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:
David Lawyer ####@####.####
Date:
23 Dec 2003 08:26:11 -0000
Message-Id: <20031223072703.GA373@lafn.org>
This is my 3rd try at this email. The first two trys were lost due to
interruptions, like someone on another terminal (at my home) shutting
down my PC via a command. I've got a multiuser setup with dumb
terminals.
On Sat, Dec 20, 2003 at 08:29:19PM -0800, Rick Moen wrote:
[snip]
> Getting back to my original point, LDP now has a veritable mess, where
> many HOWTOs and FAQs claim to be under the licence at
> http://www.tldp.org/COPYRIGHT.html or URLs that equate to that, but
> the licence displayed there is (often) _not_ the one those authors
> chose, because LDP made the tactical error of editing in place.
I pointed out this problem a few years ago to the staff list. I don't
think it's quite this simple. I think that the various versions may
have been at one time available but only the current one was found in
COPYRIGHT.html.
> Moreover, the licence history has been inadvertantly obscured. Isn't
> that worth fixing to the degree possible?
Only if it doesn't take much time to fix it. But I am not optimistic
and think that not much harm will come if it's not fixed.
> Please understand, however, that I'm not criticising so much as trying
> to help. I would suggest:
>
> 1. As many as possible prior LDP License versions should be located and
> archived.
No. I don't think any more effort should be put into this unless you are
strongly motivated to do it.
> 2. The http://www.tldp.org/COPYRIGHT.html URL should contain a list of
> pointers to the various preserved versions.
It would be confusing to have more than one license there. Furthermore,
explaining that licenses are lost wouldn't help much either. This is
getting to be old history and as time goes on there will be fewer docs
with this license. Another problem is that the version 2.0 (and
possibly previous versions) has a serious loophole in it which I'll
explain in another post. [snip]
David Lawyer
