Re: Modification of reference material
On Thu, 15 Apr 1999 21:27:22 +0200, Marcus Brinkmann wrote:
>> The essential difference between software and documentation IMO is that for
>> the former, it's more important what it does than what it has internally. If
>> I can rewrite your code so it does the function better or safer, there
>> shouldn't be a problem. If I rewrite the code and make it more buggy, people
>> will notice and stop using my version. But with documentation, it's very hard
>> to distinguish between the good and the bad changes.
>
>Well, you can surely make good and bad changes to internal code, too,
>without chnaging the functionality too much (for example, youc an write less
>portable code etc). However, I can only repeat that I understand your
>concern. Read on.
Yes, ok, but in the case of software it requires at least a working knowledge
of programming. If you make a mistake with programming, the source won't
compile and your patch won't get out. But if you can write a complete
sentence, you can introduce "bugs" in documentation which are very hard to
spot. But anyway...
>So the need is that people will NOT get the impression that it is your
>original work, but a work based on it (you want attribution for the good
>stuff you did, but not for the bad stuff other people added).
Exactly. Of course, we don't want to take credit for other people's *good*
stuff either. :-)
>> I'm not sure how to apply these requirements to our case. If someone modifies
>> a file in the reference, then he can document that in a changelog, but few
>> people will check that when they read the file. Indicating that in the file
>> is possible, but I'm afraid that won't make the reference any more readable.
>
>How about documenting it in a changelog, and marking the file explicitely as
>changed. I assume you have an attribution to yourself on every page. Then
>you can require that it is changed to something: "This is a derived work
>from... WDG (hope I got this acronym right :) is NOT responsible for errors
>that are introduced by the changes." or similar.
Ok, so it's allowed to require something like this:
If you make modifications to the reference, you must document them in the
file CHANGELOG when you distribute them, and you must change the notice "(C)
Copyright WDG" to "(C) Copyright WDG, with changes by <your name here>. The
WDG takes no responsibility for errors in this document." You may not
distribute the modified files without the CHANGELOG file.
?
>Yes, those are free in the sense of the DFSG, and we arer distributing them.
>We allow certain kinds of restrictions, and we understand the need for them.
>For example, you can add the requirement that it passes a HTML validator of
>your choice. For all derived works which do not meet your requirements, you
>can "punish" with name and version changes, marking changes very easy
>spotable etc. If you like, we can work out further details on this list.
I was thinking more along the line of "If you make modifications, please send
them to us for review. If we approve of them, we'll add them to the official
distribution and give you appropriate credit. Otherwise, you must <see
above>."
>Of course you can also say only the very original, unmodified version is
>allowed to carry the official name. As long as some form of derivation is
>possible, it is very likely dfsg free (although there are some minor
>caveeats to avoid. Nothing too serious, though).
The name WDG nor "htmlhelp" is a registered trademark (like Netscape, Mozilla
and TeX are), so that would be a bit hard to enforce. Besides, that wouldn't
make a big difference: a malicious author could strip all our logos and links
and pass it off as his HTML reference. This is a "derived work", although one
we most certainly wouldn't want to allow. So, in the license we'd put that
you may only modify the text, but not remove credits, logos and links to the
official site etc.
Greetings,
Arnoud
--
\/ Arnoud "Galactus" Engelfriet - galactus@stack.nl This space
5th year Business & Computing Science student left blank
URL: http://www.stack.nl/~galactus/ PGP: 0x416A1A35 intentionally.
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