Re: Free documentation licenses
I have written such a license (IMHO) which is pending approval by OSI, and has been 'ok'ed for use on Sourceforge (who generally require OSI approval). It can be found at http://www.simpleLinux.org/legal/sLODL.html It's still not completely finished - I am waiting for feedback here (possibly some more constructive than the usual 'why bothers' I have received, asking why use a seperate doc license at all) before I finalise it. However, looking at your points, it may still be too restrictive for you - but you may as well just use the GPL - the license you propose isn't really a license as such, just a copyright with some brief, clearly stated permissions and restrictions. I like the simpleLinux Open Documnetation License (by me) as it ensures that not only is the authorship never misrepresented, but also that content added later by a person outside the controlling organisation is impossible to confuse with original text. It also provides protection against misrepresentation when people quote it. I like it anyway - see what you think... SamBC - Original Message - From: "David Johnson" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: "License-Discuss" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, November 27, 2000 7:26 AM Subject: Free documentation licenses I am in the process of writing a user manual and did some checking around for appropriate free licenses. Unfortunately, I didn't find anything suitable. The GFDL is just too much and contains undesired restrictions. Other licenses listed on the GNU page were not applicable either, for pretty much the same reasons listed by RMS. The Nupedia license is also unacceptable for various reasons. Variations of any of the above might work. So, any alternatives out there that I missed? I'm thinking of writing my own if there is no alternative available. In such a case, a very rough draft follows. I want something short, simple and to the point. I was thinking of some form of weak copyleft, but I don't know how applicable it would be to a document since the content would always be available. I'm also wondering whether an attribution requirement would cause any problems. --- [Free Text License] Copyright (c) YEAR, OWNER All rights reserved. Redistribution of this document, with or without modification, is permitted provided that the following conditions are met: Redistributions must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. Redistributions must not misrepresent the authorship of this document. Neither the name of the author(s) nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this document without specific prior written permission. THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. -- David Johnson ___ http://www.usermode.org
Re: Free documentation licenses
On Sun, 26 Nov 2000, David Johnson wrote: I am in the process of writing a user manual and did some checking around for appropriate free licenses. Unfortunately, I didn't find anything suitable. IMHO it makes sense to release a manual under the same license as the software, so that it can be changed in synchrony with the software. What you have here looks like a close variant of new-BSD. If you are releasing the software under new-BSD, then use new-BSD as the documentation license as well. -- John Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED] One art/there is/no less/no more/All things/to do/with sparks/galore --Douglas Hofstadter
Re: Free documentation licenses
- Original Message - From: "John Cowan" [EMAIL PROTECTED] IMHO it makes sense to release a manual under the same license as the software, so that it can be changed in synchrony with the software. What you have here looks like a close variant of new-BSD. If you are releasing the software under new-BSD, then use new-BSD as the documentation license as well. What if, however, as in my case, you are writing standalone documentation to software you did not produce, or detailing techniques, or even an academic treatise... the sLODL is suitable for all... http://www.simpleLinux.org/legal/sLODL.html SamBC
Re: Free documentation licenses
On Mon, 27 Nov 2000, SamBC wrote: - Original Message - From: "John Cowan" [EMAIL PROTECTED] IMHO it makes sense to release a manual under the same license as the software, so that it can be changed in synchrony with the software. What you have here looks like a close variant of new-BSD. If you are releasing the software under new-BSD, then use new-BSD as the documentation license as well. What if, however, as in my case, you are writing standalone documentation to software you did not produce, The same applies. If the software can be changed under given conditions, it should be possible to change the documentation under the same conditions, or the two cannot be kept mutually up-to-date. A GPLed program should have GPLed documentation; a BSDed program should have BSDed documentation, IMHO. or detailing techniques, or even an academic treatise... the sLODL is suitable for all... Those cases are out of my scope. -- John Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED] One art/there is/no less/no more/All things/to do/with sparks/galore --Douglas Hofstadter
Small OSI FAQ needs proof-reading
Dear All, As part of my book "Cryptography for Visual Basic," I released code under a Ricoh license. Because of questions I've received about it from readers, I've created a small FAQ. It would be a great help if some members of this list could read over the FAQ to make sure it correctly describes open source licenses. The faq is located at: http://www.cryptovb.com/books/bondi/license_faq/license_faq.html Some background: the code is called WCCO, for "Wiley CryptoAPI COM Objects." The Ricoh license was renamed the Wiley Open Source license. My book was published by Wiley. Thank you very much, Richard Bondi
Re: Free documentation licenses
- Original Message - From: "John Cowan" [EMAIL PROTECTED] What if, however, as in my case, you are writing standalone documentation to software you did not produce, The same applies. If the software can be changed under given conditions, it should be possible to change the documentation under the same conditions, or the two cannot be kept mutually up-to-date. A GPLed program should have GPLed documentation; a BSDed program should have BSDed documentation, IMHO. The docs I am doing are intended to supplement official stuff, not be canonical. I created the license to go with a WiP suite of beginners (I mean *really* beginners) docs for Linux. That applies to so many programs, not all of them GPL/LGPL, so it needs to be flexible. Get the idea? Not terribly important for this list anyway - unless people watnt to discuss my license (please). http://www.simpleLinux.org/legal/sLODL.html or detailing techniques, or even an academic treatise... the sLODL is suitable for all... Those cases are out of my scope. The idea being it is a flexible license for all sorts of written works, delivered electronically (or otherwise)
Re: Free documentation licenses
David Johnson wrote: The Nupedia license is also unacceptable for various reasons. I'd be curious to hear what problems the Nupedia license has for your project. As a side note, we are (at the suggestion of RMS) re-considering the GFDL for Nupedia. One major advatage that using a FSF-sponsored license can give you is "open source credibility". We have found that many people are suspicious that people in the open content movement are just trying to ride on the prestige of open source, and that people fear that the content isn't _really_ open. Using a Gnu license lets people know that we are serious. Also, although I dismissed the GFDL on a first reading as "too much", upon a second reading, I realized that the "invariant sections" stuff is exactly what we wanted, in terms of implementing an atttribution requirement. Still, I liked the original Nupedia license, and we are going slow in our reconsideration. --Jimbo
Re: Free documentation licenses
on Mon, Nov 27, 2000 at 08:13:58AM -0500, John Cowan ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: On Sun, 26 Nov 2000, David Johnson wrote: I am in the process of writing a user manual and did some checking around for appropriate free licenses. Unfortunately, I didn't find anything suitable. IMHO it makes sense to release a manual under the same license as the software, so that it can be changed in synchrony with the software. What you have here looks like a close variant of new-BSD. If you are releasing the software under new-BSD, then use new-BSD as the documentation license as well. I'm not sure license conformance between software and documentation is necessary for synchrony. There might be reasons for making documentation licensing more or less restrictive than software licensing. Unless there is inclusion of significant code in the documentation, the issue of compatability may simply be immaterial. In the general case, if the documentation is to be freely redistributable to a large license, a license which allows distribution under terms at least as liberal as the software license should be sufficient. David's license is largely similar to a BSD/MIT license, and looks on first glance to be relatively reasonable. I gather that the strong persistance features of the GPL are not of interest to him. The one benefit to conformant licensing I can see is that the downstream distributer/modifier doesn't have to deal with multiple sets of licensing terms in deciding how the work or derived works can be (re)distributed. IANAL, this is not legal advice. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Zelerate, Inc. http://www.zelerate.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/http://www.kuro5hin.org PGP signature
Re: Free documentation licenses
On Monday 27 November 2000 05:13 am, John Cowan wrote: IMHO it makes sense to release a manual under the same license as the software, so that it can be changed in synchrony with the software. What you have here looks like a close variant of new-BSD. If you are releasing the software under new-BSD, then use new-BSD as the documentation license as well. The software in question is under the GPL. I have thought seriously about releasing the documentation under the GPL as well. But a software license just doesn't fit well for documentation. I am also contacting the developer I am writing for to get his opinions, but he'll probably leave it all up to me. After all, he's overjoyed that someone stepped up to write it in the first place :-) I am heavily leaning towards the GFDL, but it still seems overkill for this document (it's a small to medium application handbook). If all else fails I'll probably wind up using the GFDL to at least add synchonicity with the application. In a later missive The same applies. If the software can be changed under given conditions, it should be possible to change the documentation under the same conditions, or the two cannot be kept mutually up-to-date. A very good point. But the document's license doesn't have to be the same as the application's for the benefit. It can also use a less restrictive license and achieve the same goal. -- David Johnson ___ http://www.usermode.org
Re: Free documentation licenses
On Monday 27 November 2000 11:30 am, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: David's license is largely similar to a BSD/MIT license, and looks on first glance to be relatively reasonable. I gather that the strong persistance features of the GPL are not of interest to him. For API documentation, reference manuals, academic texts and the like, copyleft would be very useful. But for my own informal instructional text to the new user, I don't see any benefit. By it's nature, a text is naturally open in a way that a software application is not. The one benefit to conformant licensing I can see is that the downstream distributer/modifier doesn't have to deal with multiple sets of licensing terms in deciding how the work or derived works can be (re)distributed. And for this reason I am heavily leaning towards the GFDL anyway, in order to be more conformant with the developer's GPL application. -- David Johnson ___ http://www.usermode.org
