discuss: new documentation license
Subject:
Re: new documentation license
From:
"Rodolfo J. Paiz" ####@####.####
Date:
25 Nov 2003 15:16:29 -0000
Message-Id: <6.0.0.22.0.20031125090827.0253a988@mail.simpaticus.com>
At 22:07 11/23/2003, Tabatha Marshall wrote:
>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.
Hi, Tabatha:
Note that David Lawyer's original comment was that he would like to
"prohibit advertising being displayed online with the documents." My
objection to his statement is made clearer when you reread above... I would
love to see the LDP get a sponsor so they'd have cash to pay for necessary
things, but one way to get such a sponsor is to put banner ads on some or
all pages of the website.
David's proposed exclusion of all forms of advertising, by any technology,
and covering all senses including visual and auditive (see his more recent
post), is anathema to me since it would automatically prevent the LDP from
obtaining such revenue or, if they did obtain revenue from ads, prevent LDP
from using his or other docs with that kind of restrictive license.
Amusingly enough, David does not object to someone publishing a book with
his documents in it (which does bother me unless the LDP gets the profits).
I think any proposed license text (regardless of whether it's created
in-house or taken from somewhere else) needs to take into account both
reasonable preferences of an author and issues that are specifically of
interest to LDP, such as that of being able to take over and modify an
unmaintained or stale work.
>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!
You have my full support.
--
Rodolfo J. Paiz
####@####.####
