Hi Christian,
Christian Hammers wrote:
Hello
On 2005-05-13 Stefan Hinz wrote:
Christian Hammers wrote:
I maintain the MySQL packages for the Debian distribution and are facing some licence issues here.
I'm working with our contracts dept. to change that copyright note so it doesn't confuse our users. I'll get back to you soon.
As our next release is in preparation I would have to know this week, if the docs may be distributed or not, else they get thrown out. Can you already tell me what the outcome will be like?
The outcome will not be any different from how we've been handling this for the last ten years. ;-) That is, MySQL software has always been shipped with the Manual, and we won't change that. We'll try to phrase the copyright note more user-friendly, or easier to interpret correctly. But let's have a look of what's in manual.texi now, with a few comments of mine.
@c This manual is NOT distributed under a GPL style license.
If it were, then you could just do with it whatever you want, as long as what you do complies to the restrictions imposed by the GPL. For our Manual, this is not the case: It's "regular" copyright, and the note above doesn't change anything regarding "regular" copyright, it just emphasises that fact.
Now what are you allowed to do with regularly copyrighted material? You may make a copy for personal use, but you're not allowed to distribute it, unless the copyright owner grants you permission to do that. (This is true for most countries in the world since copyright laws are very similar.) This is what one of the following clauses is for; see below.
@c Use of the manual is subject to the following terms: @c - Conversion to other formats is allowed, but the actual @c content may not be altered or edited in any way.
The previous sentence actually states two different things:
1. You may not fork the Manual (why else would anyone want to "alter or edit" it if not for forking?). This is just an emphasis of what's regular copyright: You're not allowed to fork copyrighted material without the owner's permission.
2. Since TexInfo isn't the most readable format there is we allow to convert it into other formats. (In the near future, after we've switched from TexInfo to DocBook XML we'll ship other formats, anyway, so that note will probably be removed.)
@c - You may create a printed copy for your own personal use.
As said above, this is what copyright laws grant you, anyway.
@c - For all other uses, such as selling printed copies or @c using (parts of) the manual in another publication, @c prior written agreement from MySQL AB is required.
The things explicitly mentioned here are what we're really after: We don't want anyone to sell printed copies (since we're doing this ourselves :-), and we don't want parts of the Manual to be copied to training materials etc. What's not mentioned here is what we *do* allow, and that's what all this discussion is about: We want the Manual to be shipped with the software *but not separately*.
I hope this clarifies our reasoning. Let me know if you have further questions!
Regards,
Stefan -- Stefan Hinz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> MySQL AB, Documentation Team Taunusstr. 27, 12161 Berlin, Germany Desk: +49 30 82702940 Fax: +49 30 82702941 Mobile: +49 177 7841069
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