[conspire] (forw) Re: vim vs sed awk and grep + interactive vs automation [was Re: Slice of life]
Rick Moen
rick at linuxmafia.com
Wed Sep 23 18:04:57 PDT 2009
Might be of interest.
----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> -----
Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2009 18:03:52 -0700
From: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
To: Paul Zander <paulz at ieee.org>
Subject: Re: [conspire] vim vs sed awk and grep + interactive vs automation
[was Re: Slice of life]
Organization: Dis-
Quoting Paul Zander (paulz at ieee.org):
> Any suggestions on putting "copy-left" notices?
Speaking very generally, a licence is a legal instrument to ensure that
you, as copyright holder, have granted the rights you wish to grant
concerning your work, with the attached conditions you wish, and not any
others.
The fact that you're asking about "copyleft" suggests that you are
seeking a licence with reciprocal (copyleft) conditions. One
option, although it's not a popular one, is to specify GPLv2 or later
conditions with a waiver to cancel GPL's obligation to include a copy of
the licence text (inside any redistributions of the covered work) --
something that would otherwise be a fairly onerous requirement for, say,
simple Web pages.
I've specified that licence for my set of Web pages called
"SSH-Protocol Software for Sundry Platforms", http://linuxmafia.com/ssh/ .
You'll find the licence at the bottom of the main page:
Copyright (C) 2000-2009, Rick Moen, rick at linuxmafia.com.
This information is free; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
Free Software Foundation, version 2. (Licensor waives GNU General Public
License's requirement to include a copy of the licence text in
redistributions or derivatives of this work.)
I could actually have stopped there, but was relying on FSF's template,
so, it also includes a warranty disclaimer (a good idea):
This work is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General
Public License for more details.
Likewise from the template came this rather absurd text (absurd because
I do not of course include the text of GPLv2 with the Web page):
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this work; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation,
Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
In 1984, when Stallman wrote the first version of GPL, that sort of
language made sense. Today, sheesh, people can't just search the
Internet and find the licence text? They can, of course. I should
really remove that.
The page also gives all recipients of the Web pages an alternative choice of
licence:
Alternatively and at the recipient's option, this work may be used
freely under the Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0[link] licence.
Which brings me to my next point: "Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0" is one
of a family of licences specifically for non-software creative works,
written by Stanford Law professor Larry Lessig's Creative Commons (CC)
organisation. There are six CC licences (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/):
Attribution: permissive: requires credit to the
upstream creator, allows use for
any purpose, and creation and
distribution of further derivative
works under any licence.
Attribution-NoDerivs: proprietary: verbatim copies only,
with credit
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs: proprietary: verbatim copies only
with credit, and works may not be
used in commerce.
Attribution-NonCommercial: proprietary: derivatives are allowed
with credit, but not use in commerce.
Attribution-Non-Commercial-ShareAlike: proprietary: derivatives are allowed if
under the same terms with credit, but
no use in commerce is permitted.
Attribution-ShareAlike: copyleft: requires credit to the
upstream creator, allows use for
any purpose, and for creation and
distribution of derivative works
under the same terms.
You will notice that, of the six, only two are what in software would be
called "open source" licences. The first licence is BSD-like
(permissive), and the last is GPL-like (copyleft or reciprocal).
My Linuxmafia.com Knowledgebase (http://linuxmafia.com/kb/) is under
Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0.
CC occasionally updates the language of its licences as their critics
and lawyers find areas that need fixing. Fortunately, the URL changes
when they do. Thus:
Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/
Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Thus, I can hyperlink the Linuxmafia.com Knowledgebase to the 3.0 URL,
secure in the knowledge that the linked page's text won't be changed
under me.
The other licence most commonly used for documentation is the GNU Free
Documentation License (GNU FDL or GFDL) v 1.3. As written, it's very
verbose, and includes a couple of fascistic provisions for parts of the
covered works that are not permitted to be changed, that have raised
real controversy and limited the licence's acceptance. Those provisions
owe, in the view of many, ultimately to FSF's desire to prevent it being
lawful to, for example, distribute the manual for GCC without a
mandatory included copy of the GNU Manifesto. (GFDL can be used with
a "with no invariant sections, no front-cover texts, and no back-cover
texts". I would personally also want to absolve recipients of the need
to include a copy of GFDL.)
There are also a number of lesser-used document-licensing options, which
I'll not bother to detail except to say: Please resist any temptation
to declare your work "public domain", which creates legal headaches.
http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Licensing_and_Law/public-domain.html
In summary:
o Given that you want "copyleft", you could reasonably pick
Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 _or_ GPLv2 or later with waiver of
licence inclusion.
o If you don't want to impose a reciprocal obligation, then
CC's "Attribution 3.0" is difficult to beat.
o Make sure you understand what you're permitting. E.g., with either
of the prior two, you shouldn't be surprised and outraged to
see someone else making money off a book that includes your work,
because you implicitly said that was OK. (Note that CC has a
licence for you if that's _not_ OK, too.)
In fact, you might want to gaze for a while at CC's licence-comparison
page (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/), and consider what people's
(diverse) aims _are_, with non-software licences. It's not really the
same problem as with software at all.
Afterthought: You might find amusing the licence text I have at the
bottom of my personal "rants" pages, http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/ :
Copyright (C) 1995-2009 by Rick Moen. Verbatim copying,
distribution, and display of this entire article (page) are permitted in
any medium, provided this notice is preserved. Alternatively, you may
create derivative works of any sort for any purpose, provided your
versions contain no attribution to me, and that you assert your own
authorship (and not mine) in every practical medium.
So, that's a permission grant that allows the recipient to select either
of two sets of permissions: (1) Verbatim mirror copies of the entire
page are permitted. Or: (2) Other uses of all sorts (reuse in
derivative works, quotations of parts of pages, etc.) are permitted if
there is _no_ attribution whatsoever to me.
The latter concept was invented by Don Marti, who called it "bastard
reverse copyleft". You see, my personal rants pages are _opinions_,
so I really don't want to permit others to create derivatives of my
rants Web pages with my name still attached, because that would permit
them to quote me as holding (e.g.) the opposite of the views I actually
hold. The anti-attribution clause gets around that problem by saying
"You may create derivative of any sort as long as you divorce them
completely from me."
----- End forwarded message -----
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