Quoting and reusing the documentation
This page is for reporters, book and course authors, and creators who want to use text from the Exponential documentation. The documentation is free documentation: you may do much more than quote it. This page explains what, and how to credit it. It is practical guidance, not legal advice.
Contents
- The license in one paragraph
- What you may do
- What to keep
- Attribution lines
- Older pages with other terms
- Quoting is not the same as attributing a statement
The license in one paragraph
The documentation in doc/, including this help, is "Copyright (C) 1998 - 2026 Exponential Foundation and 7x. All rights reserved."
and licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version,
"with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts" (The license of this documentation).
The plain-words explanation is Free documentation.
What you may do
| You want to | Allowed? | Condition |
|---|---|---|
| Quote a sentence or a paragraph in an article | Yes | Name the source; short quotes are ordinary journalism |
| Reprint a whole page, for example a checklist, in a magazine or a book | Yes | Keep the notice and the license, see below |
| Translate a page | Yes | The translation is licensed under the GFDL too |
| Adapt a page into slides, a video script or a course | Yes | Your adapted version is under the GFDL; credit the original |
| Sell the book or course that contains it | Yes | The GFDL allows commercial distribution under its conditions |
| Put your own copyright notice on the copied text | No | Keep the original notice; add yours for your own changes |
| Present the text as a statement of 7x or the Foundation | No | It is documentation, see the last section |
What to keep
When you redistribute a page or a substantial part of it:
- The copyright notice: "Copyright (C) 1998 - 2026 Exponential Foundation and 7x. All rights reserved."
- The license notice, or a clear reference to the GNU FDL 1.3 with a link (https://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-1.3.html); for a printed reprint of a large part, include the license text as the license requires.
- A note that you changed it, if you did, and what you changed.
Attribution lines
Article (short quote):
... the documentation states that Exponential Intelligence "writes drafts" and never publishes on its own
(Exponential documentation, https://github.com/se7enxweb/exponential/tree/main/doc).
Reprinted page:
Adapted from "<page title>", Exponential documentation. Exponential Copyright © 1998-2026 Exponential Foundation and 7x.
Licensed under the GNU FDL 1.3 or later,
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-1.3.html. Changes: <what you changed>.
Video description:
Script based on the Exponential documentation (GNU FDL 1.3), <link to the page>.Older pages with other terms
Some files in doc/ came from the documentation of the original software, written by eZ Systems AS between 1999 and
2014. They keep their original terms (the GPL v2) and eZ Systems' copyright: the pre-6.0 feature, upgrade,
specification and changelog documents, doc/eng-us/shop/, doc/eng-us/release-overview and a few others
(Older pages with their own terms). The help shows a
different notice on them. Check the notice at the bottom of the page you quote.
Quoting is not the same as attributing a statement
A sentence from the documentation tells readers what the documentation says. It is not "7x said" or "the Foundation said". Write "according to the project's documentation" or "the README states". For statements by the organizations, see Quotes policy and Attributing statements.
Related pages
- Licenses explained for reporters
- Citing sources and licensing your writing
- Screenshots: what you may use
- Free documentation: this page is free to copy, translate and improve under the GNU FDL 1.3.
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