Re: license change for POSIX manpages
<posted & mailed>
Andrew Suffield wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 08, 2004 at 04:32:11PM -0700, Andre Lehovich wrote:
>> The latest version (1.67, 20 May 2004) now allows
>> modification, "so long as any conflicts with the standard
>> are clearly marked as such in the text".
>
> This seems to be reasonable. It's also right up against the line - a
> stronger requirement would be a problem.
I explained why I think it's non-free....
> I'm not really comfortable
> with it, and would be happier if it said something like:
>
> "If modifications are made which conflict with the standard, then
> either these modifications must be clearly marked, or references to
> the standard must be removed, such that the resulting work does not
> misrepresent the standard."
Kudos to Andrew for coming up with such a good expression of a free version
of the same clause. Basically, for the manpages to be Free, you should be
able to use them for totally non-POSIX purposes, and with the clause as
written, it seems that you can't.
I hope IEEE would be willing to change that, since they were willing to
change the license once. :-)
This actually seems to be a recurring blind spot in people who think they're
writing free licenses; they only consider the most common reason for making
derivative works of their work, and accidentally prohibit or put ridiculous
restrictions on making other derivative works. Perhaps it deserves a FAQ?
--
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
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