Robert Bradshaw wrote: > On Dec 29, 2009, at 9:24 PM, Jason Grout wrote: > >> William Stein wrote: >> >>>> The major difference I see between GFDL and CC-by-sa is that CC-by- >>>> sa >>>> does not have the requirement that the source be distributed with >>>> the >>>> work. >>> The statement you just made above about GFDL is false. The relevant >>> statement in the GFDL is: "If you publish or distribute Opaque copies >>> of the Document numbering more than 100, you must either include a >>> machine-readable Transparent copy along with each Opaque copy, or >>> state in or with each Opaque copy a computer-network location from >>> which the general network-using public has access to download using >>> public-standard network protocols a complete Transparent copy of the >>> Document, free of added material." It is important to read the >>> definitions in order to understand the previous sentence -- see >>> http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html >> >> Yes, that's the text in the GFDL license I was referring to. I >> apologize if I over-generalized to the point of not being correct. I >> was hoping to succinctly capture one of the big philosophical >> differences between the two licenses. By "source" for a book, I >> meant a >> latex document, which is something that is specifically given as an >> example of a "Transparent Copy". >> >> So it still seems that GFDL has some sort of requirement about >> distributing a "Transparent copy" (in my case, a latex file; again, >> for >> details, see the the actual license). To my understanding, CC-by-sa >> has >> no such requirement to deliver a "Transparent copy", so, if I >> understand >> things correctly, I am perfectly legal in extensively modifying a >> CC-by-sa book (from the latex file obtained under the CC-by-sa >> license) >> and then only distributing the resulting pdf file, licensed under >> CC-by-sa. That's why I wish Creative Commons had an option to have >> some >> sort of requirement for a "Transparent Copy" distribution, like GFDL, >> making something like a CC-by-sa-src license. > > I never really thought about this distinction--I wish there was > something like CC-by-sa-src as well. Source doesn't make as much sense > for a photo, but for something like a LaTeX document or a vector > graphic it is very valuable--almost an essential part of the "share > alike" idea. That's a strong argument for the GFDL. Even then, most > stuff doesn't fall into the 100+ pages category,
It's not 100+ pages. The requirements for distributing a transparent copy come into effect if you distribute more than 100 copies of the Opaque work. So, for example, if I had a class of 30 and a GFDL set of notes, I could just distribute the PDF files to my class, and not worry about publishing a Transparent copy. In fact, it seems like if I distribute 100 copies of the PDF, and each of those people distribute 100 copies of the PDF, and each of those people distribute 100 copies of the PDF, then 1,000,000 people have the document, but no one is forced to hand over a Transparent copy. Indeed, if I distribute 100 copies, but no Transparent copy, then it seems that my students legally *can't* distribute more than 100 copies each, because they wouldn't be able to satisfy the Transparent copy requirement. It seems more clear to me and more in line with free open-source philosophy to follow the GPL, with sufficient definitions for the "source" of the document (especially in the case of latex and sagetex, where a latex "compiler" compiles the document to a final binary (pdf) form). Thanks, Jason -- To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URL: http://www.sagemath.org
