Re: [ode] [rms@gnu.org: Re: Updating the OpenContent license]


Wade Hampton (whampton@staffnet.com)
Mon, 24 Jan 2000 09:11:49 -0500


Richard Stallman wrote:
>
> What is common for software does not necessarily have any relevance to
> documentation. Software and documentation have very different purposes
> and audiences.
>
> For this particular issue, the differences between software and
> documentation are not crucial. This issue is the same for any kind of
> work. If the work contains only some sort of reference to the
> license, instead of the license itself, then over the years the
> reference could cease to be valid; then people who have copies will
> not be able to find out what they are allowed to do with them.
If the reference is to an obscure or custom license, I agree.

If the reference is to a published work which itself is licensed, or
to a public document with name, version, date, etc., I would tend
to disagree.

For example, a reference to RFC-822 is a clear reference to a published
document released years ago, and is still a valid reference because
the document is released by an organization, includes a date and
revision, and will not ever change (but would be superceeded).

> Software and its documentation have approximately the same audience,
> because the people who read the documentation are mostly those who use
> the software. But even if the audiences were different I don't think
> it would affect this issue.
Open/free licenses are starting to appear for books, like the mindstorm
book I just got for my 10 year old. There is no reason why someone
could not apply an open/free license to fiction, news, or research
material.

For a large work, especially if printed as a book, inclusion of a
full license is warranted. For a small work, I still say a reference
to a published standard license would be most practical.

Richard, has the attorney made any comments about inclusion versus
reference. If reference is to a published, controlled, document,
reference should be adequate?

The referenced document should be a published standard. The reference
should be clearly worded to point to that document.

> I cited free software licenses as examples of the usual practice
> because that was the first thing that came to mind. But I think I
> could say the same thing about free software documentation. It is
> normal for the license to be included in the work. That is done for
> all GNU manuals, and other GNU documentation files, and all the other
> manuals I recall seeing.
>
> I've explained the reasons why I have put this requirement into the
> GNU Free Documentation License. You're entitled to your opinion on
> the question; if we don't agree now, we may have to agree disagree.
I like the last sentence :)

What we in the free source/open source community need is a common place
for licenses, standards, etc. This would have them on-line, serve as
a master repository, and be responsible for version control (historical
released versions, current version, rollback). Documents/standards
should be validated as well (e.g., MD5 sum or pgp/gpg sigs).

We registered a name this weekend: openstandards.org. SEUL has
provided a server. This site may serve as such a repository. I have
some other notes on this that Aaron and I have been working on. I'll
include those in another mail.

Richard, we would like to invite you to join this effort. Some of the
first standards included would be the GPL (all released versions),
LGPL, and the document license (current draft).

Any comments anyone?

-- 
W. Wade, Hampton  <whampton@staffnet.com>  
Support:  Linux Knowledge Base Organization  http://linuxkb.org/
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