discuss: Thread: Documentation licensing

 --- Rick Moen ####@####.#### wrote: >
Obligatory disclaimer:  Intelligent people of
> goodwill frequently differ
> over documentation licensing.  ;->
> 
> Just for the sake of clarity (pro bono publico), and
> not to be critical:

You are differing in what qualifies as a good free
documentation  license for me the primary criteria is
that modifications should be redistributable without
prior permission

Let me state what I consider good requirements

1) Should be modifiable and redistributable under the
same license
2) should demand attribution
3) should allow commercial redistribution

GNU FDL does match these requirements but it looks
like it doesnt match debian's guidelines. I am not
sure what debian thinks of the this license but I find
this license to be appropriate

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/1.0/

I think we can allow GNU FDL documents but recommend
the creative commons license for new documents and NOT
allow variations or any other license

I do not like documents which have different licenses
with no common set of requirements to be grouped
together in an arbitrary manner. This has practical
difficulties like I mentioned in my previous email


regards
Rahul

________________________________________________________________________
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At 12:21 4/6/2004, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
>We are documenting software thats usually free and we
>need documentation that allows modifications and
>redistribution to be done freely.

Makes sense. Not obligatory, but logical.

>why should we volunteer our work for
>someone who has a restricted license?

You're free to volunteer your work for anything you please, and to refrain 
from doing so in any case you please.

But why should everyone else be bound by *your* beliefs and preferences? 
Example: I find that Macromedia Flash is a wonderful tool though it is not 
Free. I do not have the ability to code a replacement. However, I believe 
that Linux will grow further and faster if it can use existing and popular 
tools like Flash *until* Free replacements exist *and* such replacements 
have grown so popular that Flash is no longer useful.

*You* would not volunteer your time to document the use of Flash on Linux. 
*I* would. The problem is that you speak of "we" and what "we" should do, 
when there is no "we" at all. I would never force you to volunteer your 
time when you did not desire to do so, but I will volunteer my time to 
document whatever I damn well please. Whether it's Free or not, whether I 
get paid or not, whether I paint my legs green or not... all of these are 
irrelevant to *you* since you are not the one volunteering anything in my case.

I'll make it simple: I propose that, for every document that you wish to 
remove because you don't like its license and which is still useful and 
still maintained, that you first come up with another way to provide that 
information to the users who need it. But if it's useful, and you can't 
replace it, then removing it is counterproductive, damaging to the very 
community you want to help, and absolutely indefensible.

Summary: what *you* believe only governs what you do with *your* time. Be 
careful not to attempt to force your preferences on the rest of us.

>This is not just an idealogical issue. Suppose I want
>to distribute the whole LDP collection. With possible
>variations of licenses and stuff how do I know if all
>of the documents are licensed to allow redistribution.
>Do I have to consult a lawyer?

If you want to demand consistency in licensing, then you are going to lose 
some authors and some documents. You are certainly going to lose more than 
you can quickly and conveniently replace. And the LDP community needs to be 
clear in what trade-offs it is willing to make. *I* want to help people... 
but to dramatize the point, it sometimes feels like you only want to help 
them under certain conditions.

Yes... if you want to distribute the LDP collection, at this point you need 
to consult a lawyer, apparently. It is what it is, I guess. Work towards 
more freedom... don't inhibit people from exercising theirs just because 
you don't like their choices.


-- 
Rodolfo J. Paiz
####@####.####
http://www.simpaticus.com

At 13:24 4/6/2004, Rick Moen wrote:
>Obligatory disclaimer:  Intelligent people of goodwill frequently differ
>over documentation licensing.  ;->

Not being too well-educated on the topic, can I just ask you to flat-out 
recommend one, so I can read one and see if I like it instead of having to 
read six (which isn't likely to happen)?

I'd appreciate it if that were possible.

Cheers,


-- 
Rodolfo J. Paiz
####@####.####
http://www.simpaticus.com

Quoting Rahul Sundaram ####@####.####

> You are differing in what qualifies as a good free documentation
> license for me the primary criteria is that modifications should be
> redistributable without prior permission

I'm not sure we _are_ substantively differing.  The above quality (that
you speak of) is what I refer to as that of being "forkable" -- and that
CC calls the Derivs property.

> Let me state what I consider good requirements
> 
> 1) Should be modifiable and redistributable under the same license
> 2) should demand attribution
> 3) should allow commercial redistribution
> 
> GNU FDL does match these requirements but it looks
> like it doesnt match debian's guidelines.

Very briefly:

1.  I hope you agree that any use of the optional invariant sections
makes the content not "modifiable".

2.  Section 2's DRM restriction clause (banning all "technical measures
to obstruct or control" reading and copying) appears to ban storing or
conveying GFDL-covered content over encrypted media or links, among
other things.  Although the right to (say) put a document in a
password-covered Zip archive isn't in your list, I suspect silly
prohibitions of ordinary usage actions aren't OK with you.

Stallman said that FSF will look into changing that language to make
its intended scope clearer (barring _distribution_ on DRM-obscured
media), but for now it's present and problematic.

3.  Section 3's Copying in Quantity clause requires that distributors
not merely _offer_ GFDLed documents' "transparent" renditions to the 
public, but that it must actually be _included_.  The software analogue
would be requiring that every binary RPM be bloated to include full
matching source code right _in_ the binary RPM, rather than giving
downloaders a choice of pulling down one but not the other.  Again, this
technical doesn't contravene your "requirements" list, but is yet
another irksome restriction of common practice without reason.


> I am not sure what debian thinks of the license but I find this
> license to be appropriate
> 
> http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/1.0/

Please note that (for whatever it's worth) I in fact use the above CC
licence for my Linuxmafia.com Knowledgebase (http://linuxmafia.com/kb/).
(Notice that it's ShareAlike _with attribution_.)


> I think we can allow GNU FDL documents but recommend
> the creative commons license for new documents and NOT
> allow variations or any other license

Personal opinion:  Introduce GFDL 1.2-covered works today -- especially
any with invariant sections, and TLDP will regret it tomorrow.

-- 
Cheers,                                Bad Unabomber!
Rick Moen                              Blowing people all to hell.
####@####.####                    Do you take requests?
               --  Unabomber Haiku Contest, CyberLaw mailing list

Quoting Rodolfo J. Paiz ####@####.####

> Not being too well-educated on the topic, can I just ask you to flat-out 
> recommend one, so I can read one and see if I like it instead of having to 
> read six (which isn't likely to happen)?
> 
> I'd appreciate it if that were possible.

For many purposes, I personally like CC's "Attribution-ShareAlike 1.0" licence.
The name uses CC's admirably modular and clear licensing terminology:

Attribution:  Requires crediting authors of the codebase in derivative
              works.  (By implication, this licence has the Derivs 
              property, i.e., is a forkable licence.)  Copyright law
              lets one either insist on attribution, or to waive it.
ShareAlike:   Derivative works must have the same terms.  I.e., it's
              a copyleft licence.


The plain-English form of the Attribution-ShareAlike licence is at
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/1.0/ , which also hyperlinks
to the lawyerly "Legal Code" (full licence) rendition on a separate
page.

If you have time, look briefly over the matrix of CC licences at
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ , even if you don't read any of the
linked licence texts:  That page is useful as a map to what permutations
of permission grants are possible.

Hi

> 
> Makes sense. Not obligatory, but logical.
> 
> >why should we volunteer our work for
> >someone who has a restricted license?
> 
> You're free to volunteer your work for anything you
> please, and to refrain 
> from doing so in any case you please.
> 

You are making this as some fight over individual
preferences and choices while it is not. LDP does a
lot of work in maintaining a document including help
with markup, storing and distributing documents in
multiple formats and acting as a site which gives a
good amount of importance to these documents. Hosting
restrictive licensed documents which several different
arbitrary licenses is problematic. I dont want to
consult a lawyer just because i want to distribute
documents from LDP

We dont have a common requirements for these licenses.
These licenses could be anything at all. Maybe not be
even legal. This is a problematic thing.

Its not at all about my beliefs and choices. 

regards
Rahul

________________________________________________________________________
Yahoo! India Insurance Special: Be informed on the best policies, services, tools and more. 
Go to: http://in.insurance.yahoo.com/licspecial/index.html

Hi

> 1.  I hope you agree that any use of the optional
> invariant sections
> makes the content not "modifiable".

Yes. Thats optional and I hope that majority of
existing documentation dont include it.

> 
> 2.  Section 2's DRM restriction clause (banning all
> "technical measures
> to obstruct or control" reading and copying) appears
> to ban storing or
> conveying GFDL-covered content over encrypted media
> or links, among
> other things.  Although the right to (say) put a
> document in a
> password-covered Zip archive isn't in your list, I
> suspect silly
> prohibitions of ordinary usage actions aren't OK
> with you.
> 
> 3.  Section 3's Copying in Quantity clause requires
> that distributors
> not merely _offer_ GFDLed documents' "transparent"
> renditions to the 
> public, but that it must actually be _included_. 


I think TLDP doesnt have any explicitly stated
criteria for licenses that are acceptable. The
problems stated with FDL though important are not as
much a potential problem compared to the existing
situtation

I have seen this content on
http://tldp.org/docs.html#howto

"Non-Free Documents (contain license restrictions):

    *

      Rute Users Tutorial and Exposition

      Due to restrictive license provisions, the Rute
document has been removed from the LDP, but can still
be accessed from http://rute.sourceforge.net/

"

So TLDP has classified atleast one such document as
non free. So what I am pushing for here is certainly
not new.

The choices we can make are simple. We should specify
a common set of criteria for licenses that makes them
acceptable

The creative commons website has a clear set of
choices
http://creativecommons.org/license/

leading to this
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/1.0/

for me.

By specifying any set of criterias we are certainly
excluding authors from including such content in
tldp.org but they are free to host them elsewhere. My
point is pretty specific. We shouldnt allow arbitrary
licensed content in tldp.org. Its *is* problematic.

The way to move foward is

1) Agree on a set of acceptable criterias for
including a documentation license
2) Agree on a recommended licenses and acceptable
licenses
3)Bring about a list of documents that are in
violation on 1) and 2.
4) work on replacing those documents after a suitable
altnerative version is ready

regards
Rahul


regards
Rahul









________________________________________________________________________
Yahoo! India Insurance Special: Be informed on the best policies, services, tools and more. 
Go to: http://in.insurance.yahoo.com/licspecial/index.html

Quoting Rahul Sundaram ####@####.####

[invariant sections:]

> Yes. That's optional, and I hope that majority of
> existing documentation don't include it.

It's something to watch carefully for, at a minimum:  A certain number
of authors will include such things for no better reason than having
seen it in GNU documentation.

> I think TLDP doesnt have any explicitly stated
> criteria for licenses that are acceptable. The
> problems stated with FDL though important are not as
> much a potential problem compared to the existing
> situtation

The current situation's a bit fluid in part because opinions among LDP
staff on the matter are, actually, fairly diverse.  (I read a sampling
of archived posts on the topic, going way back, before posting here.)
In particular, issuing "Deriv" (forkable) licence rights to one's
personal brainchild is a difficult step, and in some cases I've balked
at doing that, myself.  (I don't speak for LDP.)

There has been quite a tangle of arguments and counterarguments on the
subject.  I'm sure that has quite a lot to do with why there's not yet
an LDP policy.  Most people find the subject (of licensing) a tiresome
morass, and who can blame 'em?  ;->

-- 
Cheers,                   The cynics among us might say:   "We laugh, 
Rick Moen                 monkeyboys -- Linux IS the mainstream UNIX now!
####@####.####       MuaHaHaHa!" but that would be rude. -- Jim Dennis

 --- Rick Moen ####@####.#### wrote: > Quoting
Rahul Sundaram ####@####.####
> 
> [invariant sections:]
> 
> > Yes. That's optional, and I hope that majority of
> > existing documentation don't include it.
> 
> It's something to watch carefully for, at a minimum:
>  A certain number
> of authors will include such things for no better
> reason than having
> seen it in GNU documentation.

very true

> 
> > I think TLDP doesnt have any explicitly stated
> > criteria for licenses that are acceptable. The
> > problems stated with FDL though important are not
> as
> > much a potential problem compared to the existing
> > situtation
> 
> The current situation's a bit fluid in part because
> opinions among LDP
> staff on the matter are, actually, fairly diverse. 
> (I read a sampling
> of archived posts on the topic, going way back,
> before posting here.)
> In particular, issuing "Deriv" (forkable) licence
> rights to one's
> personal brainchild is a difficult step, and in some
> cases I've balked
> at doing that, myself.  


Yes. Just because you give the right doesnt mean
anybody would just that document and misuse it. For
example in LDP even when the documentation allows
people to simply take over many do email the original
author and let him know that they are doing that.

The culture isnt reflected in the license but its
actively enforced. I think I read about that somewhere
is ESR's papers *after* realising it. 

regards
Rahul

________________________________________________________________________
Yahoo! India Insurance Special: Be informed on the best policies, services, tools and more. 
Go to: http://in.insurance.yahoo.com/licspecial/index.html

Quoting Rahul Sundaram ####@####.####

> The culture isnt reflected in the license but its
> actively enforced. I think I read about that somewhere
> in ESR's papers *after* realising it. 

"Homesteading the Noosphere", very likely.
http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/homesteading/homesteading/

-- 
Cheers,        "Linux means never having to delete your love mail."
Rick Moen                                              -- Don Marti
####@####.####