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Just before the 4.5 release, Simon Cropper picked up on the fact
that we could improve on the way we treat copyright.<br>
<br>
I'd like to address this now and would like to poll how we should do
this.<br>
<br>
Which license?<br>
=========<br>
Firstly, in the RST source, the majority of our docs are licensed as
"Creative Commons". As Simon points out, we need to be more
specific.<br>
I suggest that we change our template to use the least restrictive
of the Creative Commons licenses, <a rel="license"
href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/">Creative
Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License</a>, and ask all authors
to confirm that we can change their docs to this version.<br>
<br>
What reference?<br>
===========<br>
I suggest that we add the following to our disclaimer.html page:<br>
<br>
<span>The OSGeo-Live documentation</span> is licensed under a <a
rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/">Creative
Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License</a> by the respective <a
href="http://live.osgeo.org/en/sponsors.html#contributors"
rel="cc:attributionURL">OSGeo-Live authors</a>.<br>
<br>
The software and data included with OSGeo-Live are licenced under
their respective Open Source or other Open license.<br>
<br>
Derivative works?<br>
===========<br>
I suggest we recommend the following text be included in derivative
works:<br>
<br>
"If incorporating content from the OSGeo-Live project, please
attribute using text similar to:<br>
[This document] incorporates OSGeo-Live documentation, which is
owned by the respective OSGeo-Live authors."<br>
<br>
Linking authors to docs.<br>
===============<br>
Should we also provide a page which lists docs and the list of
authors for that document? We could possibly extract this from the
:Author: tag in the RST source.<br>
I'm nervous that doing so will start to make our docs too messy.<br>
<br>
On 17/03/11 12:32, Cameron Shorter wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:4D8164A5.4000703@lisasoft.com" type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Simon,
Thank you for raising this issue, it is very important and hasn't had
much air time on the OSGeo-Live project.
Once we have finished the final throws of the 4.5 release (in a few
hours) and had time to recoup, we should revisit this. Please remind us
again in a few weeks, if the topic isn't discussed immediately.
On 17/03/2011 12:27 PM, Simon Cropper wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Hi All,
I would like ask the question about copyright associated with the Live
DVD produced by LisaSoft and OSGeo.
I have been looking over the website and note that the copyright is
attributed to LisaSoft and/or OSGeo.
If you work you way down to the html versions of the quickstart guides
they are also copyrighted to OSGeo. If you work your way back to the RST
source files for these pages you can see that the authors released their
work under a 'Creative Commons' license.
Take the MapGuide as an example...
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://svn.osgeo.org/osgeo/livedvd/gisvm/trunk/doc/en/quickstart/mapguide_quickstart.rst">https://svn.osgeo.org/osgeo/livedvd/gisvm/trunk/doc/en/quickstart/mapguide_quickstart.rst</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://live.osgeo.org/quickstart/mapguide_quickstart.html">http://live.osgeo.org/quickstart/mapguide_quickstart.html</a>
Shouldn't the website be 'Creative Commons', or at least the quickstart
section? At least this is my understanding of the use of CC works.
Also, I note that most authors of rst files simple inserted 'Creative
Commons' under the license section. If you go to the CC site there is no
license specifically called "Creative Commons'.
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/">http://creativecommons.org/licenses/</a>
The license relevant to this work should be unambiguous and works should
point to the specific deed relevant to the license that they are
releasing the work under. 'Creative Commons' is not specific enough.
I know this is a old topic that has been debated before but I would have
thought that these issues would have been clarified by now - especially
as the DVD is in its 4th rebirth.
For debate, I have included the following clause extracted from the FAQ
webpage on the Creative Commons Site
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://wiki.creativecommons.org/FAQ">http://wiki.creativecommons.org/FAQ</a>
Note I have inserted ### comments ### throughout...
You will notice that none of the ways proposed here to 'properly
attribute a Creative Commons licensed work' have been met.
As a group OSGeo should be aspiring to ensure any new works *at least*
have unambiguous licensing both for the original works and the Live DVD.
*** start quote ***
How do I properly attribute a Creative Commons licensed work?
All current CC licenses require that you attribute the original
author(s) ### not done in final product ###. If the copyright holder has
not specified any particular way to attribute them, this does not mean
that you do not have to give attribution. It simply means that you will
have to give attribution to the best of your ability with the
information you do have. Generally speaking, this implies five things:
* If the work itself contains any copyright notices placed there by
the copyright holder, you must leave those notices intact, or reproduce
them in a way that is reasonable to the medium in which you are
re-publishing the work ### authorship and license placed in RST files
not maintained in HTML ###
* Cite the author's name, screen name, user identification, etc. If
you are publishing on the Internet, it is nice to link that name to the
person's profile page, if such a page exists ### not done ###
* Cite the work's title or name, if such a thing exists. If you are
publishing on the Internet, it is nice to link the name or title
directly to the original work ### not done, list of contributors not
linked back to contributions, also contributors section hidden under
sponsorships page ###
* Cite the specific CC license the work is under. If you are
publishing on the Internet, it is nice if the license citation links to
the license on the CC website. ### not done, in fact I could not find
any mention of CC on the LiveDVD webpage ###
* If you are making a derivative work or adaptation, in addition to
the above, you need to identify that your work is a derivative work
i.e., “This is a Finnish translation of the [original work] by
[author].” or “Screenplay based on [original work] by [author].”
### not done ###
In the case where a copyright holder does choose to specify the manner
of attribution, in addition to the requirement of leaving intact
existing copyright notices, they are only able to require certain
things. Namely:
* They may require that you attribute the work to a certain name,
pseudonym or even an organization of some sort. ### not done ###
* They may require you to associate/provide a certain URL (web
address) for the work. ### not done ###
If you are interested to see what an actual license ("legalcode") has to
say about attribution, you can use the CC Attribution 3.0 Unported
license as an example. Please note that this is only an example, and you
should always read the appropriate section of the specific license in
question ... usually, but perhaps not always, section 4(b) or 4(c):
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode">http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode</a>
*** end quote ***
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Director
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254
Think Globally, Fix Locally
Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.lisasoft.com">http://www.lisasoft.com</a>
</pre>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Director
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254
Think Globally, Fix Locally
Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.lisasoft.com">http://www.lisasoft.com</a>
</pre>
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