Peter Kupfer wrote: > (Disclaimer: Trying to understand, not trying to argue.)
I know... > Why can we choose to follow the CC-BY & ignore the GPL when we publish. > Obviously we can because you said we can, so I am trying to figure why > that is not an issue of us only following one of the licenses. It's like this: The original work is CC-BY/GPL. Anyone can make a derivative that is either GPL-only or CC-BY only. "Anyone" includes you, me Linda, etc. Here are some examples of what "someone" could do: 1) Linda decides to setup a store on Cafepress selling paper versions of the guides. Because the guides were given to Linda under a dual CC-BY/GPL system, she can choose to pick one or the other. Linda is lazy and doesn't want to bother with sources. So she decides to just grab the CC-BY and sell the books using that. Then Linda uses this money to help advertise OOoAuthors, or bring posters to the next OOo conference. 2) Peter wants everyone to hear of Jean's great work. Peter doesn't care about the CC-BY. Peter wants to distribute his own, Peter version of the guides, in which Jean is mentioned as the "chief editor" in big bold letters on the first page of every chapter. Peter grabs the files from OOoAuthors. He makes the changes, and starts handing them out to people. You see the difference? The original work must comply with both licenses. But anyone (including our members) is free to make a derivative that meets one license but not the other. The dual license system of the original permits this. But the original must still meet both sets of requirements. > Agreed. As I said, if that is the trade we have to make, my life will go > on and I won't be bothered by it. If this is the best of all worlds, > sign me up! After lengthy discussion, I think it's pretty much the best. :-) > In the previous version of the template it said you should contact the > initial author with corrections or something like that. That info has > been removed, so I guess it doesn't matter. Those sections have no legal weight (under the new licenses). I think it's convenient to remove them. > No argument. You asked for feedback, so I tried to provide it, not > trying to make more work. :) Yeah, sorry if my response came accross the wrong way. Some times I can be verbose and/or passionate when I write. I didn't mean anything I said badly, honest! > Like I said, IMO, the only real reservation I have is that I think the > CC-BY takes the equal acknowledgment issue a bit far, however, that is a > minor thing and if that is the only issue, then we will be in good shape. And having the GPL there means that we've left the door open to change our minds later :-) If we ever decide we really hate the CC-BY and we absolutely want the original files to give different weight to different people, we can do that. A dual license means that you have the option to go either way. > >2) We are not lawyers. We can't just throw together a license. > > Agree that we shouldn't, not that we couldn't. Well, I meant "can't" in the sense, "we can't do it and be confident it'll work the way we mean it". After spending time with the Debian-legal list, I've realized that writing a good copyright license is incredibly hard. Laurent Lessig is a professor of law, he thought long and hard about his licenses, and he still managed a minor goof (what I mentioned in the first email, about saying "any reference" instead of "any authorship reference"). Cheers, -- Daniel Carrera | I don't want it perfect, Join OOoAuthors today! | I want it Tuesday. http://oooauthors.org |
