discuss: Thread: licence problems

Hello,

the licence problem have to be cleared before we can really work. I 
wrote a letter to Guilhem Aznar (he seems to work for FSF) asking help 
and add a line in the task list.

*we need a lawyer* or a licence expert.

* I think we agree on the need to use GFDL on the wiki every time it's 
possible. We have to look closely at this (invariant??) and what it 
means, but given it's used for wikipedia, it should be good for us :-)
* so when talking to the authors, asking for the right of setting they 
HOWTO on tghe wiki should be made clear: GFLD
* if the author *don't want* to change his licence and it's not GFDL, 
we have to clearly set the wiki page accordingly. We can even write a 
non-modifiable HOWTO on the wiki, on a read only page, with a 
companion discussion page write open.

* is GPL usable on the (a) wiki?
* what can we do if a HWOTO's author is unreachable: probably as 
already said: make the HOWTO page readonly, but add a discussion page 
write enabled. (or move to "obsolete"...)

jdd
NB: G. Aznar was the last LDP leader before his resignation two years ago
-- 
http://www.dodin.net
http://valerie.dodin.org
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-eic8MSSfM

jdd a écrit :

> NB: G. Aznar was the last LDP leader before his resignation two years ago

Guilhem said: (translation below)

Bonjour

Pas besoin d'aide juridique, les lois sont claires... par défaut un
auteur retiens tous les droits, donc ces documents sont à exclure
Les documents dont les auteurs sont injoignable ne peuvent être
changés de license, donc a exclure aussi.

La GPL est peu adaptée à la documentation - pourquoi d'ailleurs la
GFDL a été écrite. Mais si 99% des documents sont sous cette license,
ça peut être logique de faire avec

Suggestion :
  - lister les documents "suspects" (auteur inconnu/injoignable)
  - demander aux auteurs joignables de changer de license pour la 
license retenue
  - reécrire les documents "suspects"

Pas facile quand même...

Guylhem

translation:

no need for juridical help, the laws are clear... by default an autgor 
have all the rights, so documents with unreachable authors have to be 
excluded, the licence can be changed, even if there is none. So 
documents have to be kept unmodifiables

GPL is not well fitted for documentation, so the GFDL, but we could 
cope with if necessary

and Guilhem say it's necessary to re-write the unmodifiable documents


in fact, previous Manifesto said only:

"Anyone may copy and distribute (sell or give away) LDP documents"

nothing about modifying.

hence my proposal of making the page read only and adding a discussion 
page, we could add to the howto on the mirrors.

jdd

-- 
http://www.dodin.net
http://valerie.dodin.org
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-eic8MSSfM

On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 06:10:42PM +0200, jdd wrote:
> jdd a ?crit :
>
>> NB: G. Aznar was the last LDP leader before his resignation two years ago
>
> Guilhem said: (translation below)
>
> Bonjour
>
> Pas besoin d'aide juridique, les lois sont claires... par d?faut un
> auteur retiens tous les droits, donc ces documents sont ? exclure
> Les documents dont les auteurs sont injoignable ne peuvent ?tre
> chang?s de license, donc a exclure aussi.
>
> La GPL est peu adapt?e ? la documentation - pourquoi d'ailleurs la
> GFDL a ?t? ?crite. Mais si 99% des documents sont sous cette license,
> ?a peut ?tre logique de faire avec
>
> Suggestion :
>  - lister les documents "suspects" (auteur inconnu/injoignable)
>  - demander aux auteurs joignables de changer de license pour la license 
> retenue
>  - re?crire les documents "suspects"
>
> Pas facile quand m?me...
>
> Guylhem
>
> translation:
>
> no need for juridical help, the laws are clear... by default an autgor  
> have all the rights, so documents with unreachable authors have to be  
> excluded, the licence can be changed, even if there is none. So  
                        can't                              ??
> documents have to be kept unmodifiables
>
> GPL is not well fitted for documentation, so the GFDL, but we could cope 
> with if necessary
>
> and Guilhem say it's necessary to re-write the unmodifiable documents
>
> in fact, previous Manifesto said only:
>
> "Anyone may copy and distribute (sell or give away) LDP documents"
>
> nothing about modifying.

Not exactly.  It says:
"It is not required that the documents be modifiable, but it is encouraged."
 
> hence my proposal of making the page read only and adding a discussion  
> page, we could add to the howto on the mirrors.
>
			David Lawyer

On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 05:35:11PM +0200, jdd wrote:
> Hello,
>
> the licence problem have to be cleared before we can really work. I  
> wrote a letter to Guylhem Aznar (he seems to work for FSF) asking help  
> and add a line in the task list.
>
> *we need a lawyer* or a licence expert.
Well, Rick Moen and I know something about licenses.
>
> * I think we agree on the need to use GFDL on the wiki every time it's  
> possible. We have to look closely at this (invariant??) and what it  
> means, but given it's used for wikipedia, it should be good for us :-)

Why can't each wiki have it's own license so long as the license
allows modification?  One could even write their own license that
prohibits modification without the author's consent but makes an exception
for the wiki where distribution of the modified wiki doc is not allowed
unless the author approves.  In a way, having the modifications on the
wiki is distribution since anyone can get a copy but an author could
prohibit any other website from distributing the "unapproved draft"
doc which might contain a warning that it hasn't been approved by the
author yet.  If I understand correctly, the present plans are something
like this where only the author can sign off on the modifications made
by others by adding a new line to the revision section of the doc.
But for most all the docs, modifications and redistribution may be
freely made without making them on the wiki.  I don't think the
hypothetical "only-modify-on-wiki" license is necessarily a good idea
but it would be legal per the manifesto if someone wanted to do it and
if the wiki policy accepts it.

For LDP docs, there were not many cases known where someone modified
the doc and distributed it by other than the LDP.  That's partly
because the LDP has a good distribution network of mirrors.

> * so when talking to the authors, asking for the right of setting they  
> HOWTO on tghe wiki should be made clear: GFLD
You are likely aware that Debian, likely the only major distribution
that includes LDP docs in its distribution, considers GFDL to be
non-free unless the license explicit states that no invariant
(unmodifiable) sections exist.  For the text of GFDL and the wikipedia
article on it see
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Free_Documentation_License
Note that GFDL hasn't been changed in 6 years and it seems to require
that it be copied into each doc rather than just referenced with a url
link but I think a lot of docs don't adhere to this gfdl rule.

> * if the author *don't want* to change his licence and it's not GFDL, we 
> have to clearly set the wiki page accordingly. We can even write a  
> non-modifiable HOWTO on the wiki, on a read only page, with a companion 
> discussion page write open.

>
> * is GPL usable on the (a) wiki?
There's been mention of making the next revision of GPL compatible
with GFDL in some way.

> * what can we do if a HWOTO's author is unreachable: probably as already 
> said: make the HOWTO page readonly, but add a discussion page write 
> enabled. (or move to "obsolete"...)
>
> jdd
			David Lawyer

(the ldp mailing list was out of order for some time, so don't be
surprised if your mails didn't show.)

David Lawyer a écrit :
> On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 05:35:11PM +0200, jdd wrote:

>> * I think we agree on the need to use GFDL on the wiki every time it's  
>> possible. We have to look closely at this (invariant??) and what it  
>> means, but given it's used for wikipedia, it should be good for us :-)
> 
> Why can't each wiki have it's own license so long as the license
> allows modification?

it's much too complicated to deal with. Of course we must (should?)
allow a motivated author to use a special licence, but we should also
insist for having a really free licence and this don't seems to be
obvious in the doc world. We should also be aware that we use to have
on stock the man pages with they own licence (more on this later)

I read all GFDL litterature (mostly by RMS) and think now that GFDL
without invariant is the one we should have

jdd

-- 
http://www.dodin.net
http://valerie.dodin.org
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-eic8MSSfM

Quoting Jean-Daniel Dodin ####@####.####

> the licence problem have to be cleared before we can really work. I 
> wrote a letter to Guilhem Aznar (he seems to work for FSF) asking help 
> and add a line in the task list.
> 
> *we need a lawyer* or a licence expert.

David Lawyer added:

> Well, Rick Moen and I know something about licenses.

I'll be glad to help to the extent I can.  I'm not an attorney, and 
am less well informed on European copyright law than I'd like (mostly
US, Canada, and Australia -- with some UK), but I studied quite a bit of
business law for my early career in accounting and finance, and have
participated in OSI's licence-review process for a long time, etc.

> * I think we agree on the need to use GFDL on the wiki every time it's 
> possible. We have to look closely at this (invariant??) and what it 
> means, but given it's used for wikipedia, it should be good for us :-)

GFDL with no invariant sections is a decent licence for documentation. 
At minimum, people have gotten accustomed to its peculiarities.  ;->

I personally think TLDP should be _willing_ to accept (new) documents
under any halfway reasonable free licence ("free" meaning permitting
reuse for any purpose, and creation/distribution of derivative works.
Reasonable licences (IMO) include Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0, Creative
Commons BY 3.0, and Open Publication License 1.0 with no options.  It
also (IMO) includes GPLv2 (maybe), GPLv3 (maybe), new-BSD, and MIT/X.
(See below.)

I suggest[1] that GFDL 1.2 or later without invariant sections be
recommend and requested to authors.  If authors nonetheless specify a
reasonable licence that isn't GFDL, I suggest accepting the submission.


> * is GPL usable on the (a) wiki?

Of course it is.  There's a persistent misconception that software
licences cannot or should not be used for software.  Here's an
explanation of how to use GPLv2 for documentation:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/nonsoftware-copyleft.html

These days, FSF deprecates doing so, but that's mainly politics: They're
pushing GFDL, so they don't talk about using other established
copyleft licences for that purpose, any more.  And GFDL exists in part
so that invariant sections such as copies of the GNU Manifesto can be
put into GNU documentation and not be removable by downstream
redistributors.  (Again, I'm not saying it's a bad licences; I'm just
saying it arose in a political context.)

For similar reasons, new-BSD and MIT/X can be used easily and without
problems for docs, on wikis and off.  (I'd have to think about GPLv3
before making the same claim, as there are some tricky bits to it.)

There is one longterm disadvantage to GPLv2 on TLDP docs:  Imagine that
someone wants to publish a bunch of TLDP HOWTOs in a book.  That book
would have to either include the "preferred form" of any GPLv2 docs
(Docbook XML, MediaWiki markup, or whatever) or a written offer, open to
any party, good for receiving a copy of that preferred form within the
following three years.  Pretty burdensome.  So, if TLDP wants docs to 
be book-publishable within reason, then GPLv[23] are not "reasonable".
If that's not important, than they probably are.

> * what can we do if a HWOTO's author is unreachable: probably as 
> already said: make the HOWTO page readonly, but add a discussion page 
> write enabled. (or move to "obsolete"...)

Yes.  As M. Guylhem Aznar has said, sadly those docs need to be replaced
or dropped, over the long term.

Apologies for being late to reply:  I've been on holiday for a couple of
weeks.



[1] Personally, I think Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 is a better
documentation licence.  However, it's not worth making a fuss over,
since GFDL without invariants clearly is popular and is perfectly OK.

Sorry about my error:

> > * is GPL usable on the (a) wiki?
> 
> Of course it is.  There's a persistent misconception that software
> licences cannot or should not be used for software.  
                                           ^non-

(I'm still suffering serious jet-lag.  I think I left my circadian
rhythm somewhere between St. Petersburg and Oslo.)

Rick Moen a écrit :

> I'll be glad to help to the extent I can.

thanks, I will re-use your mail in a wiki explanation page

jdd
-- 
http://www.dodin.net
http://valerie.dodin.org
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-eic8MSSfM

On Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 04:56:38PM -0700, Rick Moen wrote:
> 
> I personally think TLDP should be _willing_ to accept (new) documents
> under any halfway reasonable free licence ("free" meaning permitting
> reuse for any purpose, and creation/distribution of derivative works.
> Reasonable licences (IMO) include Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0, Creative
> Commons BY 3.0, and Open Publication License 1.0 with no options.  It
> also (IMO) includes GPLv2 (maybe), GPLv3 (maybe), new-BSD, and MIT/X.
> (See below.)
> 
> I suggest[1] that GFDL 1.2 or later without invariant sections be
> recommend and requested to authors.  If authors nonetheless specify a
> reasonable licence that isn't GFDL, I suggest accepting the submission.

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 think
the proposal to contact authors and ask them to change the license to
GFDL (no invariant sects.) is a good one.  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.  But if the doc has not been
maintained for such a long time that it essentially needs rewriting,
then it might be better to start over from scratch and produce a new
doc using the GFDL license.  So I'm proposing that all wiki docs be
GFDL except for cases where it's not feasible.

Of couse, for cases where the author can't be contacted, the proposal
that all docs on the wiki need an author or maintainer mean that such
docs would have to find a new maintainer to get on the wiki.  And that
may be hard to do.  Thus most all docs on the wiki would likely be
GFDL.

			David Lawyer

David Lawyer a écrit :

> doc using the GFDL license.  So I'm proposing that all wiki docs be
> GFDL except for cases where it's not feasible.

agree.

> 
> Of couse, for cases where the author can't be contacted, the proposal
> that all docs on the wiki need an author or maintainer mean that such
> docs would have to find a new maintainer to get on the wiki.  And that
> may be hard to do.  Thus most all docs on the wiki would likely be
> GFDL.

obsolete docs should be moved to a obsolete file, and licence free can
be set on a write disabled wiki page with companion discussion page
for the modifs. I think all the LDP documents allow derivative works,
as stated in the (old) manifesto, we can probably state than the
minimal requirements are met by all documents.

jdd


-- 
http://www.dodin.net
http://valerie.dodin.org
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-eic8MSSfM