Re: [DOC-LICENSE] OPL licensing terms

Nuno Lopes wrote:

> I really can't see why the OPL license makes it impossible to include
> the PHP manual in fedora.. Can you please enlight me? (and please don't
> use arguments such as FSF doesn't like the license..).

The OPL license doesn't. The additional, optional parts of the OPL
license that prevent distribution of modifications do, because Fedora as
a fundamental policy is a distribution that includes only items that
don't restrict users' freedom to use, modify and distribute it (e.g.
creating derivative distributions etc.). See
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Overview for more info.

Specifically these clauses are problematic:

---
Distribution of substantively modified versions of this document is
prohibited without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.

Distribution of the work or derivative of the work in any standard
(paper) book form is prohibited unless prior permission is obtained from
the copyright holder.
----

Fedora's policy probably does broadly align with the FSF's views, but
that's not because we slavishly follow them, but because the Fedora
community has similar goals in creating a genuinely Free distribution
and promoting Free software. I don't want to get political about this
though, because like most Fedora contributors (in my experience), I'm
not interested in preaching at people.

I suppose what it boils down to is this: do the PHP doc team feel
strongly that the above clauses are important and necessary? If so, then
they (you) are of course fully entitled to that, so we'll stop
distributing the PHP manual and happily go our separate ways. However,
if you were to take the view that having already developed substantially
free documentation for a Free programming language, that the (extensive)
protections in the "base" OPL are sufficient to feel that you are
getting adequate credit/acknowledgement/etc. for your work, then this
would enable a broader set of users to take advantage of it in various ways.

Of course in any case, there's nothing stopping users downloading or
using the manual from the PHP website. It's just not as convenient and
means, for example, that integration with other apps may be less
convenient/simple - for example at the moment they may install a PHP
editor which has inline help driven from the PHP manual - and it can (in
theory) all get installed automatically when they do "yum install
[editor]". But if we can't distribute the manual then they would have to
manually download the manual, put it in the right place with the right
permissions etc.

Thanks,

Tim