On 4 November 2011 10:15, Mike Rylander <[email protected]> wrote: > On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 4:30 PM, Mike Rylander <[email protected]> wrote: >> On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 4:07 PM, Dan Scott <[email protected]> wrote: >>> Hi Sally! >>> >>> On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 3:54 PM, Sally Fortin <[email protected]> wrote: >>>> Friends and Colleagues, >>>> >>>> Many in the Evergreen community have expressed a desire for more >>>> documentation describing new features in Evergreen. Others have requested >>>> that those who write documentation produce it in more formats, including >>>> asciidoc. ESI trainers and developers have been thinking about how to help >>>> the Evergreen community meet its documentation needs and, to that end, are >>>> making some changes to the way that we produce documentation. >>>> >>>> In every new development contract, the cost is inclusive of basic end user >>>> documentation, written by our trainers, that will be released to the >>>> Evergreen community. If possible, we will release documentation in advance >>>> of the scheduled software release. We will publish the documentation on >>>> the >>>> ESI website in both asciidoc and HTML formats to make new documentation >>>> accessible to the community. Community members or DIG members can adapt >>>> the >>>> documentation to community or local needs in accordance with the >>>> CC-BY-NC-SA >>>> license that is listed on each document. Finally, we'll make an >>>> announcement to the community every time new documentation is available for >>>> download. You can also check our blog or website for updates on >>>> documentation. >>> >>> This sounds really great, but I have to note that the NC >>> ("Non-commercial") clause is problematic. It is in some measure >>> incompatible with CC-BY-SA; it restricts the use of the documentation >>> significantly such that the DIG would probably not be able to >>> integrate the Equinox contributions as no commercial use of the >>> Evergreen documentation would be allowed - and the definition of what >>> commericial use is is very fuzzy. >>> >>> For example, if a different company that offers Evergreen support >>> distributes a copy of the Evergreen docs as part of their Evergreen >>> support package, that could easily be defined as "commercial use"; or >>> training documentation derived from the Evergreen docs could be >>> defined as "commercial use". >>> >>> Hopefully this is just an oversight and the real intention is to >>> release the Equinox-derived documentation under the CC-BY-SA license. >> >> It's not an oversight. >> >> We can, certainly, grant a differently flavored license to the DIG >> (well, the foundation, I guess) specifically, or provide explicit >> clarification on points of concern regarding commercial use, if that's >> the only way DIG will be able to make use of the documentation we >> produce. But unless a licensing exception is requested (and, really, >> all it takes is an email explaining why) we'll be defaulting to the >> less BSD-like -NC license. >> > > I feel I should clarify the reasons for this decision. > > We have, in recent memory, had documentation that we produced and own > the copyright on taken directly, rebranded to strip all mention of ESI > -- in the content, copyright notices, everything -- and reused without > any attribution. This has happened more than once, and was not > addressed even after we specifically requested that the we simply be > credited. Because our request for simple attribution has not been > respected, we felt it important to make a clear and strong statement > that, while everything we produce will be made available to the Open > Source community for use and reuse, we (all, not just ESI) have to put > thought explicitly into protecting our rights and being explicit about > what we will allow by default. > > Again, because we own these works, we can license them to whomever we > wish under whatever license works for any given situation -- just ask, > and work with us, if there's no way for any particular group (DIG, > other vendors, etc) to use NC content based on the advice of council, > or without clarification of what constitutes commercial use based on > our understanding and intent. > > Unfortunately, history has forced us to default to a stronger initial > license than we might otherwise have chosen. > Hmm playing devils advocate, do you think they will respect the NC clause any more than they respected by BY-SA ?
Chris
