Regarding results of my polling of projects about license. I sent an
email to this list, then followed up with an email to the nominated
project contacts for each project.
I've had responses from all projects bar GeoMoose (a got one response
saying they would respond later, but then seems to have forgotten).
Almost all of the responses were along the lines of "Yes, I'm fine
with
CC-By for Overviews and CC-By-SA for Quickstarts".
Simon Cropper who has written an excellent gvsig quickstart has
noted on
this list his preference for CC-By-SA to be used for Overviews. Simon
also noted that we should collect people's responses publicly in order
to ensure transparency, which is a good idea, and I'll follow through
next asking for this confirmation.
One person is still wanting to check the license of his source
material
for Overviews, and investigate some of the legal issues.
But apart from that, everyone else was pro our license selection.
So I'll send a following email asking people to publicly state their
acceptance of the OSGeo-Live license policy on this live email
list, and
also comment on whether there is any source material which cannot be
included in osgeo-live.
On 06/07/11 10:03, Simon Cropper wrote:
On 05/07/11 20:52, Ian Turton wrote:
On 30 June 2011 05:31, Johan Van de Wauw<[email protected]>
wrote:
On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 2:30 AM, Simon Cropper
<[email protected]> wrote:
Project overviews are so small that even if a restrictive license
would apply, you could still get away with copying it completely as
sort of citation. We are talking about 2-3 sentences and a list of
features, which -I guess- in many cases have been at least partly
copied and/or inspired from/by other sources often not noting any
license and therefore copyrighted - so if you are so strict about
licensing I'm not even sure we can publish them ourselves.
This sums up my feelings exactly - if the document we are concerned
with is commercially confidential there is no way I can see any has
copied my work so I can't enforce any licence anyway. So I don't
really care, to be honest. The project overviews are so short and
mostly derived from the project web site anyway I don't think it
matters.
I think the CC-BY-SA is right for the quickstarts where I have
actually authored something that took me time and energy but the
overview was mostly copy and paste any way so CC-BY is fine and we
just have to trust people anyway since none of us is going to go to
law over it if we even found out.
Ian,
Your sentiments summed up the feeling of the broader community and
consequently Cameron has proceeded with his proposal for CC-BY for
Project Overviews and CC-BY-SA for QuickStarts.
Everyone keeps telling me that the Project Overviews are extracted
from the project websites and have little or no creative content.
Granted most are small but how much creative content is required
before you move from CC-BY to CC-BY-SA? To me this is a thorny
question but as demonstrated by the myriad of responses to this list
and directly to Cameron (who was going to provide an email outlining
the outcome of his enquires to the project contacts), I am alone at
being concerned about this issue. So I'll leave this issue alone.
Another issue however is the blatant cut-and-paste mentality when
constructing project overviews. This implies that text on the project
website or associated documentation are appropriately licensed for
this to occur.
*I am arguing that it is not*
I have conducted a brief audit of the OSgeo Projects Websites. I
created the list of projects below from the main page of the OSGeo
Foundation website - http://www.osgeo.org/ so the list is just a
subset of what is on the Live DVD (hopefully an indicative subset).
I have grouped the projects based on the type of copyright...
Group 1. No copyright specified so local laws kick in
Group 2. Ambiguous or variable licensing (see notes), and
Group 3. Full 'all right reserved' copyright specified
My simple audit can be found at the bottom of this email.
Using information from Group 1 or Group 3 websites is not allowed
without approaching the copyright owners and getting permission. This
permission should be flagged at the start of a Project Overview
with a
disclaimer such as 'Reproduced with permission by Author 2011'.
The copyright for the Group 2 websites is at best ambiguous (see
notes). I am not sure how GNU Affero GPL and GNU Free Documentation
License 2002 relates to CC-BY. This would be a matter for
solicitors I
suppose. Quantum GIS and GeoNetworks however is a little clearer --
documentation from these sites which is released under a CC-BY-SA
license CAN NOT be re-released under a CC-BY license (this is
contrary
to the SA option).
So following my audit it is apparent that none of the source
documents
mentioned as being used to create Project Overviews can be simply be
cut-and-paste from the project documentation, as everyone is telling
me happens, without the authors of the derived documents being in
breach of copyright. The only time this would not be the case is when
the author of the Project Overview is the author of the original
source document. In projects where hundreds are involved in creation
of documentation this would be highly unlikely.
--- My simple audit ---
Group 1. Websites with no copyright notices (i.e. they do not state
they are in public domain, CC0, CC-BY or CC-BY-SA). In most
jurisdictions, the author is automatically covered by a 'copyright -
all rights reserved' option.
- deegree / homepage and wiki
- MapBuilder
- MapGuide Open Source
- OpenLayers
- gvSIG
- FDO
- GDAL/OGR
- GEOS
- MetaCRS
- PostGIS
Group 2. Ambiguous or variable licensing
- geomajas - GNU Affero GPL is specified at the footer of
the website. It is unclear if this 'software' licence
relates to the software or the text on the page as this
licence is usually applied to the former not the latter.
- Mapblender - Website has no licence specified. The PDF manual is
GNU Free Documentation License 2002.
- GRASS GIS - Home page 'copyright - all rights reserved' license
but wiki GNU Free Documentation License 2002.
- Quantum GIS - Home page 'copyright - all rights reserved' license
but wiki CC-BY-SA.
- GeoNetworks - Home page 'copyright - all rights reserved'
license but
documentation released under CC-BY-SA
Group 3. 'copyright - all rights reserved' license specified
- Geoserver
- Mapfish
- MapServer
- GeoTools
- OSSIM - Home page, PDF documents and Wiki all under 'copyright -
all rights reserved' license
