Re: Cover Texts in the automake documentation

[Paul D. Smith]

%% Russ Allbery <address@hidden> writes:

  ra> Alexandre Duret-Lutz <address@hidden> writes:
  >> Eric:
  >> | Is there any way you might consider dropping the
  >> | Front and Back Cover Texts requirements from the manual?

  >> Sorry, this is the FSF policy.  Not my call.

  ra> There are other GNU packages with GFDL manuals that do not have
  ra> Front and Back Cover Texts, so it's clearly not a mandatory
  ra> policy.  Unfortunately, the rest of us aren't really in a position
  ra> to talk to the right people to get this changed, whereas the
  ra> official Automake maintainers would be.  Could you try?

It's my understanding (and I'm in no way speaking for the FSF here) that
if the manual is published by the FSF as a book, with an ISBN etc., it
has to have these front and back cover texts.  Those texts only exist in
the printed forms of the manual (since the front and back covers
referred to by the texts only exist in printed forms of the manual).


However, I have no idea whether or not this is a mandatory requirement
for all GNU packages with published manuals.

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