discuss: Which Licenses Should LDP Recommend? GFDL
Subject:
Re: Which Licenses Should LDP Recommend? GFDL
From:
Randy Kramer ####@####.####
Date:
24 Apr 2001 12:06:13 -0000
Message-Id: <3AE56B88.504C@fast.net>
David,
Are you familiar with ####@####.#### It is a
discussion group related to the approval of open source languages.
Although this might be considered slightly off topic, a note to them
might provoke some interesting discussion.
If you'd like, I can forward this to them, or forward anything else
you'd like to get their comments on.
Randy Kramer
David Lawyer wrote:
>
> Traditionally LDP recommended its own LDP License and also would up
> with another short "boilerplate license" in the Manifesto. Now it's
> proposed that we recommend the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL)
> and Open Publication License (OPL) less A and B options. Both of
> these are recommended in the LDP Author Guide (which also mentions
> the "boilerplate copyright" as a possibility).
>
> So should we remove the "boilerplate license" from the Manifesto? Or
> should we do something else? We supposedly make decisions based on
> informed consensus and to be informed about licenses takes a lot of
> effort. I would like to just concentrate on the question of what
> license we recommend and not what licenses we should accept, etc.
> Which we can discuss later on.
>
> It's my view that none of the above licenses are very good. I think
> that a license should protect a reader from any obnoxious advertising
> (especially animated, or alternating with paging). It might also try
> to prevent the distribution of stale versions by requiring that if you
> put it on the Internet, stale versions must be labeled as such. None
> of the above mentioned licenses do this. So perhaps we need to write
> our own license, or improve on GFDL.
>
> --------------------------GFDL----------------------------------------
> I've been reading the version 1.1 of GFDL (March 2000) and it's an
> improvement over version 1.0 but unfortunately it's even more complex.
> A copy of it is attached so you can read it and see what you think of
> it. The GFDL attempts to close a number of possible loopholes and may
> be the best license of the lot. But it also has some problems which
> I'll now discuss.
>
> One problem is that it requires that the full text of the license be
> supplied with each document. The LDP Author Guide mentions using a
> link, but the license doesn't permit this. For modifications, the
> modified work must use the same license and satisfy 14 other
> conditions (labeled A-N). Here's condition A:
>
> A. Use in the Title Page (and on the covers, if any) a title distinct
> from that of the Document, and from those of previous versions
> (which should, if there were any, be listed in the History section
> of the Document). You may use the same title as a previous version
> if the original publisher of that version gives permission.
>
> One problem with this is that it's not made clear who the "publisher"
> is. In the LDP, some might think that the LDP is the publisher but
> the LDP has no authority to give such permission. So I think that the
> authors are also the "publisher". The above should have probably said
> "authors" instead of "publisher". For printed books, the publisher is
> normally the copyright owner but not in the LDP (or in many other
> situations).
>
> Another problem is that a new title is only needed if the modification
> is a fork of the document. That's where there are two different
> people maintaining similar documents (which is of course an undesirable
> duplication of effort under present conditions). If someone takes
> over an unmaintained document where the author can't be located, then
> it should continue under the same name (no fork has happened). But
> GFDL doesn't permit this. Now here's requirement C:
>
> C. State on the Title page the name of the publisher of the
> Modified Version, as the publisher.
>
> Again, who is the publisher?
>
> D. Preserve all the copyright notices of the Document.
> E. Add an appropriate copyright notice for your modifications
> adjacent to the other copyright notices.
>
> The above makes it clear that the modified doc has multiple copyright
> owners. Thus, in order to get permission to modify the license or to
> do something like retain the same title, requires that all the
> copyright owners agree (or so it says in a book on copyright law).
> Over time, copyright owners may die or be hard to locate. Even if
> they can all be contacted, it may be difficult to reach agreement.
>
> There is a positive side to this since having multiple copyright
> owners makes it difficult for anyone to change the license to a very
> non-free one. But it also makes it difficult to improve on the
> license although in some cases a later version of GFDL may be used.
>
> Another problem is the "Invariant Sections" which can't be modified.
> They consist of selected "Secondary Sections" defined as:
>
> A "Secondary Section" is a named appendix or a front-matter section
> of the Document that deals exclusively with the relationship of the
> publishers or authors of the Document to the Document's overall
> subject (or to related matters) and contains nothing that could fall
> directly within that overall subject. (For example, if the Document
> is in part a textbook of mathematics, a Secondary Section may not
> explain any mathematics.) The relationship could be a matter of
> historical connection with the subject or with related matters, or
> of legal, commercial, philosophical, ethical or political position
> regarding them.
>
> I'm not sure if advertising could be put into such an Invariant
> Section based on the above definition. For a HOWTO on certain
> hardware, could a commercial firm modify it so as to become an author
> and then present a "commercial position" which is little more than
> advertising? I think there should be a time limit for how long an
> Invariant Section must remain invariant (say 5 years). If a doc is
> maintained it's copyright every year it's maintained and the copyright
> thus never expires. So the Invariant Section could still be present
> hundreds of years later and be quite obsolete.
>
> I've got some more comments on GFDL but I'll save them for later.
> After we discuss GFDL, I could send Stallman a transcript or summary
> of the discussion. Then perhaps he'll come up with new version of
> GFDL.
>
> David Lawyer
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Part 1.2 Name: fdl_1.1.txt
> Type: Plain Text (text/plain)
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> _________________________
> http://list.linuxdoc.org/
