discuss: Documentation licensing
Subject:
Re: Documentation Licensing
From:
Rick Moen ####@####.####
Date:
12 Apr 2004 20:15:56 -0000
Message-Id: <20040412201554.GH19884@linuxmafia.com>
Quoting Terrence Enger ####@####.####
[Reverse bastard copyleft clause.]
> A few days ago, motivated by this discussion, I took a look at the
> discussion of licence issues at the GNU and Debian web sites. I saw
> no specific reference to a restriction of this kind. The Debian site,
> however, does have a lot of other FAQs of the form "Aw, can't I add
> just such-and-such small restriction", and all of these are answered
> "No.". I continue to sulk and mutter unkind words under my breath.
Hmm. The FSF material I'm aware of clarifies that you may not alter the
text of its licenses, those being copyrighted texts in themselves, and
issued by FSF for no-charge public use without the right to fork.
Separately, copyright law gives you both the right to attribution and
the right to disclaim attribution -- but not (in itself) the right to
require others to retroactively strip your author credit from copies of
a work they've already received and used in accordance with your
permission grant.
Debian's (unofficial) DFSG FAQ lists sundry licence terms that, if
applied to an otherwise DFSG-free work, renders it non-free. You might
be referring to that.
On my _own_ opinion/essay works to which I was referring, I wasn't
"adding" a reverse bastard copyleft clause to some standard licence, but
rather _using_ a reverse bastard copyleft clause _as_ the licence. So,
it's a licence of my own devising, and (come to think of it) might just
qualify as such as a free-documentation licence. I hesitate to suggest
it for serious usage, though (as it might not stand up in court): I
just thought list-members would find it interesting.
To be slightly more specific, I'm talking about my infamous personal
"rant" pages, here: http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/ . As, so to speak,
pure personal expression, I didn't want to give others the legal right to
create offshoot pages elsewhere stating different views but still
attaching my name to them. But at the same time, if people wanted to
reuse some of the less tongue-in-cheek technical fragments on those pages,
I figured that would be fine if I could safely allow it. Thus my
bastard reverse copyleft grant.
I also let people alternatively mirror the _whole_ page without
modification and with attribution, if they wish. The exact licence text
is a paragraph at the bottom of each page.
