discuss: Thread: [Debian removes free documentation / technical aspects]

Quoting Randy Kramer ####@####.####

> Sorry--I guess I should have said IANAL ;-)  I don't know about moral rights 
> in the US--first time I heard about them was as a right that authors in other 
> countries had.  You could be right.

Here's a good write-up on the USA situation.  Basically, those Berne
Convention rights have not been recognised in USA jurisdictions:
http://www.rbs2.com/moral.htm

-- 
Cheers,
Rick Moen                                                    Habetis bona deum. 
####@####.####

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1


On Sun, 9 Apr 2006, David Lawyer wrote:

> All these problems mean that a new and better documentation license is
> needed and perhaps LDP could come up with one.  I'm not too encouraged
> since when I mentioned my proposal for prohibiting adding advertising
> to docs at the San Diego Doc Summit in 2001 there was only opposition.

Sorry for answering this so late, I was on a holiday.  The problem with
licenses is the reinforcement.  We can put whatever we want into them, if
you live in a banana-republic, you do whatever you want.  Even here in
.eu, it is not really a problem to "bypass" US licenses without being
sued or convicted.  But what can we do about it?  Before that bigger
problem is solved, I can't seem to find any motivation to discuss the
details :(

Tille.

- --
Machtelt Garrels                ####@####.####
Review Coordinator    	 	http://www.tldp.org/authors/

My Penguin, my freedom.         http://tille.xalasys.com

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFERMlvsIIUbMXbBA8RAineAJ9tuWVLBR6BAcMUuI3zvDYl/zPgngCgo3xq
Y8wv9OdaEQpEO5SAaf0QeiU=
=7rAy
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

> On Sun, Apr 09, 2006 at 05:59:57PM -0700, David Lawyer wrote:
> > Another situation is that many people don't understand that it's much
> > more important to have a free license for software than it is to have
> > a free license for documentation.  Non-free software can't be studied
> > unless it's open source and even then it may be hard to study due to poor
> > comments.  Not so for non-free documentation, where it's designed to be
> > read and understood by the readers (users).  And readers can then
> > utilize the facts they learn to write improved documentation since
> > facts themselves are not copyrighted.
> > 
> 
On Mon, Apr 17, 2006 at 12:26:51PM +0000, Andrew M.A. Cater wrote:
> I'm with you on the free license for software and all the DFSG
> freedoms. Unfortunately, as has been demonstrated several times, it's
> VERY hard to distinguish between documentation and software any more - 
> in the widest sense, it's all just bits. Where do you draw the line -

I should have added that I think that documentation that goes with a
free software program needs to be free (like the code is free).  If
someone modifies the code, then s/he needs to be able to immediately
modify the documentation that accompanies the code.  But most LDP
documentation is of a more general nature so it's less essential that
it be free.

> Tex which builds its documentation, cweb which includes it as part of
> the program ... There have been proposals for Debian Free Documentation
> licenses before and they've all fallen foul of where you draw the
> dividing line - the Debian consensus currently is that documentation ==
> software and should enjoy the same freedoms (though there are inevitably
> some who disagree and start flamewars about it :) ). 
> 
			David Lawyer

Just on this tangent...

David Lawyer wrote:

[snip]


> If I recall correctly, I thought that "moral" rights were effective
> in the U.S. also, but are not spelled out in statue law.  This would
> mean that even if you use public domain material, you must give the
> author credit.  I've noticed that large chunks of one of my HOWTO's
> have been put on the Internet without acknowledgement that I wrote it.
> This is a violation of my "moral" rights but I'm too busy to do
> anything about it.  I wonder how often this happens to other HOWTOs.


It has happened to me. I had the strangest feeling when I saw
one of my HOWTOs chopped up into a series of articles, followed
by rather mixed feelings when the articles received good critics.

The issue was taken care of quietly.

I have also seen my writings copied verbatim on Slashdot, again
without attributions. Strange how far people are willing to go
in lowering their ethical standards for something as worthless
as Slashdot karma.

> Often the author never knows about it.  You have to search on a phrase
> from your document, picking one that no one else would be likely to
> use.

The problem is that you get a lot of hits from all the mirrors.
I discovered these things by following topics relevant to my
work and my HOWTOs and just stumbled upon it.


Regards,
    Stein Gjoen