Re: mandoc.css license

[Ingo Schwarze <schwarze@usta.de>]

Hi Mark,

Mark Harris wrote on Sun, Nov 25, 2018 at 10:51:35PM -0800:

> It appears that it is intended that the mandoc.css file included with
> mandoc be served as a static file from any web server that is serving
> mandoc-generated html.

Correct.  Using it as-is is recommended by default, but there may
be valid reasons to modify it or write your own, in particular when
integrating mandoc output into a larger website together with other
content, manpages.debian.org being a prominent example, even if
slightly overengineered for my taste.

> If this file is BSD licensed,

Arguably, it was, according to this sentence in the LICENSE file:

  The mandoc distribution as a whole is distributed by its developers
  under the following license:

> should it have a copyright notice and copy of the BSD license at the
> top so that it can be distributed separately?

In so far as it was ISC licensed, it could already be distributed
separately, at least when distributing the ISC license together
with it.

In general, you are right, files without Copyright and license
information tend to cause confusion, so unless clearly so small
and/or non-creative that there can be no Copyright on them,
clarification is advisable and costs nothing.

> Or does it not require this because CSS is not considered to be code
> or documentation?

That doesn't matter, all creative works fall under Copyright, in
particular any text, and it is clearly a text file.

> Would it be possible to clarify the status of this file in the LICENSE
> file and/or in a comment at the beginning of mandoc.css?

Sure, done, see below.

Yours,
  Ingo


Log Message:
-----------
Place mandoc.css into the public domain.

The reason for doing this rather than using the ISC license 
is that i guess that in some contexts, a requirement to preserve
a Copyright and license header might be inconvenient, and i really
don't care at all how people use it.

What matters is that they do use it, or something similar - attempts
to use mandoc without any CSS are a constant source of grief and
bogus bug reports because HTML without CSS doesn't look very good:
the more structural and semantic and the less presentational and 
old-fashioned the HTML, the more so.

Thanks to Mark Harris <mark dot hsj at gmail dot com> for pointing out
that the permissions on this particular file were unclear.

Modified Files:
--------------
    mandoc:
        mandoc.css

Revision Data
-------------
Index: mandoc.css
===================================================================
RCS file: /home/cvs/mandoc/mandoc/mandoc.css,v
retrieving revision 1.38
retrieving revision 1.39
diff -Lmandoc.css -Lmandoc.css -u -p -r1.38 -r1.39
--- mandoc.css
+++ mandoc.css
@@ -1,6 +1,11 @@
 /* $Id$ */
 /*
  * Standard style sheet for mandoc(1) -Thtml and man.cgi(8).
+ *
+ * Written by Ingo Schwarze <schwarze@openbsd.org>.
+ * I place this file into the public domain.
+ * Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute it for any purpose
+ * with or without fee is hereby granted, without any conditions.
  */
 
 /* Global defaults. */
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