discuss: new documentation license
Subject:
Re: new documentation license
From:
Tabatha Marshall ####@####.####
Date:
24 Nov 2003 04:07:49 -0000
Message-Id: <1069646841.19616.30.camel@mysticchild>
On Sun, 2003-11-23 at 17:47, Rodolfo J. Paiz wrote:
> At 00:07 11/23/2003, David Lawyer wrote:
> >It would prohibit advertising being displayed online with the documents
>
> Why on Earth would you want that provision? If I put such a clause in my
> license, then the LDP gets a sponsor for banners on the site, then
> automatically the LDP cannot use my document. And hey, what if I have a
> copy of the HOWTO on my site (which I do) and then to pay for hosting fees
> I decide to put a banner on each page? Why is this a bad thing? (And hey...
> why is it anybody's business?)
Hi Rodolfo. Honestly, from a Linux user perspective (reviewer hat is
OFF), I am not crazy about advertisements in HOWTOs. I can totally
understand if an author wants to profit from his work, but then I have
to ask myself why they bother submitting to the LDP if someone's trying
to make a buck off the work, since the collection is considered free.
I'm not trying to start a debate on whether it's acceptable or not to
put ads in HOWTOs. What I will say though is in almost 2 years of
reviewing LDP docs, I've only run across one author who has done it.
Adding a company logo is something I see far more frequently, and I
think that's absolutely fantastic. Now that's a MUCH nicer way to
advertise!
> >and have some requirement about labeling stale versions as such.
>
> Hmm... again, define "stale".
Well, we have some going back all the way to 1995. Lots. Almost to the
point where I'm wondering if there should be a page listing all the ones
needing review just because of age. But the time it would take to make
such a page would be better spent getting those authors found and
getting them to update the work. You see the dilemma!
> >Also, I think that there should be options for our license, one of which
> >would be to prohibit modification unless the author can't be readily
> >located or isn't maintaining the doc.
>
> For whom is this "optional"? And who has to respect that requirement (if
> and when it goes from an option to a requirement)?
Since I've been at it, I try to give new and existing authors a
professional experience. If you were submitting your HOWTO to a
traditional print publisher, you would expect that in order to issue
another edition, you would have to update your material, or risk it
becoming obsolete and watch it go out of print. Personally, I would
love it if all the authors saw the value of keeping their work up to
date, but for those who don't, we can't just leave an outdated doc just
sitting there. One way or another, whether it's removed or maintained
by another, it does need to be dealt with. The state of the collection
at present is one of the reasons why we aren't being packaged in some
distros. Hopefully all the authors out there can understand why it's
important to have a soluton when we run into this problem.
> >In the past, debates about our license became almost flame wars
>
> But now we are all going to behave maturely and have a reasoned, reasonable
> debate that actually gets something done, right? (Everybody nod your head.)
(Nodding vigorously!)
> >One debate [...] Complicated. There were hundreds of posts.
> >[...] other heated debates were reported about the LDP license.
> >[...] but I guess the history was never done.
>
> Wow. And did the license ever get done? I'm guessing not.
>
> But now, we are all going to focus on getting something done, right?
> (Everybody nod again.)
(Nodding more!)
Whatever happened in the past, no matter. I'll happily sit in the
middle of the fence, looking out for the interests of both authors AND
the LDP. I'm sure we can find wording everyone can agree with!
Tab
--
Tabatha Marshall
Web: www.merlinmonroe.com
Linux Documentation Project Review Coordinator (http://www.tldp.org)
Linux Counter Area Manager US:wa (http://counter.li.org)
