[Qgis-psc] License QGIS documentation

[Tim Sutton]

Hi

On Saturday 07 February 2009 13:43:15 Otto Dassau wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I talked to Bernhard Reiter (FSF Europe) about licensing the QGIS
> documentation. Here is what he said (translated from german):
>
> ################################
>
> 1) GNU FDL (Free Document License)
>
> GNU FDL seems to be a good choice for separate, independent documentation,
> but not for software source code. This means, if we add parts of the source
> code to the qgis documentation, then we can get in trouble when people want
> to quote parts of the documentation together with source code extracts.
>
> http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/fdl.html
>
> => Since we probably aim to have one license for all documentation (incl.
> Coding Guide), FDL seems to be not the best choice.
>
> 2) CC-BY and CC-BY-SA Licences v2.0 seem to be incompatible with GNU FDL
> _and_ GNU GPL.
>
> see Licenses For Documentation:
> http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/index_html#DocumentationLicenses
>
> => A License incompatible to the GNU GPL is not a choice for us.
>
> 3) Also CC-BY-SA License v3.0 does not seem to be compatible with the GNU
> FDL.
>
> It seems that at the moment "an article about Rio de Janeiro on Wikipedia
> (which is currently licensed under the FDL) cannot be mixed with an article
> about Rio on Wikitravel (which is currently licensed under the CC BY-SA
> 1.0)"
>
> As far as I (Otto) understand they want to change that in the future.
>
> see:
> http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Version_3#BY-SA_.E2.80.94_Compatibility_Str
>ucture_Introduced
>
> => I am not absolutely sure, but there seems to be problem, too.
>
> Finally Bernhard has 3 suggestions:
>
> a) GNU GPL:
>
> Advantage: it is compatible with GNU GPL and the source code and well
> understood.
> Disadvantage: It does not really fit for manuals and we should check, if
> that is a problem for QGIS documentation.
>
> b) Double licensing: GNU FDL 1.3 and CC-BY-SA 3.0
>
> Advantage: It is compatible to both license systems
> Disadvantage: Improvements of the documentation are more difficult and as
> described above there is the problem to mix text and source code (FDL).
>
> c) We can use a weaker license, which is still compatible to GNU FDL, GPL
> and CC-BY and CC_BY-SA. There is a list here:
>
> http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/index_html#OtherLicenses
>
> An example is The FreeBSD Documentation License:
> http://www.freebsd.org/copyright/freebsd-doc-license.html
>
> In this case, maybe also CC-BY could work, but the disadvantage is the weak
> protection.
>
> ###############
>
> I haven't had much time to read all this, but I would like to find and
> present a suitable license for the QGIS documentation soon. If you hava any
> ideas or suggestions, please write.
>
> My first impression is a) or c), but we will see...
>
>  regards,
>   Otto

Yes I think it is important to establish an appropriate license for the docs. 
I would have thought the FDL is a good match to our needs:

"GNU Free Documentation License

    The GNU FDL is recommended for textbooks and teaching materials for all 
topics. (“Documentation” simply means textbooks and other teaching materials 
for using equipment or software.) We also recommend the GNU FDL for 
dictionaries, encyclopedias, and any other works that provide information for 
practical use."

Is there any reason why we cant re/dual license the coding guide and other doc 
parts under main source tree to be FLD licensed too? 




Regards,

-- 
Tim Sutton, Linfiniti Consulting
==============================================
* QGIS Project Steering Committee Member (Release  Manager)
* Visit http://linfiniti.com for more information 
   about the QGIS and FOSS services we provide.
* Skype: timlinux Irc: timlinux on #qgis at freenode.net
==============================================

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