Bug#238245: Proposed plan (and license) for the webpage relicensing
On Sat, 22 Apr 2006, Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña wrote:
On Thu, Apr 20, 2006 at 03:48:09PM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote:
Should we decide to change the license, we should either use the MIT
license if we don't want it to be copyleft, or the GPL if we do. A
custom license is not something that we want to write, and especially
not without serious thought and consideration between people who have
a great deal of experience in writing licenses.
The last proposed licensed I sent is *not* a new license. It
is simply this license:
http://www.freebsd.org/copyright/freebsd-doc-license.html
The only change I made to it was substituting FreeBSD Documentation
Project for Debian Project.
You've sent two totally different licenses to the list so far; I was
refering specifically to the license which was attached to the message
which I responded to. It should be clear why that particular license
is not GPL compatible.
Indeed, neither of the two licenses you've sent are just s/FreeBSD
Documentation/Debian/g; replacements... each of them have contained
other changes. Making modifications to an existing license has many of
the same pitfalls that drafting a totally new license does, and it's
not something that we want to get in the business of doing.[1]
I don't believe the MIT license (without making changes to it to
make it explicitly list only *documents* instead of *software*) or
the GPL would be appropiate for many items in the web pages. But
that might be just me.
If this is something that you're woried about, you can just replace
software with work. Indeed, the GPLv3 does this because there's no
point in generating confusion amoung people who think that software
means programs instead of meaning information that is represented in a
digital fashion. But frankly, it really makes no difference. Everyone
understands what you're supposed to do when you've got a GPLed work;
you just include the prefered form for modification. With an MITed
work there should be no confusion at all.
Please tell me how the last license I sent is incompatible to either
the GPL or any other free software license. Notice I would like to
know it not for the sake of this discussion, but for the sake of
knowing how/if FreeBSD documentation could be reused in Debian
Documentation (most of which is currently GPLd BTW).
The FreeBSD documentation license is not compatible with the GPL
because it has a restriction on modification which the GPL itself does
not contain. It explicitely requires you to include the license as the
first lines of the file, unmodified, instead of including them in an
appropriate location.
The license you responded to this message with is not the FreeBSD
documentation license, so I've no desire to comment on it.
Don Armstrong
1: For those following allong at home, see the attached wdiffs.
--
Information wants to be free to kill again.
-- Red Robot http://www.dieselsweeties.com/archive.php?s=1372
http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu
[-Copyright 1994-2006-]The [-FreeBSD Project.-] {+Debian Documentation License
Copyright 1997-2006 Software in the Public Interest, Inc.+} All rights reserved.
Redistribution and use in source [-(SGML-] {+(WML, XML or SGML+} DocBook) and
'compiled' forms (SGML,
HTML, PDF, PostScript, RTF and so forth) with or without modification, {+and
translations+} are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
1. Redistributions of source code [-(SGML-] {+(WML, XML or SGML+} DocBook)
must retain
the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following
disclaimer as the first lines of this file unmodified.
2. Redistributions in compiled form (transformed to other DTDs, converted
to {+HTML,+} PDF, PostScript, RTF and other formats) must reproduce the above
copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in
the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
{+3. Translations and derived works must be distributed under this same
license.+}
THIS DOCUMENTATION IS PROVIDED BY THE [-FREEBSD DOCUMENTATION-] {+DEBIAN+}
PROJECT {+AND SOFTWARE IN THE PUBLIC
INTEREST+} AS IS AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE [-FREEBSD
DOCUMENTATION-] {+DEBIAN+} PROJECT {+OR
SOFTWARE IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST+} BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT,
INCIDENTAL,
SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO,
PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR
BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER
IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE)
ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS DOCUMENTATION, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
[-Copyright 1994-2006-]The [-FreeBSD Project.-]
Bug#238245: Proposed plan (and license) for the webpage relicensing
* Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña: Copyright 1997-2006 Software in the Public Interest, Inc. All rights reserved. Is this correct? Have all contributors assigned copyright to SPI? 2. Redistributions in compiled form (transformed to other DTDs, converted to HTML, PDF, PostScript, RTF and other formats) must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. It looks to me as if this requires that the license and disclaimer needs to be reproduced at the bottom of each web page (because that's what you get as the distribution when you just request a single page). I don't think this is a good idea.
Bug#238245: Proposed plan (and license) for the webpage relicensing
On Sat, Apr 22, 2006 at 04:47:53PM +0200, Florian Weimer wrote: * Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña: Copyright 1997-2006 Software in the Public Interest, Inc. All rights reserved. Is this correct? Have all contributors assigned copyright to SPI? Contributor assignment and the license itself are two different things. We could just have the license and have a (c) statement different from the above. Please don't mix stuff. 2. Redistributions in compiled form (transformed to other DTDs, converted to HTML, PDF, PostScript, RTF and other formats) must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. It looks to me as if this requires that the license and disclaimer needs to be reproduced at the bottom of each web page (because that's what you get as the distribution when you just request a single page). I don't think this is a good idea. You're streching this a bit. The *whole* web site is the redistribution of the sources and having a footer link that points to the license is just as well. If you want to include a *single* file of the website (in a document, in a package, whatever) then you should carry the license itself. That is commonly done, in packages, in debian/copyright. I do think it makes sense both for the website usage and for reuse in other locations (i.e. packages like debian-doc). That being said, we could change the website to make the license available in every single page (maybe through HTML comments at the end of the pages to prevent cluttering them). But I don't believe that would be necessary (or sensible [1]) Regards Javier [1] As it would increase all page's size by 1571 bytes. signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Bug#238245: Proposed plan (and license) for the webpage relicensing
On Sat, Apr 22, 2006 at 06:40:11AM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: The only change I made to it was substituting FreeBSD Documentation Project for Debian Project. You've sent two totally different licenses to the list so far; I was refering specifically to the license which was attached to the message which I responded to. It should be clear why that particular license is not GPL compatible. The first one was much discussed. The second one was my proposed version based on that discussion (unfortunately, I did not attach it when I should have done it) Indeed, neither of the two licenses you've sent are just s/FreeBSD Documentation/Debian/g; replacements... each of them have contained other changes. Making modifications to an existing license has many of the same pitfalls that drafting a totally new license does, and it's not something that we want to get in the business of doing.[1] Please review the changes to the *second* proposal: 1- s/FreeBSD/Debian/ 2- remove SGML as the sources, since it does not apply to all our documentation and, moreover, does not apply to the website (sources are mostly WML) 3- add HTML as an output 4- remove the limitation of having the license text in the first lines of the file 5- add a reference to translations (could be considered a modification to the source, however they are not in international IP law) 2 and 3 are *technical* changes to notes, they do not affect the license at all. 4 was requested in this list and I do agree that is necessary. 5 was added on my behalf and has no real impact on the license since, in its absence, a translation would be considered a modification of the source. I don't believe any of these changes introduces any new pitfalls, quite the contrary, it removes them. If this is something that you're woried about, you can just replace software with work. Indeed, the GPLv3 does this because there's no point in generating confusion amoung people who think that software means programs instead of meaning information that is represented in a digital fashion. But frankly, it really makes no difference. Everyone understands what you're supposed to do when you've got a GPLed work; you just include the prefered form for modification. With an MITed work there should be no confusion at all. There is no MITed work license, the MIT license explicitly mentions software too. As for GPLv3, I will not get into details, but I rather not use that license. The FreeBSD documentation license is not compatible with the GPL because it has a restriction on modification which the GPL itself does not contain. It explicitely requires you to include the license as the first lines of the file, unmodified, instead of including them in an appropriate location. And that's precisely what I changed in my second proposal (which should have been attached to Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) Regards Javier signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Bug#238245: Proposed plan (and license) for the webpage relicensing
To further underline what I have been saying, I object to any of my (currently embarrassingly minor) contributions to the Debian web page to be licensed under the terms of the proposed Debian Free Documentation License or any other license which has been specially drafted for the Debian web pages. We should be using existing, widely examined and vetted licenses instead of bothering with writing our own.[1] If you have further questions about this issue, please e-mail me privately off list so -www can go back to doing more substantiative things. On Sun, 23 Apr 2006, Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña wrote: On Sat, Apr 22, 2006 at 06:40:11AM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: Indeed, neither of the two licenses you've sent are just s/FreeBSD Documentation/Debian/g; replacements... each of them have contained other changes. 1- s/FreeBSD/Debian/ 2- remove SGML as the sources, since it does not apply to all our documentation and, moreover, does not apply to the website (sources are mostly WML) You have effectively removed any definition in the license as to what source code is. 3- add HTML as an output The license explicitly lists the output forms that can be generated from the source which is definetly suboptimal. 5- add a reference to translations (could be considered a modification to the source, however they are not in international IP law) Lets stop here before going any further: There's no such thing as international IP law. The very term IP is in itself a massive confusion of three separate branches of law which differ widely between different jurisdictions. Furthermore, it's definetly not clear that in any of the jursidictions that I'm aware of that a translation would not be subject to the rules of the license that apply to any other form of derivative work. If you know differently, please cite relevant law and/or cases. 2 and 3 are *technical* changes to notes, they do not affect the license at all. 2 and 3 quite clearly affect the license. I don't believe any of these changes introduces any new pitfalls, quite the contrary, it removes them. With an MITed work there should be no confusion at all. There is no MITed work license, I'm refering to a work licensed under the MIT license. If it's too confusing, you can s/software/work/. the MIT license explicitly mentions software too. If we can distribute it in Debian, it's software. We use work in place of software to avoid this exactly line of argument, but it should be abundantly clear what software means in this context. As for GPLv3, I will not get into details, but I rather not use that license. You cannot use it yet because it does not yet exist in it's final form. That said, if you have a problem with GPLv3, you should be discussing those problems using gplv3.fsf.org so those of us who are on committees can address the issues that you have with the license. [Of course, if your issue is with copyleft licenses in general, there's not much that I'm going to be able to do for you.] Don Armstrong 1: Considering the fact that I've been relatively heavily involved in the committee part of the GPLv3 process, I'd say that I have a relatively reasonable understanding of the amount of work that it takes to fully understand the consequences of a license change which is not altogether grand in it's scope. It's 4 months into the process, and we're still discovering new problems. -- Of course, there are ceases where only a rare individual will have the vision to perceive a system which governs many people's lives; a system which had never before even been recognized as a system; then such people often devote their lives to convincing other people that the system really is there and that it aught to be exited from. -- Douglas R. Hofstadter _Gödel Escher Bach. Eternal Golden Braid_ http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu
Bug#238245: Proposed plan (and license) for the webpage relicensing
Javier =?iso-8859-1?Q?Fern=E1ndez-Sanguino_Pe=F1a?= [EMAIL PROTECTED] a) a proper license should be decided for the website. I suggest using a BSD-style license. The attached license is such a license. I suggest using a BSD-style licence as default, but the attached one is not one. Do we have other stuff under FBSD-doc terms? [...] b) old contributors to the web site (i.e. all that have had CVS access to the WWW CVS are for the past 10 years) should be contacted and ask to agree to this license change. I will help with this, if you wish. I think I know how to get today's contributors (webwml group) and any since the current CVS started (cvs history and logs) but how to get 'em all? c) a note should be added to the Debian site (as a News item?) describing the license change (and the reasons for the change) and giving a 6 month period for comments. I suggest shortening this period. d) new contributors during that period should be asked to agree to the license change and to transfer (c) to SPI (GPG/PGP signed e-mail would be a requisite for contributing, a paper trail would be even best) Just seek a licence, rather than assignment. e) from here on access to the CVS of the website should be given after clearly stating (and getting and agreement) that any and all contributions to the CVS, unless specified otherwise with clear (c) statements in the code, will be (c) SPI and will be considered work under contract I don't understand why you think a contract is formed, as the contributor is not getting anything in exchange for their work. However, it seems a good idea for SPI to assert a copyright interest in the work. cc: -legal and -www only Hope that helps, -- MJR/slef Laux nur mia opinio: vidu http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Bv sekvu http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Bug#238245: Proposed plan (and license) for the webpage relicensing
On Thu, 2006-04-20 at 15:48 -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: Should we decide to change the license, we should either use the MIT license if we don't want it to be copyleft, or the GPL if we do. A custom license is not something that we want to write, and especially not without serious thought and consideration between people who have a great deal of experience in writing licenses. Contributing to license proliferation by a license which is not compatible with the GPL and some other free software licenses is not something that we want to do. Thank you for saying that before I could get around to it, Don. I strongly agree. Bdale -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Bug#238245: Proposed plan (and license) for the webpage relicensing
On Fri, 21 Apr 2006 10:56:30 -0600 Bdale Garbee wrote: On Thu, 2006-04-20 at 15:48 -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: Should we decide to change the license, we should either use the MIT license if we don't want it to be copyleft, or the GPL if we do. A custom license is not something that we want to write, and especially not without serious thought and consideration between people who have a great deal of experience in writing licenses. Contributing to license proliferation by a license which is not compatible with the GPL and some other free software licenses is not something that we want to do. Thank you for saying that before I could get around to it, Don. I strongly agree. Needless to say, I agree too (as it should already be clear from my other contributions to this discussion...). -- :-( This Universe is buggy! Where's the Creator's BTS? ;-) .. Francesco Poli GnuPG Key ID = DD6DFCF4 Key fingerprint = C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgpIQQthXjlom.pgp Description: PGP signature
Bug#238245: Proposed plan (and license) for the webpage relicensing
On Sat, Apr 22, 2006 at 01:22:53AM +0200, Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña wrote: On Thu, Apr 20, 2006 at 03:48:09PM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: Should we decide to change the license, we should either use the MIT license if we don't want it to be copyleft, or the GPL if we do. A custom license is not something that we want to write, and especially not without serious thought and consideration between people who have a great deal of experience in writing licenses. The last proposed licensed I sent is *not* a new license. It is simply this license: http://www.freebsd.org/copyright/freebsd-doc-license.html Actually, it seems I did not attach the last version of the proposed license in my last message. Attached now. Regards Javier The Debian Documentation License Copyright 1997-2006 Software in the Public Interest, Inc. All rights reserved. Redistribution and use in source and 'compiled' forms (SGML, HTML, PDF, PostScript, RTF and so forth) with or without modification, and translations are permitted provided that the following conditions are met: 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 2. Redistributions in compiled form (transformed to other DTDs, converted to HTML, PDF, PostScript, RTF and other formats) must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. THIS DOCUMENTATION IS PROVIDED BY THE DEBIAN PROJECT AND SOFTWARE IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST AS IS AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE DEBIAN PROJECT OR SOFTWARE IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS DOCUMENTATION, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Bug#238245: Proposed plan (and license) for the webpage relicensing
On Thu, Apr 20, 2006 at 03:48:09PM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: Should we decide to change the license, we should either use the MIT license if we don't want it to be copyleft, or the GPL if we do. A custom license is not something that we want to write, and especially not without serious thought and consideration between people who have a great deal of experience in writing licenses. The last proposed licensed I sent is *not* a new license. It is simply this license: http://www.freebsd.org/copyright/freebsd-doc-license.html The only change I made to it was substituting FreeBSD Documentation Project for Debian Project. I don't believe the MIT license (without making changes to it to make it explicitly list only *documents* instead of *software*) or the GPL would be appropiate for many items in the web pages. But that might be just me. Contributing to license proliferation by a license which is not compatible with the GPL and some other free software licenses is not something that we want to do. Please tell me how the last license I sent is incompatible to either the GPL or any other free software license. Notice I would like to know it not for the sake of this discussion, but for the sake of knowing how/if FreeBSD documentation could be reused in Debian Documentation (most of which is currently GPLd BTW). Regards Javier signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Bug#238245: Proposed plan (and license) for the webpage relicensing
On Thu, 20 Apr 2006 01:37:43 +0200 Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña wrote: On Thu, Apr 20, 2006 at 12:56:57AM +0200, Francesco Poli wrote: I suggest using a BSD-style license. The attached license is such a license. It is based on the FreeBSD documentation license [3] and explicitely mentions translations. In our case (the website) the 'source code' is the wml, but I leave references to other sources (SGML, XML) that might apply to other documentation that the website might hold. I do *not* think that the license you are proposing is a good one. (...) Maybe we should just use a simpler (i.e. technology neutral license) without explicitly mentioning that the source = WML. Indeed. The 2-clause BSD license I suggested matches your description! ;-) Another good choice in the non-copyleft arena is the Expat (a.k.a. MIT) license: http://www.jclark.com/xml/copying.txt Clause 1 restricts where the license text must be retained: as the first lines. What if I convert pages from WML to another format where the first lines are reserved for some other use? It seems I cannot legally do so! How about saying either first or last lines? What if both first and last lines are reserved for other uses? The license does not seem to be GPLv2-compatible, as clause 3 is a weak copyleft constraint: it seems that I cannot combine a page under this I've removed that one. If you are going to propose a BSD-style license, I would strongly recommend the (unmodified) 2-clause BSD license: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/info/BSD_2Clause.html The attached license is quite similar to the BSD license with the only differences being that there is no 'binary' form, there's just a compiled form of the site (and explicitly lists some formats which the source might be compiled too). This explicit listing of formats is one of the main problems with the license you're proposing: it ties things up to specific technical details that are really going to become obsolete soon. Good licenses try hard to avoid that. [...] In the website is not (c) SPI then our current footer really doesn't make any sense. Indeed. e) from here on access to the CVS of the website should be given after clearly stating (and getting and agreement) that any and all contributions to the CVS, unless specified otherwise with clear (c) statements in the code, will be (c) SPI and will be considered work under contract I don't think you can claim it's work under contract, unless there actually *is* a contract involved! Voluntary contributions are not work under contract, AFAICT. The idea of that portion, which might be misunderstood as the wording is not really accurate, is that if volunteers argue they worked for SPI for the website development there is no need to have paperwork done for the (c) transfer. If we drop the (c) transfer portion (I'm open to that, if people don't want it to be there) then this should be dropped too. AFAIK (in Spanish legislation at least) volunteer work can be considered work for contract (note the quotes) in the sense that you work for a company (a volunteer organisation) for free and you waive the rights to your work to it (including IP rights, and copyrights). Since there is no real written contract this does not conflict with the fact that the company you work for (the one you have a contract with) might have stated that you cannot work for others while working for them. I don't know if this argument could actually work in Spain. I really doubt it can work in *any* jurisdiction where at least one contributor lives... As I said, however, those steps could be dropped, but then we have to ask every contributor to have their contributions licensed under this license (and cross our fingers that we will not have to change it in the future). We should also probably have to change the (c) portion to list people that have contributed in the site or, at the very least, say that SPI is not the (c) holder. Listing contributors would be nice. It must be done at least in comments, as long as contributors retain their copyright, so why not doing it in a visible way? N.B.: no need to Cc: me, as long as debian-legal is in the loop... -- :-( This Universe is buggy! Where's the Creator's BTS? ;-) .. Francesco Poli GnuPG Key ID = DD6DFCF4 Key fingerprint = C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgpZHBatRjnxi.pgp Description: PGP signature
Bug#238245: Proposed plan (and license) for the webpage relicensing
On Wed, 19 Apr 2006, Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña wrote: In summary: The web pages license content should be changed from the OPL (non DFSG-free) to some other license (DFSG-free). As it is, the current content is not GPL compatible (so it cannot be reused, for example, in documentation produced by the DDP project). This issue was brought up last in October 2005 to the SPI board and they said (based on the IRC log [2] there doesn't seem to be any minutes) that debian-www should tell them what to do. I don't find any other references to this in the SPI Board archives. So, Here's the plan I propose: a) a proper license should be decided for the website. I suggest using a BSD-style license. The attached license is such a license. It is based on the FreeBSD documentation license [3] and explicitely mentions translations. In our case (the website) the 'source code' is the wml, but I leave references to other sources (SGML, XML) that might apply to other documentation that the website might hold. Should we decide to change the license, we should either use the MIT license if we don't want it to be copyleft, or the GPL if we do. A custom license is not something that we want to write, and especially not without serious thought and consideration between people who have a great deal of experience in writing licenses. Contributing to license proliferation by a license which is not compatible with the GPL and some other free software licenses is not something that we want to do. Don Armstrong -- There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself. -- Bach http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu
Bug#238245: Proposed plan (and license) for the webpage relicensing
Hi everyone, I was reviewing the status of #238245 (Debian web site is licensed under the OPL which is not considered DFSG-free) and see that there have been no actions since October last year and no discussion at debian-www. In summary: The web pages license content should be changed from the OPL (non DFSG-free) to some other license (DFSG-free). As it is, the current content is not GPL compatible (so it cannot be reused, for example, in documentation produced by the DDP project). This issue was brought up last in October 2005 to the SPI board and they said (based on the IRC log [2] there doesn't seem to be any minutes) that debian-www should tell them what to do. I don't find any other references to this in the SPI Board archives. So, Here's the plan I propose: a) a proper license should be decided for the website. I suggest using a BSD-style license. The attached license is such a license. It is based on the FreeBSD documentation license [3] and explicitely mentions translations. In our case (the website) the 'source code' is the wml, but I leave references to other sources (SGML, XML) that might apply to other documentation that the website might hold. b) old contributors to the web site (i.e. all that have had CVS access to the WWW CVS are for the past 10 years) should be contacted and ask to agree to this license change. c) a note should be added to the Debian site (as a News item?) describing the license change (and the reasons for the change) and giving a 6 month period for comments. d) new contributors during that period should be asked to agree to the license change and to transfer (c) to SPI (GPG/PGP signed e-mail would be a requisite for contributing, a paper trail would be even best) e) from here on access to the CVS of the website should be given after clearly stating (and getting and agreement) that any and all contributions to the CVS, unless specified otherwise with clear (c) statements in the code, will be (c) SPI and will be considered work under contract Does this sound like a reasonable plan? Who can help digging out a list of contributors and preparing an explanatory e-mail and license change notice for the website? Let's please solve this once and for all. Regards Javier [1] http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/ddp-policy/ch-common.en.html#s2.2 [2] http://www.spi-inc.org/secretary/minutes/20051018.txt [3] http://www.freebsd.org/copyright/freebsd-doc-license.html The Debian Documentation License Copyright 1997-2006 Software in the Public Interest, Inc. All rights reserved. Redistribution and use in source (WML, XML or SGML DocBook) and 'compiled' forms (SGML, HTML, PDF, PostScript, RTF and so forth) with or without modification, and translations are permitted provided that the following conditions are met: 1. Redistributions of source code (WML, XML or SGML DocBook) must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer as the first lines of this file unmodified. 2. Redistributions in compiled form (transformed to other DTDs, converted to HTML, PDF, PostScript, RTF and other formats) must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 3. Translations and derived works must be distributed under this same license. THIS DOCUMENTATION IS PROVIDED BY THE DEBIAN PROJECT AND SOFTWARE IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST AS IS AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE DEBIAN PROJECT OR SOFTWARE IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS DOCUMENTATION, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Bug#238245: Proposed plan (and license) for the webpage relicensing
On 19 Apr 2006, Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña uttered the following: In summary: The web pages license content should be changed from the OPL (non DFSG-free) to some other license (DFSG-free). As it is, the current content is not GPL compatible (so it cannot be reused, for example, in documentation produced by the DDP project). This is also troublesome since we say i the social contract: When we write new components of the Debian system, we will license them in a manner consistent with the Debian Free Software Guidelines. a) a proper license should be decided for the website. I suggest using a BSD-style license. The attached license is such a license. It is based on the FreeBSD documentation license [3] and explicitely mentions translations. In our case (the website) the 'source code' is the wml, but I leave references to other sources (SGML, XML) that might apply to other documentation that the website might hold. I would be willing to license my contributions under the GPL. I do not see why translations are any different than another wml file added to the combined work, so I don't see why the GPL is not a perfectly good license for the wml code. b) old contributors to the web site (i.e. all that have had CVS access to the WWW CVS are for the past 10 years) should be contacted and ask to agree to this license change. As long as the licenses used are compatible, we may not need a common license. Standard footers can be provided for inclusion for each page. c) a note should be added to the Debian site (as a News item?) describing the license change (and the reasons for the change) and giving a 6 month period for comments. e are following our social contract. There need be no comments period for six months, we should just get on with it. d) new contributors during that period should be asked to agree to the license change and to transfer (c) to SPI (GPG/PGP signed e-mail would be a requisite for contributing, a paper trail would be even best) What reason should people assign copyright if the license is free? I have no intention of doing so, for any past or future contributions. e) from here on access to the CVS of the website should be given after clearly stating (and getting and agreement) that any and all contributions to the CVS, unless specified otherwise with clear (c) statements in the code, will be (c) SPI and will be considered work under contract No. While I am willing to change my license to the GPL, if you want work under contract, my contract rate is US $250/hour. And I have a boilerplate contract agreement you must sign, in order to use my work. Does this sound like a reasonable plan? Who can help digging out a list of contributors and preparing an explanatory e-mail and license change notice for the website? The copyright assignment does not sound sane, no. manoj -- Don't feed the bats tonight. Manoj Srivastava [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/ 1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C
Bug#238245: Proposed plan (and license) for the webpage relicensing
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Am 19.04.2006 um 13:12 schrieb Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña: e) from here on access to the CVS of the website should be given after clearly stating (and getting and agreement) that any and all contributions to the CVS, unless specified otherwise with clear (c) statements in the code, will be (c) SPI and will be considered work under contract No here, too. Many of us will really get in problems with a phrase work under cantract. greetings Jutta - -- http://www.witch.westfalen.de http://witch.muensterland.org -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.3 (Darwin) iEYEARECAAYFAkRGwX0ACgkQOgZ5N97kHkeREwCguldjU3UX9jkgkoy30qqK2HG8 iw8AoLHM6QCTy1xiUmBN4auhLq2f9r87 =7H1m -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Bug#238245: Proposed plan (and license) for the webpage relicensing
On Wed, 19 Apr 2006 13:12:16 +0200 Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña wrote: Hi everyone, I was reviewing the status of #238245 (Debian web site is licensed under the OPL which is not considered DFSG-free) and see that there have been no actions since October last year and no discussion at debian-www. Hi! Thanks for working on this issue, that really deserves a clear solution. In summary: The web pages license content should be changed from the OPL (non DFSG-free) to some other license (DFSG-free). As it is, the current content is not GPL compatible (so it cannot be reused, for example, in documentation produced by the DDP project). Agreed. [...] So, Here's the plan I propose: a) a proper license should be decided for the website. Agreed. I suggest using a BSD-style license. The attached license is such a license. It is based on the FreeBSD documentation license [3] and explicitely mentions translations. In our case (the website) the 'source code' is the wml, but I leave references to other sources (SGML, XML) that might apply to other documentation that the website might hold. I do *not* think that the license you are proposing is a good one. It's not technology-neutral: what if I convert pages from WML to, say, XHTML and go on modifying XHTML by hand? The new source form for the derived work is XHTML, but the license does not consider it as source! Clause 1 restricts where the license text must be retained: as the first lines. What if I convert pages from WML to another format where the first lines are reserved for some other use? It seems I cannot legally do so! The license does not seem to be GPLv2-compatible, as clause 3 is a weak copyleft constraint: it seems that I cannot combine a page under this license with a GPLv2-licensed document in a single derivative work, since the latter should be released as a whole under the Debian Documentation License, but it cannot be, because the GPL'd part has restrictions that are not present in the Debian Documentation License and I cannot waive restrictions on parts I'm not the copyright holder for! If you are going to propose a BSD-style license, I would strongly recommend the (unmodified) 2-clause BSD license: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/info/BSD_2Clause.html b) old contributors to the web site (i.e. all that have had CVS access to the WWW CVS are for the past 10 years) should be contacted and ask to agree to this license change. OK. c) a note should be added to the Debian site (as a News item?) describing the license change (and the reasons for the change) and giving a 6 month period for comments. What's the use of this News item? Aren't we already commenting on your proposed plan? d) new contributors during that period should be asked to agree to the license change OK. and to transfer (c) to SPI (GPG/PGP signed e-mail would be a requisite for contributing, a paper trail would be even best) I disagree. There's no need to transfer copyrights, as long as licenses are DFSG-free. I personally would *not* be willing to transfer any copyright to SPI. Moreover copyright transfers require slow and boring paperwork. e) from here on access to the CVS of the website should be given after clearly stating (and getting and agreement) that any and all contributions to the CVS, unless specified otherwise with clear (c) statements in the code, will be (c) SPI and will be considered work under contract I don't think you can claim it's work under contract, unless there actually *is* a contract involved! Voluntary contributions are not work under contract, AFAICT. [...] Let's please solve this once and for all. Yes, please! -- :-( This Universe is buggy! Where's the Creator's BTS? ;-) .. Francesco Poli GnuPG Key ID = DD6DFCF4 Key fingerprint = C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgpYyXPSiBtwS.pgp Description: PGP signature
Bug#238245: Proposed plan (and license) for the webpage relicensing
On Wed, 19 Apr 2006 08:09:15 -0500 Manoj Srivastava wrote: On 19 Apr 2006, Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña uttered the following: [...] a) a proper license should be decided for the website. I suggest using a BSD-style license. The attached license is such a license. It is based on the FreeBSD documentation license [3] and explicitely mentions translations. In our case (the website) the 'source code' is the wml, but I leave references to other sources (SGML, XML) that might apply to other documentation that the website might hold. I would be willing to license my contributions under the GPL. I do not see why translations are any different than another wml file added to the combined work, so I don't see why the GPL is not a perfectly good license for the wml code. I agree that the GNU GPL v2 would be a perfectly reasonable choice for the Debian website. Several other GPLv2-compatible licenses are good choices too, however. Out of curiousity, would you be willing to license your contributions under GPLv2 only? Or would you rather choose to license them under GPLv2 or later? b) old contributors to the web site (i.e. all that have had CVS access to the WWW CVS are for the past 10 years) should be contacted and ask to agree to this license change. As long as the licenses used are compatible, we may not need a common license. Standard footers can be provided for inclusion for each page. That's a possible approach too. It requires more care and is somewhat more complicated, though. [...] d) new contributors during that period should be asked to agree to the license change and to transfer (c) to SPI (GPG/PGP signed e-mail would be a requisite for contributing, a paper trail would be even best) What reason should people assign copyright if the license is free? I have no intention of doing so, for any past or future contributions. Agreed. -- :-( This Universe is buggy! Where's the Creator's BTS? ;-) .. Francesco Poli GnuPG Key ID = DD6DFCF4 Key fingerprint = C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgpD5TMUrz9im.pgp Description: PGP signature
Bug#238245: Proposed plan (and license) for the webpage relicensing
On Thu, Apr 20, 2006 at 01:03:19AM +0200, Francesco Poli wrote: I agree that the GNU GPL v2 would be a perfectly reasonable choice for the Debian website. Several other GPLv2-compatible licenses are good choices too, however. I'd rather use a simpler license for text content it is more understandable and less subject to interpretation (note that embeded code in the wml files in the website *should* be GPL). Unlike other technical documentation (such as manuals or guides, see [0]) I don't think the GPL is a good license for the website. But maybe that's just me. Out of curiousity, would you be willing to license your contributions under GPLv2 only? Or would you rather choose to license them under GPLv2 or later? I'd rather have it be GPLv2 only. As long as the licenses used are compatible, we may not need a common license. Standard footers can be provided for inclusion for each page. That's a possible approach too. It requires more care and is somewhat more complicated, though. Agreed. Nobody has brought up concerns about *other* licenses being used until we talked about changing the one we are *using* right now. Believe it or not, all the web pages have a footer saying that they are OPL and nobody has ever complained asking for different licenses for *their* contributions (not that I remember, at least). d) new contributors during that period should be asked to agree to the license change and to transfer (c) to SPI (GPG/PGP signed e-mail would be a requisite for contributing, a paper trail would be even best) What reason should people assign copyright if the license is free? I have no intention of doing so, for any past or future contributions. Agreed. In order to make it possible to do a license change in the future if needed be and not have the web team track every single individual that has contributed to the website (as is the case now). Even though we might end up choosing a license we *think* is the best right now, there might come a time we might want to change that. Maybe because it might turn out it was not really the best license for the web pages for X or Y reason. Having SPI hold the copyright simplifies things. The fact no one has complained about the fact the footer to their contributions to the web page says that all the pages are (c) SPI [1] made me think that nobody deeply cared about *their* copyrights to the webpages. It seems I was wrong. Regards Javier [0] See my proposal for the DDP at http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/ddp-policy/ch-common.en.html#s2.2 [1] Notice that, again, Perl source code that generates parts of the web site is *not* (c) SPI. signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Bug#238245: Proposed plan (and license) for the webpage relicensing
On Thu, Apr 20, 2006 at 12:56:57AM +0200, Francesco Poli wrote: I suggest using a BSD-style license. The attached license is such a license. It is based on the FreeBSD documentation license [3] and explicitely mentions translations. In our case (the website) the 'source code' is the wml, but I leave references to other sources (SGML, XML) that might apply to other documentation that the website might hold. I do *not* think that the license you are proposing is a good one. (...) Maybe we should just use a simpler (i.e. technology neutral license) without explicitly mentioning that the source = WML. Clause 1 restricts where the license text must be retained: as the first lines. What if I convert pages from WML to another format where the first lines are reserved for some other use? It seems I cannot legally do so! How about saying either first or last lines? The license does not seem to be GPLv2-compatible, as clause 3 is a weak copyleft constraint: it seems that I cannot combine a page under this I've removed that one. If you are going to propose a BSD-style license, I would strongly recommend the (unmodified) 2-clause BSD license: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/info/BSD_2Clause.html The attached license is quite similar to the BSD license with the only differences being that there is no 'binary' form, there's just a compiled form of the site (and explicitly lists some formats which the source might be compiled too). c) a note should be added to the Debian site (as a News item?) describing the license change (and the reasons for the change) and giving a 6 month period for comments. What's the use of this News item? Just to get wider coverage. Maybe an announcment to d-d-a would be best. Aren't we already commenting on your proposed plan? Yes, but not every single DD that has contributed to the web pages is reading -www or -legal. and to transfer (c) to SPI (GPG/PGP signed e-mail would be a requisite for contributing, a paper trail would be even best) I disagree. There's no need to transfer copyrights, as long as licenses are DFSG-free. I added the (c) transfer in order to make it possible for SPI to relicense the site in the future. In the website is not (c) SPI then our current footer really doesn't make any sense. e) from here on access to the CVS of the website should be given after clearly stating (and getting and agreement) that any and all contributions to the CVS, unless specified otherwise with clear (c) statements in the code, will be (c) SPI and will be considered work under contract I don't think you can claim it's work under contract, unless there actually *is* a contract involved! Voluntary contributions are not work under contract, AFAICT. The idea of that portion, which might be misunderstood as the wording is not really accurate, is that if volunteers argue they worked for SPI for the website development there is no need to have paperwork done for the (c) transfer. If we drop the (c) transfer portion (I'm open to that, if people don't want it to be there) then this should be dropped too. AFAIK (in Spanish legislation at least) volunteer work can be considered work for contract (note the quotes) in the sense that you work for a company (a volunteer organisation) for free and you waive the rights to your work to it (including IP rights, and copyrights). Since there is no real written contract this does not conflict with the fact that the company you work for (the one you have a contract with) might have stated that you cannot work for others while working for them. As I said, however, those steps could be dropped, but then we have to ask every contributor to have their contributions licensed under this license (and cross our fingers that we will not have to change it in the future). We should also probably have to change the (c) portion to list people that have contributed in the site or, at the very least, say that SPI is not the (c) holder. Regards Javier signature.asc Description: Digital signature
