Re: [gentoo-dev] How should Gentoo docs be licensed?

["Bjarke Sørensen" <bs@wasd.dk>]

On Fri, May 03, 2002 at 03:57:55PM -0500, Jean-Michel Smith wrote:
> On Thursday 02 May 2002 03:15 pm, Bjarke Sørensen wrote:
> > On Mon, Apr 08, 2002 at 07:04:26AM -0700, Sherman Boyd wrote:
> > > How should Gentoo docs be licensed?  I know of two documentation
> > > licenses, the GFDL and the OPL.  Anyone know of any alternatives?
> > > http://www.fsf.org/licenses/fdl.html
> > > http://opencontent.org/openpub/

> > > Both licenses are seem good to me, but I am not a copyright lawyer.  The
> > > GFDL is definitely longer, and more specific.  The OPL is short and
> > > clean, easily understood by a layperson.

> > Is this settled yet?
> > Or should I bring my 5 cents?

> overview of documentation licenses at 
> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#DocumentationLicenses

> The GNU Free Documentation License.
>     This is a license intended for use on copylefted free documentation. We 
> plan to adopt it for all GNU manuals.

http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html


> The FDL is a little long to read, but it is quite straightforward.  The 
> various restrictions are basically for publishers ... what can and cannot be 
> changed in the document itself, on the cover, etc.  FWIW I am releasing all 
> of my own fictional works under the FDL (in addition to a Free Media License 
> to allow people like film students to make movies from the material, so long 
> as said movies are in turn freely usable and modifiable by others, but that 
> is a tangent for another day).  If your goal is to have documentation enter a 
> public commons from which cannot be stolen but to which anything may be 
> contributed or modified, a la the GPL, the FDL (or perhaps the FreeBSD 
> Documentation License) seems to work pretty well.  The OPL would have worked, 
> if only they hadn't included the optional 'features' that lead to some OPL 
> works being free and some not (and no obvious distinction without digging 
> into the nitty gritty of the specific licensed work in question).

I'll vote for that.


I'll use this on the guides I write myself to (for non-gentoo-stuff
too). Not that you care?

I know you are busy. But I won't release anything 'till this i
settled.

Cheers!
-- 
| 9000.WASD
|
|   Bjarke  Sørensen
|   http://wasd.dk/
| 
|  There are 10 types of people in this world:
|  Those who understand binary, and those who don't.