discuss: licence problems
Subject:
Re: [discuss] licence problems
From:
David Lawyer ####@####.####
Date:
29 Sep 2008 16:35:23 +0100
Message-Id: <20080929153109.GC2363@davespc>
On Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 09:16:00AM -0700, Rick Moen wrote:
> Quoting David Lawyer ####@####.####
>
> > It would be nice if all wiki articles were GFDL. This makes it easy
> > for users to understand what the rules are and anyone that wants to
> > print them doesn't have to examine many different licenses.
>
> I suppose so, but that's _not_ the question before us.
I thought the discussion was about what licenses to used for documents
put into the wiki, and not for licenses accepted by LDP for non-wiki
docs?
> The question is whether a particular set of other licences, well known ones
> that are genuinely free licences and already commonly used for
> writings/documentation, are acceptable to LDP. If not, LDP may well end
> up refusing valuable submissions for, I would point out, no particularly
> compelling reason. I'd say deliberately refusing good submissions just
> because they have the wrong free licence is not in LDP's interest --
> particularly since GFDL itself isn't even a particularly good
> licence[1], only one of the two best known (primarily on account of
> Wikipedia).
I agree, and that's why the manifesto allows a very large range of
licenses. But the wiki situation is different. Anything put into the
wiki must at least allow modification while it's in the wiki. I'll
discuss this in more detail later in another post.
>
> > I think the proposal to contact authors and ask them to change the
> > license to GFDL (no invariant sects.) is a good one.
>
> GFDL _v. 1.2_ with no invariant sections, yes.
>
> > But what about the cases where you can't find the author (or the cases
> > where the author will not change the license, or can't because the
> > co-author(s) can't be located)? In these cases, if the existing
> > license allows modification they could be added to the wiki.
>
> All of the licences I listed are, of course, compatible with that
> objective: They're all forkable "free" licences. (Some are copyleft,
> others are simple permissive licences.) Which fixes the maintenance
> problem LDP is trying to solve.
>
> > So I'm proposing that all wiki docs be GFDL except for cases where
> > it's not feasible.
>
> Again, that is _not_ the question before us. The question is whether
> LDP will be willing to accept documents under the several other free
> (forkable) documentation licences, other than GFDL 1.2 without invariant
> sections.
Do you mean the license for non-wiki or for wiki? I think for
non-wiki docs, the license requirements per the Manifesto should remain
as it is, since change should only happen here for compelling reasons.
>
> [1] For one thing, it's horribly verbose, has that really
> problematic DRM language, and is quite difficult to understand for both
> of those reasons and others.
True, I'm no fan of GFDL.
David Lawyer
