On Thu, Apr 20, 2006 at 12:56:57AM +0200, Francesco Poli wrote: > > > > I suggest using a BSD-style license. The attached license is such a > > license. It is based on the FreeBSD documentation license [3] and > > explicitely mentions translations. In our case (the website) the > > 'source code' is the wml, but I leave references to other sources > > (SGML, XML) that might apply to other documentation that the > > website might hold. > > I do *not* think that the license you are proposing is a good one. (...) Maybe we should just use a simpler (i.e. technology neutral license) without explicitly mentioning that the source = WML. > Clause 1 restricts where the license text must be retained: as the first > lines. What if I convert pages from WML to another format where the > first lines are reserved for some other use? It seems I cannot legally > do so! How about saying "either first or last lines"? > The license does not seem to be GPLv2-compatible, as clause 3 is a weak > copyleft constraint: it seems that I cannot combine a page under this I've removed that one. > If you are going to propose a BSD-style license, I would strongly > recommend the (unmodified) 2-clause BSD license: > http://www.gnu.org/licenses/info/BSD_2Clause.html The attached license is quite similar to the BSD license with the only differences being that there is no 'binary' form, there's just a compiled form of the site (and explicitly lists some formats which the source might be compiled too). > > c) a note should be added to the Debian site (as a News item?) > > describing the > > license change (and the reasons for the change) and giving a 6 > > month period for comments. > > What's the use of this News item? Just to get wider coverage. Maybe an announcment to d-d-a would be best. > Aren't we already commenting on your proposed plan? Yes, but not every single DD that has contributed to the web pages is reading -www or -legal. > > and to transfer (c) to SPI (GPG/PGP signed e-mail > > would be a requisite for contributing, a paper trail would be even > > best) > > I disagree. There's no need to transfer copyrights, as long as licenses > are DFSG-free. I added the (c) transfer in order to make it possible for SPI to relicense the site in the future. In the website is not (c) SPI then our current footer really doesn't make any sense. > > e) from here on access to the CVS of the website should be given after > > clearly stating (and getting and agreement) that any and all > > contributions to the CVS, unless specified otherwise with clear (c) > > statements in the code, will be (c) SPI and will be considered > > "work under contract" > > I don't think you can claim it's work under contract, unless there > actually *is* a contract involved! > Voluntary contributions are not "work under contract", AFAICT. The idea of that portion, which might be misunderstood as the wording is not really accurate, is that if volunteers argue they "worked" for SPI for the website development there is no need to have paperwork done for the (c) transfer. If we drop the (c) transfer portion (I'm open to that, if people don't want it to be there) then this should be dropped too. AFAIK (in Spanish legislation at least) volunteer work can be considered work "for contract" (note the quotes) in the sense that you work for a company (a volunteer organisation) for free and you waive the rights to your work to it (including IP rights, and copyrights). Since there is no real written "contract" this does not conflict with the fact that the company you work for (the one you have a contract with) might have stated that you cannot work for others while working for them. As I said, however, those steps could be dropped, but then we have to ask every contributor to have their contributions licensed under this license (and cross our fingers that we will not have to change it in the future). We should also probably have to change the (c) portion to list people that have contributed in the site or, at the very least, say that SPI is not the (c) holder. Regards Javier
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