RE: Licences

Sylvain Beucler wrote:
> So, to put it simply, the current plan is to make a non-free derivate
> work from free contributed work.

The current plan is to leave open the option to do that, without a great
deal of difficulty.  We'll also have the option to abandon this plan.

> Anton said that people can actually contribute to the 'compilation'
> part by refactoring the Wiki pages. So in fact, the Schematics Editors
> Group do not have the right on the compilation, and has no mean to
> 'reserve' it; the Group rather wants people to grant it an exclusive
> right to make a non-free work out of theirs.

Correct.  Keeping in mind that there is only one purpose behind this: to
improve the chances of getting a high-quality printed book into as
widespread distribution as possible.  We're counting on the fact that most
of our contributors will share that desire, and thus will not begrudge
relinquishing the right to the small amount of work they do when classifying
a submitted recipe.  If we turn out to be wrong about that, we're quite
likely to change our plan.

> So to sum up, you are telling the potential contributor: "You can
> put copylefted free material here, but also grant us the right to
> make a non-free derivate work from it, and you won't get any
> royalty from it". That's something not very easy to hear.

I have a few responses to this:

1.  This doesn't seem any different to me than what O'Reilly did with the
Python Cookbook; if I've missed something, someone please set me straight.
Again, we're not trying to strike a blow for innovative free publishing;
we're merely trying to maximize the possibility for wide distribution of a
printed book.

2.  We don't think that this book will result in significant royalties.
However, as I mentioned some time ago, I think it would be a good idea to
have some up-front plan about what to do in the event that royalties are
more than expected.  The agreement for the Python Cookbook promised a free
copy of the book for every contributor, and also said that "A portion of the
author royalties from the sale of
the book will benefit the Python Software Foundation".  There's no
equivalent Scheme Software Foundation, and starting one now (as a registered
charity like the PSF) would be premature, IMO.  Perhaps we could state that
if royalties exceed a certain amount, the funds will be used to start a
Scheme Software Foundation, with the goal of advancing the Scheme
programming language.

3.  Authors of GPL software don't generally get royalties from the sale of
compilations such as Red Hat Linux, so it's not as though we're depriving
contributors of something they'd usually be entitled to.  The main thing
that I see us depriving them of, is the possibility to print off copies of
the web site, without adding value themselves, and selling those copies.  I
don't see that restriction as very important, realistically speaking.

> Also, Anton said people could anyway print the book from the
> website. As far as I understand, the book will be different from the
> website, since it will be the 'value-added' non-free derivate of
> it. Moreover, if you manage to get the exclusive copyright on the
> compilation, ie the arrangement of the section, then printing the
> website in the logical order will be a violation.

I'm not sure about that.  Printing material from a website for personal use
would seem to me to qualify as fair use.  If that printed material mirrored
the compilation, and was then resold, that would be forbidden by the
compilation copyright.

> All this show a proprietary logic that made me "feel a bit sad that
> the final book may be non-free for the end-user".

I'm sorry, but I really don't see a significant material impact on
contributors or readers.

> IMHO I doubt a publisher will feel
> safer when owning a proprietary part of a book whose contents are
> almost all freely available, and thus can be 'rebuilt' within few
> days.

Again, O'Reilly seems to have been satisfied with such protection.  I agree
it's not very strong protection, but it does at least protect against direct
duplication of the book which our chosen publisher  prints.  Publishers are
very familiar with compilation copyrights, which apply to many kinds of
works.

In this case, the copyright would require that to legally produce a
competing book, some effort would have to be made beyond simply making
copies of an existing book.  The results will only be as good as the
"authorized" book if the people producing the competing version make a
similar effort to that of the Schematics editors and their publisher.  This
is exactly the kind of protection which I think may be needed.

> Going free to the end seems to me clearer and more convenient
> for contributors and people buying the book, and would change
> few for the publisher.

If that turns out to be true, and our publisher has no problems with it, I
don't think there would be any objections to going 100% free.

Anton



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