many people will look only at the version number (in the tar file name, in the directory name that it unpacks into, or wherever they can find it) to determine whether a tar file is the latest version. People might look at the test release in this way and mistake it for the real release. Therefore, always change the number when you release changed code.

9.5 Automated FTP Uploads

In order to upload new releases to ftp.gnu.org or alpha.gnu.org, you first need to register the necessary information. Then, you can perform uploads yourself, with no intervention needed by the system administrators.

The general idea is that releases should be crytographically signed before they are made publicly available.

• Automated Upload Registration
• Automated Upload Procedure
• FTP Upload Directive File - v1.1
• FTP Upload Directive File - v1.0

version: 1.1
directory: bar/v1
filename: foo.tar.gz
comment: hello world!

version: 1.1
directory: bar/v1
rmsymlink: foo-latest.tgz
comment: remove a symlink

version: 1.1
directory: bar/v1
archive: foo-1.1.tar.gz
comment: archive an old file; it will not be available through FTP anymore

version: 1.1
directory: bar/v1
archive: foo
comment: archive an old directory; it will not be available through FTP anymore

version: 1.1
directory: bar/v1
symlink: foo-1.2.tar.gz foo-latest.tgz
comment: create a new symlink

version: 1.1
directory: bar/v1
rmsymlink: foo-latest.tgz
symlink: foo-1.2.tar.gz foo-latest.tgz
archive: foo-1.1.tar.gz
comment: now do everything at once

directory: bar/v1

9.6 Announcing Releases

When you have a new release, please make an announcement. For official new releases, including those made just to fix bugs, we strongly recommend using the (moderated) general GNU announcements list, info-gnu@gnu.org. Doing so makes it easier for users and developers to find the latest GNU releases. On the other hand, please do not announce test releases on info-gnu unless it’s a highly unusual situation.

Please also post release announcements in the news section of your Savannah project site. It is fine to also write news entries for test releases and any other newsworthy events. The news feeds from all GNU projects at savannah are aggregated at http://planet.gnu.org (GNU Planet). You can also post items directly, or arrange for feeds from other locations; see contact information on the GNU Planet web page.

You can maintain your own mailing list (typically info-program@gnu.org) for announcements as well if you like. For your own list, of course you decide as you see fit what events are worth announcing. (See Dealing With Mail, for more suggestions on handling mail for your package.)

When writing an announcement, please include the following:

• A very brief description (a few sentences at most) of the general purpose of your package.
• Your package’s web page (normally ‘http://www.gnu.org/software/package/’).
• Your package’s download location (normally ‘http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/package/’). It is also useful to mention the FTP mirror list at http://www.gnu.org/order/ftp.html, and that http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/package/ will automatically redirect to a nearby mirror.
• The NEWS (see NEWS File in GNU Coding Standards) for the present release.

10.1 Hosting for Web Pages

The best way to maintain the web pages for your project is to register the project on savannah.gnu.org. Then you can edit the pages using CVS, using the separate “web repository” available on Savannah, which corresponds to ‘http://www.gnu.org/software/package/’. You can keep your source files there too (using any of a variety of version control systems), but you can use savannah.gnu.org only for your gnu.org web pages if you wish; simply register a “web-only” project.

If you don’t want to use that method, please talk with webmasters@gnu.org about other possible methods. For instance, you can mail them pages to install, if necessary. But that is more work for them, so please use Savannah if you can.

If you use Savannah, you can use a special .symlinks file in order to create symbolic links, which are not supported in CVS. For details, see http://www.gnu.org/server/standards/README.webmastering.html#symlinks.

10.2 Freedom for Web Pages

If you use a site other than www.gnu.org, please make sure that the site runs on free software alone. (It is ok if the site uses unreleased custom software, since that is free in a trivial sense: there’s only one user and it has the four freedoms.) If the web site for a GNU package runs on non-free software, the public will see this, and it will have the effect of granting legitimacy to the non-free program.

If you use multiple sites, they should all follow that criterion. Please don’t link to a site that is about your package, which the public might perceive as connected with it and reflecting the position of its developers, unless it follows that criterion.

Historically, web pages for GNU packages did not include GIF images, because of patent problems (see Ethical and Philosophical Consideration). Although the GIF patents expired in 2006, using GIF images is still not recommended, as the PNG and JPEG formats are generally superior. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/gif.html.

10.3 Manuals on Web Pages

The web pages for the package should include its manuals, in HTML, DVI, Info, PostScript, PDF, plain ASCII, and Texinfo format (source). All of these can be generated automatically from the Texinfo source using Makeinfo and other programs.

When there is only one manual, put it in a subdirectory called manual; the file manual/index.html should have a link to the manual in each of its forms.

If the package has more than one manual, put each one in a subdirectory of manual, set up index.html in each subdirectory to link to that manual in all its forms, and make manual/index.html link to each manual through its subdirectory.

See the section below for details on a script to make the job of creating all these different formats and index pages easier.

We would like to include links to all GNU manuals on the page http://www.gnu.org/manual, so if yours isn’t listed, please send mail to webmasters@gnu.org telling them the name of your package and asking them to edit http://www.gnu.org/manual, and they will do so based on the contents of your manual directory.

• Invoking gendocs.sh

http://savannah.gnu.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs/texinfo/texinfo/util/gendocs.sh
http://savannah.gnu.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs/texinfo/texinfo/util/gendocs_template

http://savannah.gnu.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs/texinfo/texinfo/util/gendocs_template_min

gendocs.sh --email yourbuglist yourmanual "GNU yourmanual manual"

cd .../emacs/man
# download gendocs.sh and gendocs_template
gendocs.sh --email bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org emacs "GNU Emacs manual"

cd .../texinfo/doc
gendocs.sh --email bug-texinfo@gnu.org -o texinfo texinfo "GNU Texinfo manual"
gendocs.sh --email bug-texinfo@gnu.org -o info info "GNU Info manual"
gendocs.sh --email bug-texinfo@gnu.org -o info-stnd info-stnd "GNU info-stnd manual"

gendocs --texi2html -o texinfo texinfo "GNU Texinfo manual"

10.4 CVS Keywords in Web Pages

Since www.gnu.org works through CVS, CVS keywords in your manual, such as $Log$, need special treatment (even if you don’t happen to maintain your manual in CVS).

If these keywords end up in the generated output as literal strings, they will be expanded. The most robust way to handle this is to turn off keyword expansion for such generated files. For existing files, this is done with:

cvs admin -ko file1 file2 ...

For new files:

cvs add -ko file1 file2 ...

See Keyword substitution in Version Management with CVS.

In Texinfo source, the recommended way to literally specify a “dollar” keyword is:

@w{$}Log$

The @w prevents keyword expansion in the Texinfo source itself. Also, makeinfo notices the @w and generates output avoiding the literal keyword string.

12.1 Free Software and Open Source

The terms “free software” and “open source” are the slogans of two different movements which differ in their basic philosophy. The Free Software Movement is idealistic, and raises issues of freedom, ethics, principle and what makes for a good society. The Open Source Movement, founded in 1998, studiously avoids such questions. For more explanation, see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html.

The GNU Project is aligned with the Free Software Movement. This doesn’t mean that all GNU contributors and maintainers have to agree; your views on these issues are up to you, and you’re entitled to express them when speaking for yourself.

However, due to the much greater publicity that the Open Source Movement receives, the GNU Project needs to overcome a widespread mistaken impression that GNU is and always was an activity of the Open Source Movement. For this reason, please use the term “free software”, not “open source”, in GNU software releases, GNU documentation, and announcements and articles that you publish in your role as the maintainer of a GNU package. A reference to the URL given above, to explain the difference, is a useful thing to include as well.

12.2 GNU and Linux

The GNU Project was formed to develop a free Unix-like operating system, GNU. The existence of this system is our major accomplishment. However, the widely used version of the GNU system, in which Linux is used as the kernel, is often called simply “Linux”. As a result, most users don’t know about the GNU Project’s major accomplishment—or more precisely, they know about it, but don’t realize it is the GNU Project’s accomplishment and reason for existence. Even people who believe they know the real history often believe that the goal of GNU was to develop “tools” or “utilities.”

To correct this confusion, we have made a years-long effort to distinguish between Linux, the kernel that Linus Torvalds wrote, and GNU/Linux, the operating system that is the combination of GNU and Linux. The resulting increased awareness of what the GNU Project has already done helps every activity of the GNU Project recruit more support and contributors.

Please make this distinction consistently in GNU software releases, GNU documentation, and announcements and articles that you publish in your role as the maintainer of a GNU package. If you want to explain the terminology and its reasons, you can refer to the URL http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html.

To contrast the GNU system properly with respect to GNU/Linux, you can call it “GNU/Hurd” or “the GNU/Hurd system.” However, when that contrast is not specifically the focus, please call it just “GNU” or “the GNU system.”

When referring to the collection of servers that is the higher level of the GNU kernel, please call it “the Hurd” or “the GNU Hurd.” Note that this uses a space, not a slash.