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PostPosted: Fri Sep 22, 2006 11:33 am 
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Hi, I guess this has been asked before, but I was not able to find an answer.

Quote:
8. All documentation, being a derived work of the original Joomla! files, shall be licensed under the GNU/GPL.

http://dev.joomla.org/content/view/41/65/

Creative Commons recommends the FDL for software documentation. Licensing software documentation in accordance with the Creative Commons License, Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 means:

1.- The publisher has an exclusive right to make profit from the manuals. Often, the manuals are a collaborative work. So, while you hold your own works copyright, you can not give your customers a copy and you can not publish the complete manual in your website if you have a banner without the publishers prior permission.

2.- The publisher would grant the commercial use of a derivative work to a translation partner (the translation, ie. a translation partner website with banners or adsense). The translation partner would make profit from a collaborative work while the individuals involved not.

Am I wrong?

And now the big question:

Why should we use a more restrictive license with the software documentation than with the software itself? Joomla! is GPLed so we have:

The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3).

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Last edited by ibnhafsun on Fri Sep 22, 2006 3:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 8:38 pm 
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Well, as I said I was not able to find any answer. Now I have one, at least for Developers Documentation:

Quote:
"License
All Official Joomla! documentation will be covered by the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ . This protects the original author in two ways. Firstly the original author retains copyright over the submitted work. Secondly it protects the submitted documentation from commercial exploitation by anyone other than the original author."

http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,57327.0.html

I would like to know how the attribution will be done:

Quote:
If you distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or publicly digitally perform the Work or any Derivative Works or Collective Works, You must keep intact all copyright notices for the Work and provide, reasonable to the medium or means You are utilizing: (i) the name of the Original Author (or pseudonym, if applicable) if supplied, and/or (ii) if the Original Author and/or Licensor designate another party or parties (e.g. a sponsor institute, publishing entity, journal) for attribution in Licensor's copyright notice, terms of service or by other reasonable means, the name of such party or parties; the title of the Work if supplied; to the extent reasonably practicable, the Uniform Resource Identifier, if any, that Licensor specifies to be associated with the Work, unless such URI does not refer to the copyright notice or licensing information for the Work; and in the case of a Derivative Work, a credit identifying the use of the Work in the Derivative Work (e.g., "French translation of the Work by Original Author," or "Screenplay based on original Work by Original Author"). Such credit may be implemented in any reasonable manner; provided, however, that in the case of a Derivative Work or Collective Work, at a minimum such credit will appear where any other comparable authorship credit appears and in a manner at least as prominent as such other comparable authorship credit.


So unless you get the contributors to let you use the name of the website (or some other name) instead of their own you MUST name all contributors as original authors. That would be funny but I am sure it is hard to accomplish if you are not using a wiki, Joomla! or some other app, and it is not being done right now or I can not find the author´s copyright. Two examples:

http://help.joomla.org/content/view/1626/196/
http://dev.joomla.org/content/view/1137/80/

If we think about documentation team´s work as a collaborative work, we can find some analogies with a wiki where we have a website and a lot of contributors and it should be nice to know what CC users think:

http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-l ... 02663.html

But we have copyright issues too (ie: the US copyright law, the joint work and the collaborative work). And each CC jurisdiction has its own definitions (I am using the Spanish juridiction, but I am taking a look at each jurisdiction FAQs, legal texts and at the wiki).

I wish I am wrong, really, but

Who will be the rightsholder? OSM? Each individual? Both?

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Last edited by ibnhafsun on Wed Sep 27, 2006 8:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Thu Sep 28, 2006 11:13 am 
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Hi,

I don't know the answers to your questions (I'm not a lawyer), but I am trying to raise the attention of someone who does.  Please be patient.

Regards,
Chris.

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PostPosted: Thu Sep 28, 2006 11:24 am 
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Hi, Chris. Thanks for your reply. It took me six days to get one and I was starting to think about hiring a translator (my english is poor, as you have seen, lol)!

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PostPosted: Thu Sep 28, 2006 11:41 am 
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documentation licensing is a minefield. you only have to follow the discussion at debian-legal to see some of the problems that can arise by using different licenses for the code to the documentation as in many cases the documentation licensing is more restrictive than the code licensing. having said that the gpl is not really appropriate to documentation. the fdl looks the closest  solution to me. not the cc licensing which is more restrictive

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PostPosted: Thu Sep 28, 2006 12:29 pm 
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I agree, Brian. But it is not our decision (you know, we have the Core Team to hear, think and dispose) and the only thing I can do is to open a discussion.

Of course I am free to open a different Documentation Project, under a FDL license, but it makes non sense for me: I really believe that here are some nice people trying to work at their best and I do appreciate their work. It is just a legal issue that I am sure will get solved asap. Or just a licensing policy I have misunderstood.

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Last edited by ibnhafsun on Thu Sep 28, 2006 12:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 11:22 pm 
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GPL does not apply to software, as far as I understand.  CC is the most popular common licence and give the most freedom to the author while at the same time giving the Joomla! project the freedom to publish the documents from 3rd party authors.

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 03, 2006 6:31 am 
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fdl gives the most freedom. cc has restrictions

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 03, 2006 11:20 am 
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Hi, Michelle.

This is not about popularity, sorry. GPL applies to software and it´s applicable to any work but FDL is its equivalent for documentation. This is just about what do you have, what do you want to have and how do you want it to be distributed. And it´s a question of freedom.

My personal opinion is that documentation should be distributed as the software itself, FDLed, giving the users the same kinds of freedom they actually have with Joomla!. But it is your decision, not mine. Take in mind that software has bugs but licenses not. Licenses has legal consequences that can´t be solved just changing one line.

You, the Documentation Team, should consider to publish your work under the FDL. It´s the Official Documentation, and your licensing policies will be applicable to the derivative works, such translations. This is all about Official documentation and you can still have non official documentation under different licensing policies (ie: My sme, publish a manual under a CC a-nc-sa and you can edit the document, change the format to suit publication and/or to fix any typo's and publish it under the same license, the CC-a-nc-sa, but if I want my manual to be the Official one, I must agree with you licensing policies).

Anyway, it´s a Core Team decision.

PS: Chis Davenport, davidgal and some others are working on this. The Core Team is trying to have the legal issues solved and clarified asap.

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Last edited by ibnhafsun on Tue Oct 03, 2006 11:43 am, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 03, 2006 12:09 pm 
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Couldnt agree more

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PostPosted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 4:03 am 
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ibnhafsun,

Thanks for your comments!

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 24, 2006 1:46 pm 
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Well,

Quote:
Creative Commons is a young organization. And while we’ve been more successful than I ever imagined we’d be, we’ve also made mistakes.


And the mistakes are being discussed to make a better licensing scenario (3.0). One of the most controversial disputes is about NC. I am following up the mailing lists and I guess the Doc. Team too, as it is the chosen licensing policy.

If someone has time to read this

http://intelligentdesigns.net/Licenses/NC

the quotes are from Lawrence Lessig´s article about it.

http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5719

Quote:
...but the core is a concern about incompatibility. As he puts it, “[f]ree content is no longer a fringe movement.” He cites Wikipedia as an obvious example, and correctly points out that content licensed under a NC license can’t be included within Wikipedia. This is a problem, he argues, especially for “collaborative projects.” As he says, “marking up regions of content as non-commercial and consistently following these boundaries is almost impossible in a collaborative environment.”

Möller is absolutely right. The NC license does interfere with this sort of collaboration. It does create potential incompatibility.


Quote:
So what’s the solution? My recommendation is much like Möller’s — use the least restrictive license that you can. But I say “much like Möller’s” because my sense is that he’d really like to see the NC license never used at all, and I believe, given the wide range of creators using CC licenses, there are important cases where a NC license makes sense.


Quote:
And I would generalize the point: We all should use the least restrictive licenses that we can, consistent with our goals.


Quote:
Some will want nothing more than that their content be available noncommercially. For them, the NC license is a useful option. But others really simply want their work used and incorporated into the remix of the net. For them, the NC option may do more harm than good.


These are Lessig´s thoughts and recommendations.
But...

Quote:
What is commercial use? The relevant clause out of Creative Commons non-commercial ("-NC") licenses, such as the "Attribution-NonCommercial" license, is this one:

    You may not exercise any of the rights granted to You ... in any manner that is primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation.

Many bloggers and blog communities on the web use advertising as a way to recoup costs and generate income. Popular bloggers, from Andrew Sullivan to Markos Zúniga (Dailykos), have turned their hobbies into professions, but even smaller publications often use Google Ads to make some extra money. Other sites use small-scale subscription models to unlock additional features and content or disable advertising. Ask yourself if you really want to stop all these individuals from using your work.

Compilations which are sold are another example of commercial use. For example, if one MP3 music file which is licensed for non-commercial use only is included among thousands on a DVD collecting free music and sold for a small personal profit, that is a violation of the license. Note that it is not the amount of the financial gain which matters, it is the intention of the user. Intentions are, of course, difficult to prove, and in many cases, it is best to be cautious. Even under liberal interpretations, any use in a corporate context would almost certainly be forbidden, such as the inclusion of the file on a CD bundled with a computer magazine.


So the manuals can´t be redistributed that way. If I was thinking about translate a manual and give a copy to a Non Profit to redistribute it the Non Profit can´t charge a penny for the distro and can´t use any sponsor. By using CC licneses with the NC clause:

Quote:
    * They make your work incompatible with a growing body of free content, even if you do want to allow derivative works or combinations.
    * They may rule out other basic uses which you want to allow.
    * They support current, near-infinite copyright terms.
    * They are unlikely to increase the potential profit from your work, and a share-alike license serves the goal to protect your work from exploitation equally well.


Is this what the Core Team and the Documentation Team Group want to do or is just a starting point to get some documents published?

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PostPosted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 2:56 am 
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ibnhafsun,

Thank you for your comments!  We have chosen the creative commons licence as we felt that it met the Joomla! projects need to have free quality documentation while at the same time gives the authors the protection from other people commercializing their work.
Authors will still keep the copyrights of their work.

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PostPosted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 10:58 am 
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Free as a beer or free as in free speech? There is a big difference.

Who is going to commercialize a free (as a beer) work if the same work is available for free?
Who is going to pay for it?

The only reasons to pay are:

a) the distribution (ie: a DVD, printed copies or bandwidth)
b) the improvements (the real competitive advantage)

By doing your work noncommercial you are stopping distributing and improving. That´s all. And you can do the same with more freedom just with the a-sa or with the FDL (even the FDL let´s you put an invariant). We are talking about a collaborative environment and derivative works.

Piracy? Are you going to stop piracy? I don´t think so...

Don´t believe me, Michelle, but read Lesig´s thoughts about it. He is the Creative Commons founder.

"My recommendation is much like Möller’s — use the least restrictive license that you can".

Do it and, if an author needs more protection, give him the freedom to choose a more restrictive license.

Now your are doing it the opposite way...

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Last edited by ibnhafsun on Thu Oct 26, 2006 11:01 am, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 11:41 am 
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Let´s see a fictional example:

I am working for a Non Profit in a developing nation in South America.

The Non Profit wants to promote a CMS, so the local smes and/or the students, would have an open source and free (as a beer) tool.

I suggest to use a live CD, the Brian´s one, with the official user manual. The Non Profit can make a distro and give the CDs to the locals for the CDs' production cost (no profit, let´s think about 30.000 CDs, it would cost about 5000 US dollars here, in Spain) or for free with the sponsor´s logo printed.

The Non Profit needs to get the publisher´s prior permission to distribute the manual. I am sure that ledzep, as Brian, will agree. No problem at all.

But I need the Spanish translation, not the English original work (we are working in South America), which is a derivative and a collaborative work. So the Non Profit will need the translators prior permission too (all of them if they don´t give all their intellectual property rights to the main translation entity [we have continental laws]).

What do you think the Non Profit will do?

Do you think ledzep and all the translators involved want to stop this kind of distribution?

Was this what you really want to do choosing a CC a-nc-sa license?

Do you see the consequences of having different kinds of freedom with the documents and with the software?

Who is going to use a software that stops this kind of distributions having some other nice tools with free (as free of speech) documentation available?

Thanks for your time, Michelle and, as you said...Thanks you for your comments!

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Last edited by ibnhafsun on Thu Oct 26, 2006 12:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Sun Oct 29, 2006 4:57 pm 
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I´ve found this. I think it´s a nice test to see if the -NC clause is the best solution and a nice reference for people doing collaborative work under the -NC clause (I am not sure if people really know what they are doing under your licensing policy):

http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Discuss ... Guidelines

PROPOSED BEST PRACTICE GUIDELINES TO CLARIFY THE MEANING OF “NONCOMMERCIAL” IN THE CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSES

Explanation

The purpose of these guidelines is clarify some of the easier use cases of what does and does not constitute a permitted noncommercial use under the Creative Commons licenses that contain the NonCommercial license element. These guidelines are not intended to be exhaustive but are instead intended to assist creators and users to better understand the scope of permitted uses.

These guidelines apply to those activities that exercise a right licensed under the Creative Commons license, ie. the act of copying a work or distributing a work. It does not apply to an activity that constitutes a fair use of a C-licensed work. It also does not apply if, for example, you use the ideas expressed in a work.

A. Nature of the User:

(1) Is the person making use of an NC-licensed work an “allowable NC user” under the noncommercial license condition? Allowable NC users are:

(a) an Individual
(b) a Nonprofit educational institution/library,
(c) a Nonprofit organization as defined under US or equivalent law [1], (together with (1) and (2) “allowable NC users”)
(d) A commercial copy shop, ISP, search engine, content aggregator, blog aggregator site or similar service provider who, in the course of providing a service at the direction of the allowable NC user, may exercise a right licensed under the Creative Commons license.

(i) No. License violation – this is not a noncommercial use.
(ii) Yes. Continue to Question B.

B. Nature of the use: Advertising

(1) Is the NC-licensed content being used in an advertisement for third party products or services? For example, is Brian’s CC BY-NC licensed photo of the Eiffel Tower being used to advertise bottled water made by Shaun’s company.

(i) Yes. License violation, this is not a noncommercial use.
(ii) No. Continue to the next question.

(2) Is viewing of an advertisement for third party products or services required as a condition of accessing or viewing the NC-licensed content (eg. “click-through” advertising)? For example, in order to view Mary’s CC BY-NC-ND licensed article, does a person first see an advertisement for a car.

(i) Yes – license violation; this is not a noncommercial use.
(ii) No. Continue to the next question.

(3) Is the NC-licensed work being used in connection with advertisements for third party products or services where the NC-licensed work is the primary draw or a is substantial amount, both qualitatively and quantitatively? For example, does a podcast consisting solely of CC BY-NC-SA licensed music have ads for a record store at the start and end of the podcast.

(i) Yes - license violation; this is not a noncommercial use.
(ii) No. Continue to the next question.

C. Conditions on Use: For Services Provided

(1) Is money changing hands in exchange for a service provided in connection with the NC-licensed work? For example, is a copy shop charging for the service of making a copy or is a search engine receiving ad revenue for ads served up when searching for NC-licensed content.

(i) No. Continue to Question D
(ii) Yes, continue to the next question.

(2) Is money changing hands for a service being provided to (in the case of, for example, a for-profit copy shop) or by an allowable NC user incidental to the use of the NC-licensed work (e.g. course packs provided by an educational institutions)?

(i) Yes - this is a noncommercial use.
(ii) No, continue to Question D.

D. Conditions on Use: Original work

(1) Is there any money changing hands in any one of the following ways in connection with the verbatim use of the NC licensed work?


(a) As a condition of using the NC-licensed work (eg. by levying a direct charge or charging subscription fees for access to NC-licensed work(s)), license violation – this is not a noncommercial use.

(b) As a condition of using another work that includes an NC-licensed work, where the NC-licensed work is either the primary draw or a substantial amount, whether qualitatively or quantitatively (eg. where an NC-licensed image is used on the cover of and as a central part of a book that is sold commercially), license violation – this is not a noncommercial use.

(c) As a condition of using another work that includes a verbatim NC-licensed work, where the NC-licensed work is not the primary draw or is an insubstantial amount, both qualitatively and quantitatively (eg. where one NC-licensed image is used in a book that is sold commercially and the image is not a thematically significant part of the book) - this is a noncommercial use (provided that there is no charge associated with directly accessing the work.)

(d) As an optional contribution (e.g. a tip jar, donations, membership drive) for an individual, an educational institution or nonprofit organization that uses the verbatim NC-licensed work or another work that includes a verbatim NC-licensed work – this is a noncommercial use.

E. Conditions on Use: Derivative Works

(1) Is the money changing hands in connection with a derivative use of an NC licensed work?

(a) If the derivative work based on an NC-licensed work is subject to a “ShareAlike” license condition, then the permitted uses of the derivative work should be assessed in accordance with D.

(b) For derivative works based on NC licensed work that are not subject to a “ShareAlike” license condition, money many change hands in at least one of three ways:

(i) As a condition of using a derivative work based on an NC-licensed work, of which the original NC-licensed work is the primary draw or a substantial amount, either qualitatively or quantitatively, of that derivative work (eg. where a commercially released short film is made using a CC BY-NC licensed piece of music and the music is the sole audio component of the film), license violation – this is not a noncommercial use.

(ii) As a condition of using a derivative work based on an NC-licensed work, of which the original NC-licensed work is not the primary draw or is an insubstantial amount, both qualitatively and quantitatively, of that derivative work (eg. a commercially released mash-up is made of a piece of CC BY-NC licensed music that is used only incidentally in the mash-up) – this is a noncommercial use.

(iii) As an optional contribution (e.g. a tip jar, donations, membership drive) for an individual, an educational institution or nonprofit organization that uses the derivative work based on the NC-licensed work – this is a noncommercial use.


[1] The IRS definition of 501(c)(3) organization is an organization whose charitable purpose falls into one of the following categories: (i) religious, educational, charitable, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, to foster national or international amateur sports competition, or prevention of cruelty to children or animals organizations; (ii) and, whose operations are restricted in the following ways: (a) dedicate assets to charitable purposes; (b) service public purposes; (c) participate insubstantially in social activities; (d) participate insubstantially in legislative activity; (e) do not engage in political activity (e.g. do not accept contributions or make expenditures for the purpose of influencing or attempting to influence the selection, nomination, election or appointment of an individual to a federal, state or local public office or office in a political organization.) Note that we may have to limit the definition of “nonprofit” to only nonprofits that have a educational, charitable, scientific, literary (ie. not religious) purpose.

http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Discuss ... Guidelines

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Last edited by ibnhafsun on Sun Oct 29, 2006 5:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Mon Oct 30, 2006 2:15 am 
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Hi there,

The reason the CC license was chosen over the FDL was in fact as a result of us needing to entice writers to help on the documentation front.

Even when we were all Mambo, documentation was a problem and the biggest problem was getting people to either commit (long term to the team or produce something and submit it for our usage).

Earlier this year people started to produce quality documentation themselves and they were willing to share that documentation with the rest of the Joomla! community. The issue was that some wished to retain the rights to use what they had produced as they saw fit and at the same time allow Joomla! and the users of Joomla! free usage of the documentation. FDL does not provide this sort of cover nor does GPL.

Since that change was made the amount of documentation has increased as writers are happier to do it (iI am generalising here).  Just last week I was presented with two extremely good install guides for both 1.0.x and 1.5, each is some 60-70 pages complete with screen captures etc (these will be available shortly). They are produced by a company that had made them for their own client and are now sharing them with the rest of us.

I think the better option down the track may be individual licensing on a case by case basis.

The other option that would make the whole debate a mute point would be if a few more people were will ing to devote the time and energy (long term) that is required to ensure that we have all the documents we need all the time and on time. Until that happens we need what we can get and if getting it requires a CC license then so be it, better something under CC than nothing at all.

@ibnhafsun - your points are all valid, however they don't produce documentation. If you really want FDL licensed documentation then the first place to start would be to joing the documentation effort and produce it... we are more then willing to investigate/use alternative licenses such as the FDL, but still have the requirement of people to actually produce the documentation.

Cheers
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 30, 2006 11:19 am 
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Thanks, Shayne.

I guess we are talking about the same things but from different points of view. Please, don´t take the difference as an offense or as cheap criticism with negative vibes.

I understand that we need documentation and we need it asap. The DT is doing a great job. I understand that anyone can share his documents under the appropriate license to his purposes and, if it implies a benefit for us, the simple users like me, then it is something we need to thank. At least it is something I use to thank.

Quote:
I think the better option down the track may be individual licensing on a case by case basis.


I agree, but we have a DT working under a CC a-nc-sa license, a restrictive license, as the starting point. No "case by case", AFAIK, but a general licensing option with exceptions to apply to individual works. At least that is what is stated here:

http://help.joomla.org/
http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic ... #msg424368
http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,57327.0.html
http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic ... #msg348381

And I was not able to find a different "official" statement. As I´ve said, if the only docs available were the CCed ones you have done, IMO, the right thing: work with them until we have another option. But, are you providing another option with those statements?

As with Joomla! itself and the three layers licensing options (Core, libraries, extensions/ GPL, LGPL, freedom) you need to face different scenarios: the DT projects, the volunteers work and projects and the third party projects. And it seems like you have chosen a restrictive starting point that is applicable to all the volunteers work. Let´s think about your scenario with a fictional example again:

If my sme wants to share a manual with the community under a CC a-nc-sa, all the volunteers work done to polish and improve it in the DT Working Group is under the same license while my sme retains all the commercialization rights. This is much like working for my sme, isn´t it?

Should this be the default option as it is now? While it is the unique option is right (as it seems to be now) but, how do you expect to get some different options with a general licensing policy like this?

Quote:
@ibnhafsun - your points are all valid, however they don't produce documentation. If you really want FDL licensed documentation then the first place to start would be to joing the documentation effort and produce it... we are more then willing to investigate/use alternative licenses such as the FDL, but still have the requirement of people to actually produce the documentation.


If this this is your response. You missed this but I will think again about it:

Quote:
Of course I am free to open a different Documentation Project, under a FDL license, but it makes non sense for me: I really believe that here are some nice people trying to work at their best and I do appreciate their work.


I agree with you again: my points don´t produce documentation. They are not intended to do so. But I guess you know that ;)...

Tell me, please, do you really think we must have the volunteers working that way? Do you really think that the volunteers (the DT and the translation volunteers) know the legal consequences of their work?

I think they don´t have a clue... and I really think that having the users well informed is a priority too. Don´t you think so?

Just before I get the "embrace us or leave us" response: This was just my two cents but if you think I was trying something different then I failed to do what I really wanted to do and I am sorry.

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PostPosted: Mon Oct 30, 2006 11:56 am 
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As the other thread about licensing and translators was locked and I really don´t know if the translators know what they are doing...

Have you informed the translators that they need the authors (all of them) prior permission to reproduce your original content or derivative works of it if they are not an individual or a Non Profit organization or they have any kind of advertising? How?

Is this permission granted by default to the Translation Partners? If so, how it is done?

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Last edited by ibnhafsun on Mon Oct 30, 2006 1:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Mon Oct 30, 2006 1:46 pm 
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Hey Ibnhafsun,

I'm extremely thick skinned so definitely no offence taken  :)

I both agree and disapgree with you (if thats possible). Sometimes when documentation is offered then we don't have a choice on license and I certainly wouldn't be refusing to publish a work simply because the license didn't suit.

Personally I have no problem with the CC license. GPL doesn't lend itself as well to texts and the FDL goes a little to far into the "do what you like" style of license. With FDL I could simply publish the Joomla! manual from the help site as a Book (commercial) or charge people to enter my "Joomla! Support" site only to give them a verbatim copy of teh official docs.

I'm open to being convinced that this should change but I need real world reasons and I would play devils advocate  ;)

Cheers
Shayne

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PostPosted: Mon Oct 30, 2006 1:58 pm 
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Well, so do you want me to convince you with real world examples?

In public or in private? I think it´s better to do it in private for a while as there are peoplee with good faith (bona fides) involved and I don´t want to cause any harm.

Meanwhile, think about your own words as a devil advocate ;)

You are doing a rule from the exception (we don´t have docs, an individual offers his work under his own license and the whole doc team and all the volunteers adopt it as the default policy). It´s like saying: we have a DT only to work with third party docs; give us your works and we will improve them. That´s nice but to be the exception. The general rule would be less restricitve: we do free documentation (what is the real DT mission?), if you want to give us your docs under a different license you are more than welcome and we will try to do our bests to get them improved and polished.

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PostPosted: Mon Oct 30, 2006 2:23 pm 
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Quote:
I both agree and disagree with you (if thats possible)


It´s possible, really. I agree and disagree with you too, lol.

But it´s only for our different points of view: you´re looking at this with the DT perspective and you, I am sure, know more about the real needs and how to get nice documentation asap.

I agree with you: if we need documentation, first, let´s get it.

But this not means that we must adopt a default restrictive licensing policy to be applied not only to authors but to volunteers and translators too. Not without prior information.

Don´t think about a single document by a single author. Think about the real world example: we have people speaking Spanish, Dutch, Farsi, Swahili... I am sure you, the DT, are willing to provide us with nice documentation. The author, the proof readers, the CT doing collaborative work to polish the work, the volunteers helping the DT, the translators, the volunteers giving translations to the translators... It´s a really complex scenario. And then think about the distribution scene: the authors website, the help.joomla.org website, this forum, the Translation Partner website, the Translation Partner website forums, the individuals websites, the so called "community websites" (that´s a reason to open another thread, but may be later), the simple sites...

As I wrote before, my question is not about what the DT has to do with a CCed document, but about:

what we have?
what we want to have?
and what is the better way to do it right?

What the DT stands for? Improving third party docs or making free documentation available? We agree that the first goal is to have  the 1.0.x and 1.5 docs available but... then?

We will have just CCed docs, just like now, like if all the efforts done were done by a third party. Where is the volunteers work? Where is the community work? Think now in terms of freedom.

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PostPosted: Mon Oct 30, 2006 6:10 pm 
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Ops, sorry, Shayne I don´t replied to this:

Quote:
With FDL I could simply publish the Joomla! manual from the help site as a Book (commercial) or charge people to enter my "Joomla! Support" site only to give them a verbatim copy of teh official docs


Well, you have two powerful tools: the covers and the invariants (the reasond behind the Debian and FSF disputes).

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-howto-opt.html

I do prefer FDL, you know, but I am not a zealot. May be the a-sa can do the same but you don´t have invariants or covers and you should look then to the (-nd) clause wich has no sense in a technical project like this.

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