Re: [ode] Comments on the OSR


Paul M. Foster (paulf@quillandmouse.com)
Tue, 25 Jan 2000 20:42:08 -0500 (EST)


On Tue, 25 Jan 2000, Wade Hampton wrote:

> Richard Stallman wrote:
> >
> > I asked our lawyer what he thinks about whether making our licenses
> > some kind of official standard would make it reliable to refer to them.
> >
> > One difficulty is that the standards body might decide to make their own
> > changes in the license before adopting it. They are of course free
> > to write their own license, but we would probably stick to our version
> > for GNU software.
> I don't think they could modify it (except for maybe a removable header
> identifying it as a standard, or such). For it to really be usable as
> as standard and for compatibility, it would have to be adopted, as is,
> in its entirity. The "standard" version should be identical in all
> respects to yours (with the possible exception of some header text
> that is not part of the actual license).
>

Matter of fact, a standards body can definitely change the license if you
take it before them. They can do what they like, and to hell with
compatibility. Standards bodies are a mixed bag. And you're stuck with the
standard. You want to standardize a legal document? Take it to some
lawyers.

And somebody refresh my memory on why we need a license for docs? I can't
remember the last time I saw, "This man page is released under the XYZ
Documentation License, which follows...." Okay, _some_ docs may need
some sort of license, but let's not strangle the issue to death.

The whole point of any license along this line needs to be to protect the
consumer. For the most part no one cares whether you copy or sell their
man/info pages or whatever. However, everyone would like to be sure that
if they're looking at the documentation for something, that it does
accurately represent the product it's documenting. That means you don't
want it indescriminately altered by someone else. Imagine Microsoft
getting into this market and "polluting" the Linux documentation with
"doctored" man pages. So if you're going to alter the docs, you have to
get permission from the copyright holder or maintainer. The copyright
vests in the copyright holder the rights to copy and distribute. A license
given out by the copyright holder assigns certain (non-exclusive) copying
and distribution rights to you, the holder of the license. What you
_don't_ normally have the right to do is alter the original work without
permission of the author/copyright holder.

So let's find or make a license that adheres to these guidelines and
allows for a single copy to reside on any medium on which the documentaton
resides, and be done with it. Make an attribution in each of the docs to
the license (hyperlink etc.) and we're home.

Any questions?

(dons asbestos)

Paul M. Foster



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