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Documentation License
- From: Jonathan Larmour <jifl at eCosCentric dot com>
- To: eCos Maintainers <ecos-maintainers at ecos dot sourceware dot org>
- Date: Tue, 11 May 2004 22:52:02 +0100
- Subject: Documentation License
The time is coming up (I hope!) when we'll need to make some choices about
our documentation license. The FSF have already said that our existing Open
Publication License (with the license options) is not acceptable to them.
However, I don't know if people are aware, but not everyone is happy about
the FSF's own Free Documentation License. There's a long page about it at
http://home.twcny.rr.com/nerode/neroden/fdl.html but the summary is that
surprisingly enough the license is not Free.
Personally I would not be happy with the FDL either, but of course that's
just me :-). I am prepared to argue with the FSF about that. But
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html does helpfully say: "occasionally
we use other free documentation licenses" so that's encouraging.
That web page suggests some alternatives:
- For GPL'ed programs, licence the manual under the GPL (mutatis mutandis)
- If you don't mind people making proprietary versions of your manual, use
a permissive, non-copyleft license such as the X11 license. (The X11
license explicitly mentions documentation.)
- If you have to use the GFDL for some reason, dual-licence your
documentation under the program license.
But there are other options, the best resource for which being
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#FreeDocumentationLicenses
especially since that list is officially acceptable with the FSF.
To save searching since the link is broken, the FreeBSD doc license is:
-=-=-=-=-
Redistribution and use in source (SGML DocBook) and 'compiled' forms (SGML,
HTML, PDF, PostScript, RTF and so forth) with or without modification, are
permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
1. Redistributions of source code (SGML DocBook) must retain the above
copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer as
the first lines of this file unmodified.
2. Redistributions in compiled form (transformed to other DTDs,
converted to PDF, PostScript, RTF and other formats) must reproduce the
above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following
disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the
distribution.
Important: THIS DOCUMENTATION IS PROVIDED BY THE FREEBSD DOCUMENTATION
PROJECT "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE FREEBSD
DOCUMENTATION PROJECT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL,
SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED
TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR
PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING
NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS
DOCUMENTATION, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
-=-=--=-=-
The apple license could also not be read as the server was down. So here's
Google's cache:
http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:d_swFDmNzqIJ:www.opensource.apple.com/cdl/
Personally I'm inclined to think the FreeBSD Documentation License is
adequate (the Apple license just more legalese stuff and verbose, but
equivalent as far as I can see), as I'm not too enamoured about making the
documentation "Free" (as in FSF "Free") primarily because the point of eCos
is the code, and the documentation is there to help, not an asset to be
controlled.
Other thoughts/options/opinions?
Jifl
--
eCosCentric http://www.eCosCentric.com/ The eCos and RedBoot experts
--["No sense being pessimistic, it wouldn't work anyway"]-- Opinions==mine