here's an ascii version of the license section my "manual and beyond"
RFC paper i'd used as a preparation of my conference talk in frankfurt
i tried to analyse the copyright situation and the choice of licenses
as i saw it back then (almost half a year ago) and have added a small
update:
License and Copyright
The current phpdoc repository is licensed under the GPL and
copyright holders are the members of the PHP Documentation Group as
listed on the Manual front page. As the GPL focuses on code and not
on documentation content it is not really the right choice for
protecting the manual. There has been some discussion on the phpdoc
mailing list every once in a while but no conclusion has been
reached yet. So i'll try to present some of the licenses that might
fit and their goals, pros and cons.
License Goals
Whatever the new license will be, it has to make sure that
copyright is kept intact and that nobody but the copyright holders
may change the license, neither in original nor in modified form
and that the original authors and contributers get the credits
they deserve. It has not become clear whether commercial
distribution should be possible or not.
The FreeBSD Documentation License
The FreeBSD Documentation License is very much like the modified
BSD license. It does not restrict redistribution and/or
modification at all as long as the license and copyright notice is
kept intact.
The Open Content License
The Open Content License allows modifications as long as the
license and copyright are kept intact and modified versions are
clearly marked as such, but it does not permit
charging for the distribution of the content itself, you may only
charge for media and for additional services you provide related
to the content.
The Open Publishing License
The Open Publishing License (not to be confused with the Open
Content License) goes more into the details of publishing and
defines fair use of content. It does, for example, require that
the original authors have to be printed on the cover if the
content is published in book form.
The original license is rather liberal regarding modifications and
commercial publishing, but there are two license options that can
be added to deny substantial modifications or commercial
publishing without special permission.
The GNU Free Documentation License
This License goes even more into detail as it was the only one of
those presented here that was created with the help of
professional lawyers. It tries to define the details of fair use
similar to the Open Publishing License, but with a slightly
different focus. It does not prevent modifications or commercial
distribution as long as copyright and license are kept intact and
modifications are made available in source form.
Conclusion (sort of)
IMHO commercial distribution of the PHP documentation should not
be restricted as the distribution of PHP itself is not restricted
in that way, too. On the other hand the FreeBSD Documentation
License, that is very similar to the PHP License, does not really
solve the issues in which the current GPL lacks. In the spirit of
the current license the GNU Free Documentation
License should be the best choice. All contributions to the manual
have been made under the GPL, and although the copyright holders
that the copyright for these contributions has been transfered to
have the right to change the license for future versions they should
perhaps stay in the same spirit when changing the license for
practical reasons. If the final decision regarding commercial
redistribution goes against me, then the Open Publication License
including option 'B' should be the best choice for a new manual
license.
PS: this has been written almost half a year ago now and some things
have changed since then. we have a new, BSDish Zend Engine license
and ZendAPI documentation has been bundled with the manual and
is even about to be merged with it on the source level
so today i'd rather suggest to just switch to the OPL and use
the same options as the zendAPI doc
