Re: Improved manual page for ul(1)

[Benjamin Kaduk <bjk%freebsd.org@localhost>]

On Mon, Nov 07, 2016 at 10:17:32AM +0000, Jonathan de Boyne Pollard wrote:
> Jonathan de Boyne Pollard:
> 
> > So whither does one submit an improved manual page for ul(1) ? Here's the source:
> >
> > * http://jdebp.eu./Proposals/ul.1
> 
> Benjamin Kaduk:
> > Somehow I do not think that a 1993 copyright by the Regents is accurate.  I am unwilling to commit without some clarification of the copyright status and confirmation of license terms (noting that for new code, we prefer the two-clause BSD license at this point).
> 
> It's actually quite clear and straightforward.  You are suggesting that 
> the copyright declaration should be changed; that is not permitted, 
> however.  The copyright declaration for the UC Regents is entirely 
> accurate for the (small amount of) existing manual text that's still 
> there, and retaining it is mandated by the first of the very licence 
> terms that you are referring to.  I took the existing manual and 
> expanded and corrected it, and the world has my work under the exact 
> same licence that I had the original, so that the result is not 
> entangled in BSD Licence Hell; hence the exact same licence remains 
> there as-is.

Leaving the copyright declaration and license unchanged is akin to
disclaiming that you hold any copyright in the work, i.e., that only
minor non-copyrightable changes were made.  I assumed it went without
saying that there remains original text the Regents copyright must stay,
rather, that there must be an *addition* to the copyright holders.

So, which is it?  Do you claim copyright on any of the text present,
or disclaim it?

My point about our project (and the Regents) having gone to the two-clause
form remains.

> Really, the first reaction should rather be something like "My goodness! 
> Are all of those bugs really there?" or perhaps "Does anything nowadays 
> make any use of that wacky lpr feature?" or even "Given then that it can 
> handle UTF-8 input and output, could ul be fixed to make all of groff's 
> overstrikes work?".  (-:

It would be easier to do so if the contribution was provided as a diff.

> I haven't found anything that makes use of the lpr feature. Presumably 
> it dates from a time when ul was once used as a filter for printing.  
> Back then there was an array of programs: collpr, colcrt, iul, ul, ulpr, 
> ...

Indeed, many interesting historical things have dropped from common use.

-Ben