Re: Proposal: License Change for Manual And Standardization of Licenses for Official Docs

["Chris Travers" <..hidden..>]

On 10/22/07, Joshua D. Drake <..hidden..> wrote:
> Chris Travers wrote:

Before I begin, if everyone really wants to go with either of these
licenses, I dont consider any of my objections to be blocking.  But at
the same time, I should flag concerns that I see and why I don't use
either of these licenses for my works.

>
> I actually think I would prefer the Open Publication License:
>
> http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/

Hmm....  Suppose we standardize on the OPL with neither option.    It
seems that the OPL might cause some issues if a large anthology of
smaller works were to be created (especially as we add tutorials,
etc):

"Any publication in standard (paper) book form shall require the
citation of the original publisher and author. The publisher and
author's names shall appear on all outer surfaces of the book. On all
outer surfaces of the book the original publisher's name shall be as
large as the title of the work and cited as possessive with respect to
the title."

While I agree that copyright holders should be listed and cited, this
looks fairly obnoxious and in a large anthology with many different
authors could become prohibitive.  Standard practice in an anthology
does not necessarily include listing every author of every section on
the outer covers (it is sufficient to list them along with the work
title).

In short, the OPL looks like it may be geared areally at large works
(books) and not at smaller works like how-to essays.

Secondly, at that point, I am not sure what we gain by moving from the
(potentially unFree if optional  clauses are used) GNU "Free"
Documentation License to the (potentially unFree if optional clauses
are used) Open Publication Liense.

>
> Or perhaps the Creative Commons?

Which Creative Commons license were you thinking?

Best Wishes,
Chris Travers