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

[Simon Cropper]

Cameron,

Feel free to proceed. Don't delay your production on my part.

I have aired my concerns and the OSGeo community has responded.

Thank you for the opportunity to try and engage the community on the matter.

Considering the response by most people I don't understand why you 
bother licensing the quickstarts with CC-BY-SA. Most (~95%) currently 
don't have any clear licensing subscribed and no one except me and 
Hamish have argued for the CC-BY-SA license. If fact, this exercise and 
others I have had over the last few years show most people don't give a 
second thought about copyright.

Also if you pushed for CC0, considering most people have been happy in 
the past with just being noted as contributors to the project (on the 
sponsorship page) and not authors to any particular documents, this 
would remove any legal constrains and requirements.

Your problem is...
1. If you assign CC-BY-SA to the QuickStarts then there is no going back 
to a CC0 or CC-BY.
2. If you assign CC0 or CC-BY to the QuickStarts, each contributor needs 
to be given the opportunity to withdraw their contribution if they are 
not happy with the more liberal license (based on my guesstimate that is 
only a ~5% rewrite).

Anyway this is my last rant on the topic -- talking copyright is like 
trying to beat a dead horse.


On 01/07/11 09:21, Cameron Shorter wrote:
> Simon,
> Thank you for first identifying our documenting licence issues, and
> informing our debate since then. I really appreciate your advice and
> respect your opinion in this regard.
>
> With regards to license selection, I'm proposing to go with your advice
> of CC-By-SA for Quickstarts, but only use CC-By for the Project
> Overviews, for the reasons already discussed on this list.
>
> I hear your strong opinions that we should use CC-By-SA for all
> documents, but I'm also aware that it is hard to please everyone, and in
> order to move forward we will need to make a decision and hope that we
> are addressing the majority desires.
>
> So far, I've had 25 people respond saying they are fine with suggested
> license selection, and apart from yourself, I don't think anyone has
> objected. (If you have contributed to osgeo-live and haven't responded,
> please let me know if you ok with my proposal).
>
> So unless we get further debate in the next 24 hours, I plan to start
> putting the license in place, ready for the document freeze in a bit
> over 2 weeks. (18 July).
>
>
> On 30/06/11 10:30, Simon Cropper wrote:
>> Hi Guys,
>>
>> Cameron has just posted the new licensing details for the LiveDVD.
>>
>> I presume if you actually opened my post that you may be concerned
>> with how Project Overviews may be used.
>>
>> If you have any opinions on this matter PLEASE speak up -- don't just
>> sit in the background as *Cameron will take the lack of any responses
>> as an implicit YES to his proposal*.
>>
>> 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!
>>
>
>


-- 
Cheers Simon

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