On Sun, 9 Sep 2012 22:47:04 +0100 Justin B Rye wrote: > Francesco Poli wrote: [...] > > Let's not complicate further: we are talking about digital works, where > > the concepts of source and object are much clearer and easier to apply. > > When you're dealing in digital material you can almost always fake up > some sort of source code/object code distinction, but that doesn't > necessarily mean it's helpful to do that. I disagree that this distinction is "faked up". I think it's meaningful and helpful. > The GPL is fantastic for > things that behave like computer software - but most things don't. I use the term "software" in its broad meaning [1] and, hence, I maintain that digital works *do* behave like software (since they *are* software). [1] http://www.inventati.org/frx/essays/softfrdm/whatissoftware.html [...] > >> The *information* comes from any number of sources. But as I > >> understand it the raw facts in a reference book aren't subject to > >> copyright anyway; it's only a problem if the presentation is copied > >> too, and the glossary has had quite a lot of rewriting. > > > > Well, then I do not see why you raised the objection. > > Because tracking down the originals and checking that enough rewriting > was done in each case is extra work. This is exactly why all these checks should have been done along the way, while adding material to the document... Trying to fix the situation afterward is unpleasant and complicated. But I am not aware of another way to make the work DFSG-free (except rewriting it from scratch...). [...] > > In order to license the Glossary under the GPLv2 (or under the Expat, > > if you prefer), you simply have to get in touch with the copyright > > holders for the other (minor) parts and get their consent... > > And in fact most of them have email addresses. But writing to > complete strangers and badgering them into relicensing something they'd > forgotten they wrote in the first place is hardly my idea of a fun way > of passing my free time. As I said, I acknowledge that it's not fun. But I think that liberating the Glossary would be a really important thing to do. > > There would also presumably need to be a huge prominent warning header > saying something like: > > This wiki page is explicitly licensed under the GNU GPL version 3, and > all future contributions will be taken to be licensed under the same > terms, overriding any default preference you may have expressed on > your wiki homepage or elsewhere. > > Are there any existing examples of pages like this? There are all sorts of examples, showing many different implementations, though. http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/ has an explicit note: http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/CopyRight http://wiki.debian.org/SecureApt has just a comment in the source: http://wiki.debian.org/SecureApt?action=raw http://wiki.debian.org/MaintainerScripts and http://wiki.debian.org/Smartcards/OpenPGP state their own license, but do not warn wiki users that any contribution will be under the same license (I would say that the copyleft mechanism makes this implicitly true) http://wiki.debian.org/DebianMaintainer uses Moin features to more clearly declare license and authors, without any explicit warning (again the copyleft should suffice). OK, enough with (nearly) off-topic discussions for this list. Please think about starting a liberation effort for the Glossary, it would be really great if you succeeded! -- http://www.inventati.org/frx/frx-gpg-key-transition-2010.txt New GnuPG key, see the transition document! ..................................................... Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == CA01 1147 9CD2 EFDF FB82 3925 3E1C 27E1 1F69 BFFE
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