Documentation License

[Jonathan Larmour <jifl@eCosCentric.com>]

The time is coming up (I hope!) when we'll need to make some choices about 
our documentation license. The FSF have already said that our existing Open 
Publication License (with the license options) is not acceptable to them. 
However, I don't know if people are aware, but not everyone is happy about 
the FSF's own Free Documentation License. There's a long page about it at 
http://home.twcny.rr.com/nerode/neroden/fdl.html but the summary is that 
surprisingly enough the license is not Free.

Personally I would not be happy with the FDL either, but of course that's 
just me :-). I am prepared to argue with the FSF about that. But 
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html does helpfully say: "occasionally 
we use other free documentation licenses" so that's encouraging.

That web page suggests some alternatives:
- For GPL'ed programs, licence the manual under the GPL (mutatis mutandis)
- If you don't mind people making proprietary versions of your manual, use 
a permissive, non-copyleft license such as the X11 license. (The X11 
license explicitly mentions documentation.)
- If you have to use the GFDL for some reason, dual-licence your 
documentation under the program license.

But there are other options, the best resource for which being 
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#FreeDocumentationLicenses 
especially since that list is officially acceptable with the FSF.

To save searching since the link is broken, the FreeBSD doc license is:

-=-=-=-=-
Redistribution and use in source (SGML DocBook) and 'compiled' forms (SGML, 
HTML, PDF, PostScript, RTF and so forth) with or without modification, are 
permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

    1. Redistributions of source code (SGML DocBook) must retain the above 
copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer as 
the first lines of this file unmodified.
    2. Redistributions in compiled form (transformed to other DTDs, 
converted to PDF, PostScript, RTF and other formats) must reproduce the 
above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following 
disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the 
distribution.

Important: THIS DOCUMENTATION IS PROVIDED BY THE FREEBSD DOCUMENTATION 
PROJECT "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT 
LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A 
PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE FREEBSD 
DOCUMENTATION PROJECT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, 
SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED 
TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR 
PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF 
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING 
NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS 
DOCUMENTATION, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
-=-=--=-=-

The apple license could also not be read as the server was down. So here's 
Google's cache: 
http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:d_swFDmNzqIJ:www.opensource.apple.com/cdl/

Personally I'm inclined to think the FreeBSD Documentation License is 
adequate (the Apple license just more legalese stuff and verbose, but 
equivalent as far as I can see), as I'm not too enamoured about making the 
documentation "Free" (as in FSF "Free") primarily because the point of eCos 
is the code, and the documentation is there to help, not an asset to be 
controlled.

Other thoughts/options/opinions?

Jifl
-- 
eCosCentric    http://www.eCosCentric.com/    The eCos and RedBoot experts
--["No sense being pessimistic, it wouldn't work anyway"]-- Opinions==mine