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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