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

[Simon Cropper]

See comments in-line...

On 30/06/11 19:31, Johan Van de Wauw wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 2:30 AM, Simon Cropper
> <scropper at botanicusaustralia.com.au>  wrote:
>
>> Personally I have a problem with Project Overviews, or any technical
>> documentation for that matter, being locked up in Commercial-in-Confidence
>> derivatives. I think Project Overviews, which can be legitimately be
>> included 'as is' in a proposal or design document, shouldn't need to be
>> reworked. To me the reworked document, which needs to include your name as
>> original author, implies some sort of collaboration has occurred when none
>> has occurred. Yes, reworked documents do look better but contribute nothing
>> the the broader CC/FOSS/OSGeo community.
>>
>> But this is my opinion. If you have one - for or against - *especially those
>> people that have authored the Project Overviews*, SPEAK UP!
>
> 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.

Historically sloppy practices regarding document preparation and 
copyright should not influence solidifying clearer legally-compliant 
procedures in the future.

Plagiarism is Plagiarism. I am sure if LISASoft or OSGeo Foundation was 
taken to court for breach of contract they would not be so flippant.

> This whole discussion is imho ridiculous: those who don't care about
> licensing will copy from any source for their commercial proposals,
> those who do (but given the general rush in which project proposals
> usually are written I would doubt if there are many) might contact you
> and/or share their changes.

True, so why don't we just cut to the chase. Lets require all Project 
Overviews to be released to the public domain or as CC0. If the source 
documents have been plagiarised and of dubious status, why bother.

If people are so complacent about copyright then why bother trying to 
clarify the procedure anyway. Lets save Cameron and others a lot of 
problem -- documents can be sourced from anywhere regardless of the 
copyright, slapped together and re-released on the LiveDVD for anyone to 
use in whatever manner they wish.

> Disclaimer: I learned talking and writing English by copying sentences
> from teachers, textbooks and other sources. I'm sorry if my sentences
> contain copyrighted material.

I am not sure how this qualifies as a disclaimer. What you are saying 
here is that copyright is not an issue for you.

It is painfully obvious to me that I am in the minority here on this 
list, in the OSGeo Foundation and in the broader Open Source Community.

Sad, very sad.

-- 
Cheers Simon

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