OpenSourceHowTo.Org

Paul Matthews paulie at opensourcehowto.org
Wed May 9 09:28:37 EDT 2007


wow ben, you've made a lot of points, points that i'm going to have to
look into when I have some time to sit, read & make some decisions, at the
moment how ever the legal status is going to have to remain in limbo until
I can spend some time working out with my users what copywrite should be
on the site. As soon as I do i'll announce it with an e-mail to all my
users and a post on the announcements page at OpenSourceHowTo.Org so
everyone knows whats going on.

> On 5/8/07, Paul Matthews <paulie at opensourcehowto.org> wrote:
>>>   What's the copyright/license status of the information on the site?
>>> Of changes or new content submitted by others?
>>
>> I don't think i've really thought that much about that stuff ...
>
>   You should.  Under the Berne convention (international copyright
> law), any work is copyrighted from the moment of creation.  That means
> no reproduction or distribution without the author's consent.  At the
> same time, a site with a name like "Open Source How To" may lead to
> confusion on that point.  Does the "Open Source" apply only to the
> subject matter, or also to the content itself?  Can others take the
> content there, modify it, redistribute it, and so on?
>
>   These are core issues to what Open Source/Free Software is all about.
>
>   For that matter, it isn't clear if all of the content on that site
> is your original work, or derived/aggregated from other sources.  You
> deserve to take credit for your own work, and should do so.  It also
> allows others to formally cite your work.
>
>> as for what is submitted by others, they can edit it once it's been
>> submit, but so can I ...
>
>   That's not necessarily automatically okay.  Submitting information
> to a public site carries with it a certain implicit consent to its
> publication, but further reproduction and/or modification is something
> of a gray area.  Some people expect their work to remain in its
> original form, and will object to publication of modifications.
>
>   And what about third parties?  If Fred posts something, and I would
> see it and would like to correct some errors and add some material,
> what's the status of the resulting work?  That is pretty much the
> definition of "wiki", so these are not just idle questions.
>
>> Is there something you want to ask if you can do? or some reason you
>> were
>> asked that?
>
>   I ask partly out of self-interest; I would like to know if the
> content is Free for me to reproduce and/or modify for my own purposes.
>  I also might be interested in contributing to your project, but will
> only do so if the legal status is clear.  I also point out these
> things because they are issues you are going to have to face
> eventually, and you're much better off dealing with them sooner rather
> than later.
>
>   As John Abreau suggests, you may want to investigate adopting one of
> the various Free/Open Content licenses out there.
>
>   The Creative Commons project offers a "modular" suite of licenses to
> suit one's desires.  You can allow or prohibit commercial use,
> prohibit modifications, allow modifications without further
> restriction, and/or allow modifications only if the modifications are
> also licensed freely.  Their page of "Things to think about" is good:
>
> http://creativecommons.org/about/think
>
>   There is also the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL).  The GFDL
> is similar to the Creative Commons license in the "Allow Modifications
> if Shared Alike" mode.  (There are some differences in the details
> that may make CC and GFDL content legally incompatible.)  Wikipedia is
> licensed under the GFDL, for example.
>
> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.html
>
> -- Ben
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