Re: Inclusion of PDF with CC Attr 3.0 license

[Ben Finney <ben+debian@benfinney.id.au>]

Walter Landry <wlandry@caltech.edu> writes:

> Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> > My personal view is that there would be no problem shipping the PDF,
> > even though Debian's users would have no practical ability to modify
> > this PDF. Making a modified version of a scientific paper like this
> > one is neither useful, nor, unless especial care is taken, ethical.
>
> As someone who reads and writes papers, this is not true. Reusing
> figures for talks and other papers is immensely useful. Copying the
> LaTeX for an equation can also be quite helpful. This paper has both
> of these elements. It is not like it is hard to add the attribution
> required by the license.

In addition to those important use cases of partial re-use, there are
more.

For example, re-rendering the source document (without significant
modification) to a different format is highly valuable, and is thwarted
when the source document is not made available to recipients.

All of these are useful, and ethically sound, uses that require equal
access to the source document.

-- 
 \     “I cannot conceive that anybody will require multiplications at |
  `\   the rate of 40,000 or even 4,000 per hour …” —F. H. Wales, 1936 |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney