[publican-list] Adjusting copyright information

[Ruediger Landmann]

On 10/06/2009 09:47 AM, Jeffrey Fearn wrote:
> Mikhail Gusarov wrote:
>> IANAL, but this can be specified in single file, like
>> Common_Content/common/README: "all the data in this directory is under
>> GFDL", but better check with your legal department.
>
> Rudi is talking with the legal people about this, we expect a separate 
> update message shortly.

Thanks Jeff :)

Red Hat legal has identified a number of ambiguities around the licenses 
involved: specifically, the relationship between the license of the 
package against the license of the text in the Common Content files, 
against the license of books that users produce that incorporates that 
Common Content.

One particular problem is that as things stand right now, if the text in 
Common Content is licensed under the GFDL, this means that any book that 
anybody builds in Publican that incorporates that text must also be 
licensed under the GFDL (or a compatible license). This, in turn, 
creates an immediate incompatibility in any brand package that loads a 
legal notice with a different license...

Legal's solution is  that we include a note that explicitly spells out 
that whatever license appears between the <legalnotice> tags in the 
Legal_Notice.xml file applies only to the books into which it is 
pre-loaded, and not the text of the Legal Notice file itself. 
Furthermore, they suggest pretty much exactly what you suggested, 
Mikhail -- we find as permissive a license as possible for the Common 
Content files, and license them under that, separately from the rest of 
the contents of the package.

So far we've looked at the WTFPL[1], CC0[2], and the so-called GNU 
All-Permissive License[3].

We had to regretfully reject the WTFPL on the basis that some people 
might find it offensive. :( This is a real shame, because it basically 
stands for everything that we need the license on the Common Content 
files to stand for...

When we read the GNU "All-Permissive" License, it turned out to be not 
what it claims, since rather than being "all permissive", it requires 
re-users to leave the license in place. Relicensing is therefore as 
difficult as it is now.

Although CC0 is cumbersome (check out the full legal code! [4]), it 
seems to do what we need it to do. It's therefore the current favourite 
as license of choice for the Common Content files, unless anyone on the 
list knows of a similarly broad license with less legalese?


Cheers

Ruediger




[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTFPL

[2] http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

[3] 
http://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/html_node/License-Notices-for-Other-Files.html

[4] http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode