RE: Licences

Sylvain Beucler wrote:
> I agree on most of the point.

Thanks, I'm glad to hear that.

I'm hoping that if we explain all of this clearly, it won't be too
controversial.  This thread should provide some good material for a FAQ.

> > 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.
>
> Yes, but one cannot make a non-free derivate of GPL software. Or if
> yes, then the copyright holder of such software is likely to have been
> paid for that :)

I should have said LGPL, since you can combine LGPL works in various ways,
with a non-free license for the end product.

> Something in-between would be copying the manual in quantity for a
> classroom. My compilation teacher once printed a copy of the Bison,
> Lex and Icon manuals for each student that way (we were around
> 100). He also actually photocopied some other book I can't remember
> the title of.

Good point.  We may need to clarify this.

> > 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.
>
> One can also point that O'Reilly is satisfied with the DocBook book
> being under the GFDL, and the 2nd edition available even when being
> written, so following that argument you need not make the compilation
> non-free :)

I think that at this stage, it makes sense to obtain the strongest
protection for a publisher that we can, as long as it doesn't too greatly
compromise the free status of the Cookbook content, and the usual incentives
to contribute to a free work.  The underlying idea is that we always have
the option of changing any non-free rights to free, whereas the reverse is
more difficult.

Also, of course, there are some differences in the DocBook case.  As MJ Ray
has pointed out, the FDL has some problems when it comes to covering code,
which isn't entirely solved by dual-licensing of the code.  That's more of
an issue for our Cookbook, than for the DocBook book.  The Python Cookbook
provides a much closer model.

Anton



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