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

[Jean-Michel Smith]

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?

Well, here's my $0.50 worth. :-)

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

[ quote ]
The following licenses do qualify as free documentation licenses: 

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.

The FreeBSD Documentation License
    This is a permissive non-copyleft Free Documentation license that is 
compatible with the GNU FDL.

The Apple's Common Documentation License, Version 1.0
    This is a Free Documentation license that is incompatible with the GNU 
FDL. It is incompatible because Section (2c) says "You add no other terms or 
conditions to those of this License", and the GNU FDL has additional terms 
not accounted for in the Common Documentation License.

Open Publication License, Version 1.0.
     This license can be used as a free documentation license. It is a 
copyleft free documentation license provided the copyright holder does not 
exercise any of the "LICENSE OPTIONS" listed in Section VI of the license. 
But if either of the options is invoked, the license becomes non-free.
[ end quote ]

The important thing to note about the OPL is that it has two options which, if 
either one is invoked, make the license non-free.  For that reason, it is 
IMHO best to avoid using that license, and the potential confusion that could 
be caused if portions of the documentation contributed were to invoke either 
of the options making it non-free.

FWIW any docs accepted by the Source Mage (Formerly Sorcerer) Project as 
"official" documentation must be FDLed.  I don't know how much 
cross-referencing between the two distro's docs there would ever be (the two 
distros are quite different in several basic respects), but it might be nice 
if as many GPL projects as possible contributed their documentation in 
licenses compatible with one another, as we all (for the most part) do with 
our code. :-)

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).

Jean.