Re: mandoc.css license

[Mark Harris <mark.hsj@gmail.com>]

On 2018-11-26 7:29, Ingo Schwarze wrote:
> 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. */
> 

Thanks!  The LICENSE file mentions "all code and documentation contained
in the mandoc toolkit" so that was the reason for trying to guess
whether this CSS file was "code".

 - Mark
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