[Live-demo] [Warning; lengthy rant] Liberal licensing of Project Overviews in LiveDVD, do we want this?

[Simon Cropper]

Cameron,

Some comments on your point of view.

On 10/07/11 21:55, Cameron Shorter wrote:
> Simon,
> It is a delicate balance we have between covering our legal
> requirements, and putting so much red tape in place that volunteers
> don't contribute. I'd hate to see everyone's gifts of good will be
> hindered by red tape.

Future contributions, if given clear guidelines (like you have 
suggested) should not have to do any more than they would otherwise.

The issue here is respecting the copyright of already published works. 
If someone has taken the time to specify a license they release 
documentation under and others disregard this because it is convenient, 
it sends the wrong message.

OSGeo is the premier open source GIS group. They should insist on 
respecting others copyright and that contributors cite their sources and 
ensure they are not in breach of copyright.

Every time I look into this issue I find people totally ignore 
copyright. This is a legal requirement not something I have made up!

> My previous suggestion was what I consider to be the bare minimum, and I
> would consider it acceptable.

Your previous suggestion only required someone to say they were happy 
for you to release the various documentation under CC-BY or CC-BY-SA 
licence.

I remember when we discussed access to the Victorian Government datasets 
you insisted I provide you with official documentation verifying I was 
legally allowed to distribute this data. When I asked you whether you 
asked all your contributors for such documents you indicated that it was 
not common practice. My question is why is it more important to ensure 
appropriate documentation is obtained for government datasets and not 
others sources of educational material?

> I do agree that it would be an added bonus, and preferable, to also
> reference source material, and I am happy to encourage people to
> reference sources if they can readily identify them. But I don't want to
> mandate this as a criteria.

As stated. In order to honestly sign the disclaimer you posted in this 
thread, the authors would need to go back and look at the information 
used as the source and verify they have permission to extract the data. 
otherwise it is merely a means of OSGeo of saying "sorry your Honor, we 
were lead to believe that the contributor had checked this."

> In the case of Project Overviews, which are brief summaries from
> external sources, I expect that the "Fair Use" clause is applicable,
> which says that you can use parts of copyright docs as part of a review.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use

Reproduction of a work, in whole or part, to create a derivative that 
consists entirely of this source text or images, is simply piracy or 
more colloquially plagiarism. This is clearly stated repeatedly on the 
website you refer to above.

> Lastly, it is sometimes worth checking the legal consequences of us
> getting the licenses wrong. Is someone likely to sue OSGeo-Live for
> inappropriately using material put into Project Overviews or
> Quickstarts? I think not.

Ah! The nub of the argument...

"What is the chance of someone sueing OSGeo Foundation for breach of 
copyright, when people are pilfering from source documents probably 
created by the broader OSGeo community anyway".

If I wear my businessman hat, then the answer to this question is 
practically none.

BUT

Taking a philosophical stance I would argue that people that create 
derivatives are obliged to ensure that all source material is 
appropriately licensed for them to use it in the way they intend.

If the license is not, then the copyright owners need to be approached 
to ask for permission to use the documentation in the manner proposed.

If the licence is ambiguous , then again the copyright owners need to be 
contacted.

The only time that works can be used without going back to the copyright 
owner is when that owner has specified the licence under which 
derivatives can be created, and your proposed works meet this criteria.

As shown in my simple audit below. None of the source documents people 
on this list stated were used to create the project overviews were 
appropriately licensed for text to be extracted and rebadged in a 
product like the LiveDVD -- regardless of the value of such a resource.

The issue here is respecting others copyright not whether your project 
is of value or not.

> Actually, I think it very unlikely that owners
> of source material would be offended in the slightest. They'd be more
> likely to be offended if their material were not included.

This is debatable. If someone has taken the time to license a work and 
the LiveDVD sucks in their work and redistributes it contrary to the 
license conditions, why would they be OK with this. Like most things, 
they would be pragmatic about the situation and ask for the breach to be 
resolved.

> But lets say someone is offended,

The legal term is "breach of copyright" or "copyright infringement".

> we can simply say "I'm sorry" then rewrite any
> offending material, as Overviews and Quickstarts are quite short, and
> only a minimal amount to work to recreate. (Or minimal compared to the
> time we are spending discussing licenses).

If Overviews are so easy to create. Why didn't contributors just create 
new material and then we would not be having this conversation.

I am sorry you consider that this topic is a waste of time but in my 
view is that if it is obvious that people are ignoring copyright in the 
creation of documentation the lead open source group should address this 
not say "oh well, we will address it if someone complains".

Also, I have clearly stated that you need not delay production of your 
LiveDVD due to this discussion and that we agree to disagree on this topic.

I will finish with these statements "(1) addressing copyright is 
fundamental to document creation and need not be anymore a hindrance to 
the creation of good work than inserting titles at the top of the page, 
section headers throughout the text or doing a spell check; and (2) not 
addressing copyright is either blatant plagiarism or shear laziness; 
regardless it exposes an organisation that condones it to legal action 
at one extreme, to being tainted with a bad reputation at the other".

(c) Simon Cropper, CC-BY-SA 3.0 Australia
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/au/deed.en

>
> On 10/07/11 13:29, Simon Cropper wrote:
>> Cameron,
>>
>> I don't think that this is too much to ask since people would need to
>> gather this information anyway to be able to 'sign' the disclaimer
>> that you outlined.
>>
>> All I am asking is that the paper trail is transparent.
>>
>> On 10/07/11 13:25, Simon Cropper wrote:
>>> Cameron,
>>>
>>> Maybe your suggested disclaimer could be augmented to state...
>>>
>>> 1. The Project Overviews are based on the following material which was
>>> released under the <insert name of license here> license.
>>> - specify source material
>>>
>>> 2. The <name of license> has been confirmed to be a permissive license
>>> compatible with CC-BY.
>>> - specify license type of source material
>>> - may be multiple if derivative includes material from multiple sources
>>>
>>> 3. The link to the source document is here...
>>> - so other can check
>>>
>>> 4. The link to the deed for the source document is here...
>>> - so license terms can be verified.
>>> - it also allows it to be clear what license or version of license the
>>> documentation was released under. For example MIT has a variety of
>>> varieties, as does Creative Commons. People need to verify and specify
>>> which license was used and point to the deed.
>>>
>>> After this *then* you can insert your disclaimer.
>>>
>>> On 10/07/11 12:47, Simon Cropper wrote:
>>>> Cameron,
>>>>
>>>> Respondents need to do more than *just say they are happy* with Project
>>>> Overviews being CC-BY. They need to *verify that the source material
>>>> used in creation of this documentation* allows them to say they are OK.
>>>>
>>>> My audit below suggests that the bulk of projects checked would not be
>>>> able to do this.
>>>>
>>>> Look at the GDAL discussion over the last few days. They have clarified
>>>> the documentation is X/MIT licensed. This allows you to use the
>>>> documentation *but* the LiveDVD needs to include the disclaimer that
>>>> forms part of the licence deed at along with the documentation, so
>>>> it is
>>>> in some ways more like CC-BY-SA, not CC-BY. Looking at the
>>>> discussion on
>>>> the CC Website they equate the MIT licence to CC-BY-SA-NC.
>>>>
>>>> It is a simplistic view that all that is needed is to have a project
>>>> representative say that the documentation is CC-BY without providing
>>>> evidence (paper trail) showing that this is the case.
>>>>
>>>> On 10/07/11 06:54, Cameron Shorter wrote:
>>>>> Regarding results of my polling of projects about license. I sent an
>>>>> email to this list, then followed up with an email to the nominated
>>>>> project contacts for each project.
>>>>> I've had responses from all projects bar GeoMoose (a got one response
>>>>> saying they would respond later, but then seems to have forgotten).
>>>>>
>>>>> Almost all of the responses were along the lines of "Yes, I'm fine
>>>>> with
>>>>> CC-By for Overviews and CC-By-SA for Quickstarts".
>>>>>
>>>>> Simon Cropper who has written an excellent gvsig quickstart has
>>>>> noted on
>>>>> this list his preference for CC-By-SA to be used for Overviews. Simon
>>>>> also noted that we should collect people's responses publicly in order
>>>>> to ensure transparency, which is a good idea, and I'll follow through
>>>>> next asking for this confirmation.
>>>>>
>>>>> One person is still wanting to check the license of his source
>>>>> material
>>>>> for Overviews, and investigate some of the legal issues.
>>>>>
>>>>> But apart from that, everyone else was pro our license selection.
>>>>>
>>>>> So I'll send a following email asking people to publicly state their
>>>>> acceptance of the OSGeo-Live license policy on this live email
>>>>> list, and
>>>>> also comment on whether there is any source material which cannot be
>>>>> included in osgeo-live.
>>>>>
>>>>> On 06/07/11 10:03, Simon Cropper wrote:
>>>>>> On 05/07/11 20:52, Ian Turton wrote:
>>>>>>> On 30 June 2011 05:31, Johan Van de Wauw<johan.vandewauw at gmail.com>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>> On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 2:30 AM, Simon Cropper
>>>>>>>> <scropper at botanicusaustralia.com.au> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Project overviews are so small that even if a restrictive license
>>>>>>>> would apply, you could still get away with copying it completely as
>>>>>>>> sort of citation. We are talking about 2-3 sentences and a list of
>>>>>>>> features, which -I guess- in many cases have been at least partly
>>>>>>>> copied and/or inspired from/by other sources often not noting any
>>>>>>>> license and therefore copyrighted - so if you are so strict about
>>>>>>>> licensing I'm not even sure we can publish them ourselves.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> This sums up my feelings exactly - if the document we are concerned
>>>>>>> with is commercially confidential there is no way I can see any has
>>>>>>> copied my work so I can't enforce any licence anyway. So I don't
>>>>>>> really care, to be honest. The project overviews are so short and
>>>>>>> mostly derived from the project web site anyway I don't think it
>>>>>>> matters.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I think the CC-BY-SA is right for the quickstarts where I have
>>>>>>> actually authored something that took me time and energy but the
>>>>>>> overview was mostly copy and paste any way so CC-BY is fine and we
>>>>>>> just have to trust people anyway since none of us is going to go to
>>>>>>> law over it if we even found out.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Ian,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Your sentiments summed up the feeling of the broader community and
>>>>>> consequently Cameron has proceeded with his proposal for CC-BY for
>>>>>> Project Overviews and CC-BY-SA for QuickStarts.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Everyone keeps telling me that the Project Overviews are extracted
>>>>>> from the project websites and have little or no creative content.
>>>>>> Granted most are small but how much creative content is required
>>>>>> before you move from CC-BY to CC-BY-SA? To me this is a thorny
>>>>>> question but as demonstrated by the myriad of responses to this list
>>>>>> and directly to Cameron (who was going to provide an email outlining
>>>>>> the outcome of his enquires to the project contacts), I am alone at
>>>>>> being concerned about this issue. So I'll leave this issue alone.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Another issue however is the blatant cut-and-paste mentality when
>>>>>> constructing project overviews. This implies that text on the project
>>>>>> website or associated documentation are appropriately licensed for
>>>>>> this to occur.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> *I am arguing that it is not*
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I have conducted a brief audit of the OSgeo Projects Websites. I
>>>>>> created the list of projects below from the main page of the OSGeo
>>>>>> Foundation website - http://www.osgeo.org/ so the list is just a
>>>>>> subset of what is on the Live DVD (hopefully an indicative subset).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I have grouped the projects based on the type of copyright...
>>>>>> Group 1. No copyright specified so local laws kick in
>>>>>> Group 2. Ambiguous or variable licensing (see notes), and
>>>>>> Group 3. Full 'all right reserved' copyright specified
>>>>>>
>>>>>> My simple audit can be found at the bottom of this email.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Using information from Group 1 or Group 3 websites is not allowed
>>>>>> without approaching the copyright owners and getting permission. This
>>>>>> permission should be flagged at the start of a Project Overview
>>>>>> with a
>>>>>> disclaimer such as 'Reproduced with permission by Author 2011'.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The copyright for the Group 2 websites is at best ambiguous (see
>>>>>> notes). I am not sure how GNU Affero GPL and GNU Free Documentation
>>>>>> License 2002 relates to CC-BY. This would be a matter for
>>>>>> solicitors I
>>>>>> suppose. Quantum GIS and GeoNetworks however is a little clearer --
>>>>>> documentation from these sites which is released under a CC-BY-SA
>>>>>> license CAN NOT be re-released under a CC-BY license (this is
>>>>>> contrary
>>>>>> to the SA option).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> So following my audit it is apparent that none of the source
>>>>>> documents
>>>>>> mentioned as being used to create Project Overviews can be simply be
>>>>>> cut-and-paste from the project documentation, as everyone is telling
>>>>>> me happens, without the authors of the derived documents being in
>>>>>> breach of copyright. The only time this would not be the case is when
>>>>>> the author of the Project Overview is the author of the original
>>>>>> source document. In projects where hundreds are involved in creation
>>>>>> of documentation this would be highly unlikely.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --- My simple audit ---
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Group 1. Websites with no copyright notices (i.e. they do not state
>>>>>> they are in public domain, CC0, CC-BY or CC-BY-SA). In most
>>>>>> jurisdictions, the author is automatically covered by a 'copyright -
>>>>>> all rights reserved' option.
>>>>>> - deegree / homepage and wiki
>>>>>> - MapBuilder
>>>>>> - MapGuide Open Source
>>>>>> - OpenLayers
>>>>>> - gvSIG
>>>>>> - FDO
>>>>>> - GDAL/OGR
>>>>>> - GEOS
>>>>>> - MetaCRS
>>>>>> - PostGIS
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Group 2. Ambiguous or variable licensing
>>>>>> - geomajas - GNU Affero GPL is specified at the footer of
>>>>>> the website. It is unclear if this 'software' licence
>>>>>> relates to the software or the text on the page as this
>>>>>> licence is usually applied to the former not the latter.
>>>>>> - Mapblender - Website has no licence specified. The PDF manual is
>>>>>> GNU Free Documentation License 2002.
>>>>>> - GRASS GIS - Home page 'copyright - all rights reserved' license
>>>>>> but wiki GNU Free Documentation License 2002.
>>>>>> - Quantum GIS - Home page 'copyright - all rights reserved' license
>>>>>> but wiki CC-BY-SA.
>>>>>> - GeoNetworks - Home page 'copyright - all rights reserved'
>>>>>> license but
>>>>>> documentation released under CC-BY-SA
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Group 3. 'copyright - all rights reserved' license specified
>>>>>> - Geoserver
>>>>>> - Mapfish
>>>>>> - MapServer
>>>>>> - GeoTools
>>>>>> - OSSIM - Home page, PDF documents and Wiki all under 'copyright -
>>>>>> all rights reserved' license
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>


-- 
Cheers Simon

    Simon Cropper
    Principal Consultant
    Botanicus Australia Pty Ltd
    PO Box 160, Sunshine, VIC
    W: www.botanicusaustralia.com.au