Re: Help Selecting License for Bacula Documentation
> Benjamin Seidenberg wrote:
>> Kern Sibbald wrote:
>>> John Goerzen wrote:
>>>> I'm forwarding, with permission, parts of a message from Kern Sibbald,
>>>> author of Bacula and its manual. The current manual, which has a
>>>> license listed at http://www.bacula.org/rel-manual/index.html, is not
>>>> DFSG-free. However, Kern has indicated a willingness to consider
>>>> other
>>>> license arrangements.
>>>>
>>>> Kern's main concern (correct me if I'm wrong, Kern) is that he doesn't
>>>> want someone to be able to publish and sell paper versions of the
>>>> manual.
>>>>
>>> Yes, this is correct, but with the nuance, that I would be very happy
>>> to
>>> see the manual published in physical form provided there is an
>>> agreement
>>> for a reasonable financial contribution to the project, which should
>>> take
>>> into account normal royalties and how much work the publisher (or
>>> whoever
>>> transforms it) has to do to get it in a publishable form.
>>>
>>> In my other email, I attempt to explain my reasoning behind this.
>>
>> While this is an understandable viewpoint, and one that I can sympathize
>> with, any license that would provide protection such as you describe
>> would most definitely be in violation of the DFSG, and as such, not
>> distributable by debian, at least in the main section (though possibly
>> in non-free).
>
> On the other hand, note that the GPL requires that distributors notify
> recipients about the Free Software status of the work, which would allow
> people to know "hey, I could get this for free online"; this might
> achieve a similar effect to what you desire.
> Furthermore, I don't know
> for sure, but a carefully worded license *might* manage to require a
> specific notice as to the unofficial, non-endorsed status of the manual,
> while still remaining DFSG-free. You could then specifically grant
> distributors the rights to call themselves an official and/or endorsed
> manual in exchange for whatever auxiliary licensing terms you want.
Hmmm. Possibly having an "invariant" section (or whatever it is called)
stating the unofficial, non-endorsed status of any commercially printed
version of the manual would do what you suggest.
I'm going to try to come up with some such wording over the next week, but
if you or someone else could suggest such a "carefully worded license" for
the Bacula manual that would be acceptable to Debian, it would for me be a
good solution, and I would very likely accept it -- obviously, I would
like to see the wording before making a firm commitment ...
Best regards, Kern
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