discuss: LDP Licence at http://tldp.org/COPYRIGHT.html, and changing in-place
Subject:
Re: LDP Licence at http://tldp.org/COPYRIGHT.html, and changing in-place
From:
Rick Moen ####@####.####
Date:
20 Dec 2003 13:37:40 -0000
Message-Id: <20031220133733.GA1145@linuxmafia.com>
Quoting David Lawyer ####@####.####
[...]
> Well, there is what seems to be an older license but it has no version
> number on it. I think that prior to version 2.0 there were version
> numbers so this is an older one. It may have co-existed with the
> versioned series. Copies of it are still on the Internet and at LDP.
> Perhaps it's 1.0. Note that it is also the license for a certain guide,
> which is confusing.
>
> http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/docs/linux-doc-project/LDP-COPYRIGHT
I think we're in luck. After experimenting with the Wayback Machine
(Internet Archive) search facility, I've found what I think/hope is the
whole picture:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/COPYRIGHT.html
Retrieving all of those snapshots and diff'ing them shows that there
have really been only two versions, the original, un-versioned one (same
as at your iBiblio URL), and v2.0.
Technically, I checked Internet Archive's mirrored copies only through
2000, because when I got to 2001, their servers started flaking out on
me (which happens). However we were already showing a basically
unchanging v2.0 licence in 2000 -- and that's the current version number
today -- so it seems reasonable to assume that nobody's made substantive
changes without incrementing version numbers.
The "1.0" version bears Matt Welsh's name for the author credit. 2.0
lists Guylhem Aznar, whose displayed e-mail address changes as of the
2000-10-22 mirror copy from ####@####.#### to ####@####.####
-- which is also what the current (late 2003) page says. I diffed all
the versions I could retrieve, and found no other changes.
I've posted them both to my PerlHoo documentation tree's Licensing_and_Law
category, http://linuxmafia.com/kb/Licensing_and_Law .
Suggestion: Replace http://en.tldp.org/COPYRIGHT.html with a simple
page showing two links:
o Linux Documentation Project License (LDPL) v2.0, adopted 12 January
1998. LDP recommends this license as a default choice for documentation.
hyperlink to: http://en.tldp.org/LDPL/2.0/COPYRIGHT.html
o Linux Documentation Project License (LDPL) v1.0, adopted 6 January
1997. This is an older license by Matt Welsh, used by some early
HOWTOs and FAQs.
hyperlink to: http://en.tldp.org/LDPL/1.0/COPYRIGHT.html
(You're welcome to grab a copy of 1.0 from my PerlHoo tree.) This would
have the benefit of straightening out the ambiguity I mentioned earlier,
clarify the historical record, and leave an obvious spot for future
versions to go.
--
Cheers, "A raccoon tangled with a 23,000 volt line, today. The results
Rick Moen blacked out 1400 homes and, of course, one raccoon."
####@####.#### -- Steel City News
