--- Richard Fateman <fateman@cs.berkeley.edu> wrote:
> There is an alternative form of "GPL" for documentation,
> which you can read about.
There are a couple, actually. I looked at several when I was thinking
about how to handle the Maximabook license. There is GFDL, which I
don't care for for several reasons, Apple's Common Documentation
License (which I actually rather like - it's the closest thing to a
documentation specific GPL type license I've seen) and a couple others.
GPL can also be used for documentation, however, and by far the
simplest thing to do is to use it for this, too. The FSF used to use
GPL for their docs until they wrote the GFDL. IMHO they wrote GFDL
because they wanted to replace more restrictions on their documentation
than the GPL allowed. In the case of Maximabook, GPL was sort of
implicit anyway, since there was no formal specification of the license
and it was part of the Maxima project. Why invite complexity.
> The simplest thing to do is
> to assert copyright to something you wrote
> (i.e. say who owns it) and then, AS THE OWNER
> give permission to use it however YOU want it to be used.
> There is a chance someone would steal it, but they couldn't
> assert THEIR copyright on it.
That is, in essence, what most free licenses do - define a particularly
set of uses that lots of people want their stuff to be used doing.
> Who is going to pursue you for distributing stuff that
> could be obtained from the internet legally and free?
> I think you worry too much.
> RJF
I'm sure that I personally worry too much, but I call your attention to
what a company called SCO is currently trying to do to the Linux
kernel, without any proof whatsoever of merit in their claims. They
are, in essence, doing exactly that - trying to assert control and
license code which was almost entirely written by others, and has been
legally and freely distributed for a long time. That case is of course
very different from ours, but it does serve as a good example of why
these issues are important.
Also, there is the issue of taking someone's work and combining it with
another, which is a little different than distributing.
I doubt there is any problem here, but the attitude of caution is a
wise one. It is better if Mike OKs a merger, assuming we can get ahold
of him. Most open source projects want to be beyond any possible
copyright or IP issues, and I think that's a good attitude for us to
have, too. Plus, he might have the original source files :-).
CY
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