> > The "snippet's owner(s)" is the PHP Documentation Group. > The CC-BY license has this explicit notice (in human readable terms): > "Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by > the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they > endorse you or your use of the work)" > > It doesn't say "if you use significant amount" or anything along those > lines. Whenever, whatever, you copy, distribute, share, or adapt > anything from the manual or its notes you have to attribute that work. > As for the manual text itself, that attribution note was intentional > choice by us when we changed the license couple of hours ago. > As for the side affect it had on the user contributed code snippets > and examples in the manual, that point was never realized until now > (at least not on my part). > > Hannes,
The CC-BY license states, in addition to what you pointed out, the following: - *Other Rights* — In no way are any of the following rights affected by the license: - Your fair dealing or fair use<http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Frequently_Asked_Questions#Do_Creative_Commons_licenses_affect_fair_use.2C_fair_dealing_or_other_exceptions_to_copyright.3F>rights, or other applicable copyright exceptions and limitations; - The author's moral<http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Frequently_Asked_Questions#I_don.E2.80.99t_like_the_way_a_person_has_used_my_work_in_a_derivative_work_or_included_it_in_a_collective_work.3B_what_can_I_do.3F>rights; - Rights other persons may have either in the work itself or in how the work is used, such as publicity<http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Frequently_Asked_Questions#When_are_publicity_rights_relevant.3F>or privacy rights. This is the provision from which I derived that fair use avoids infringement even if credit is not given. That being said, if it is the opinion of the group that the CC-BY combined with the provisions of fair use do not protect someone who uses the snippets, then they simply need to give credit. FWIW I don't see a significant problem here with giving credit. A line in a README file that says "Some snippets adapted from documentation provided by The PHP Documentation Group" would solve the issue entirely. The specific names of the individuals that constitute the PHP Documentation Group are irrelevant; the license says "The PHP Documentation Group" is who owns the copyright, so that's who gets the credit. I still don't see a significant issue or a reason to change our licensing. Furthermore, I don't see why we should change our license to help out the GPL folks, especially when they've shown considerable disregard for the rights of others in the software community, most recently in the fight over Wordpress themes. So PHP should help out the GPL community, but the GPL community screws the PHP community? I think not. For the above stated reasons I'm not in favor of a license change at this point. Brandon