wow ben, you've made a lot of points, points that i'm going to have to look into when I have some time to sit, read & make some decisions, at the moment how ever the legal status is going to have to remain in limbo until I can spend some time working out with my users what copywrite should be on the site. As soon as I do i'll announce it with an e-mail to all my users and a post on the announcements page at OpenSourceHowTo.Org so everyone knows whats going on.
> On 5/8/07, Paul Matthews <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >>> What's the copyright/license status of the information on the site? >>> Of changes or new content submitted by others? >> >> I don't think i've really thought that much about that stuff ... > > You should. Under the Berne convention (international copyright > law), any work is copyrighted from the moment of creation. That means > no reproduction or distribution without the author's consent. At the > same time, a site with a name like "Open Source How To" may lead to > confusion on that point. Does the "Open Source" apply only to the > subject matter, or also to the content itself? Can others take the > content there, modify it, redistribute it, and so on? > > These are core issues to what Open Source/Free Software is all about. > > For that matter, it isn't clear if all of the content on that site > is your original work, or derived/aggregated from other sources. You > deserve to take credit for your own work, and should do so. It also > allows others to formally cite your work. > >> as for what is submitted by others, they can edit it once it's been >> submit, but so can I ... > > That's not necessarily automatically okay. Submitting information > to a public site carries with it a certain implicit consent to its > publication, but further reproduction and/or modification is something > of a gray area. Some people expect their work to remain in its > original form, and will object to publication of modifications. > > And what about third parties? If Fred posts something, and I would > see it and would like to correct some errors and add some material, > what's the status of the resulting work? That is pretty much the > definition of "wiki", so these are not just idle questions. > >> Is there something you want to ask if you can do? or some reason you >> were >> asked that? > > I ask partly out of self-interest; I would like to know if the > content is Free for me to reproduce and/or modify for my own purposes. > I also might be interested in contributing to your project, but will > only do so if the legal status is clear. I also point out these > things because they are issues you are going to have to face > eventually, and you're much better off dealing with them sooner rather > than later. > > As John Abreau suggests, you may want to investigate adopting one of > the various Free/Open Content licenses out there. > > The Creative Commons project offers a "modular" suite of licenses to > suit one's desires. You can allow or prohibit commercial use, > prohibit modifications, allow modifications without further > restriction, and/or allow modifications only if the modifications are > also licensed freely. Their page of "Things to think about" is good: > > http://creativecommons.org/about/think > > There is also the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL). The GFDL > is similar to the Creative Commons license in the "Allow Modifications > if Shared Alike" mode. (There are some differences in the details > that may make CC and GFDL content legally incompatible.) Wikipedia is > licensed under the GFDL, for example. > > http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.html > > -- Ben > _______________________________________________ > gnhlug-discuss mailing list > gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org > http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ > _______________________________________________ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/