Re: Documenting License Interpretations (was: Re: GPL for documentation ?)

[Glenn Maynard <glenn@zewt.org>]

On Fri, Mar 11, 2005 at 10:05:32AM +0100, David Schmitt wrote:
> On Thursday 10 March 2005 23:37, Gervase Markham wrote:
> > Don Armstrong wrote:
> > > If there really is a source for confusion, then make an addendum to
> > > the license file explaining how the author views the GPL applying to
> > > the work.
> >
> > I seem to remember a very recent thread on d-l saying that this sort of
> > thing was a pain because it meant everyone's licence was different.
> 
> Documenting things which can otherwise only be guessed ("What does the author 
> thought that 'linking' means for a wordlist?") can only be positive. IIRC 
> licenses per-se cannot be free because intent of author often is relevant too 
> - especially in gray areas.

The very purpose of a license text is to express the intent and wishes
of the author.  If the intent of the author and the text of the license
disagree, the author is using a wrong or poorly-written license.  In the
vast majority of cases, freeness can readily be determined for a license
in a vacuum[1]--it's the rare minority, in my experience, where a license
on its own appears free but a particular application of it is rendered
non-free.

If an author has to further explain a particular aspect of the license,
then there's usually something wrong; and Gervase is right: it's very
likely to result in each licensor "clarifying" these ambiguous points
in different ways.  In the case of the GPL, all such "clarifications"
usually become mutually incompatible (unless they're implemented as
additional permissions, and those too must be carefully constructed),
which is one of the worst possible outcomes.

That said, there doesn't seem to be an "ideal" copyleft-ish license for
documentation available; that, combined with the notion of material
crossing back and forth between a program and its documentation (which
requires that they have compatible licenses), only leaves us with the
GPL at the moment for people who want a copyleft.

I very strongly recommend against making any binding "addendums" or
"clarifications" or "interpretations" to any application of the GPL,
however, due to the fact that you're really creating sometihng that's
similar to, but different than and *incompatible with* the GPL.


[1] That said, it's still usually a good idea to approach a license
as it applies to a particular work; it gives the discussion a grounding
in a real-life case, it gives us some upstream authors to talk to if
the license seems ambiguous, and so on.

-- 
Glenn Maynard