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

[MJ Ray <..hidden..>]

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

The OPL is troublesome.  I think the debian project knows its use of
it is a bug and it may relicense the still-affected parts, but there
are some other "easier" relicensings to do first.

> 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.

The FDL is not merely potentially unFree - it's always unFree because
the current FDL itself must be an invariant section in the work.

> > Or perhaps the Creative Commons?
>
> Which Creative Commons license were you thinking?

Creative Commons licenses are complicated and contain lawyerbombs -
things which are vague and/or confusing and/or CC has ignored requests
to explain.  I don't see the benefit over a BSD-style documentation
licence if that's what's wanted.

Some debian manuals are under the GPL.  It is not necessary (ISTR
lawyers advising that it may even be unhelpful) to specify the
preferred form for editing, as that may change over time.  A court
should decide what is reasonable as source code, if really needed.

Regards,
-- 
MJ Ray http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html tel:+44-844-4437-237 -
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