Re: [Fsfe-uk] UK Govt. OSS Policy v2

[Ralph Janke]

Martin Wheeler wrote:

> On Tue, 10 Aug 2004, Alex Hudson wrote:
>
> >  There are some interesting new
> > features of this policy, but I'm not sure how much I can say about it -
> > I've been told we cannot redistribute the redraft.
>
>
> That's interesting -- because in the document itself, the only text
> referring to restriction in distribution says:
>
> +++
>
>   (c) Crown copyright 2004
>
>   The text in this document may be reproduced free of charge in any
>   format or media without requiring specific permission. This is
>   subject to the material not being used in a derogatory manner or
>   in a misleading context. The source of the material must be
>   acknowledged as Crown copyright and the title of the document must
>   be included when being reproduced as part of another publication
>   or service.
>
> +++
>
> Even the usual anally retentive civil servant shouldn't be able to 
> misconstrue that one!
> (Oops. Was that derogatory?)
>
> Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

This is standard on any public government document (including the 
legislative statures at the HMSO webpage). In some way it does not make 
any sense to me, because it means that I can not send somebody a certain 
statute that they can get from the HMSO website the same way I can do 
it. What is the point of this excercise ?

Maybe we have to go back to the origins of copyright law in the UK. It 
did not intent to protect the author's right, but was a way to limit the 
access to Gutenberg printing machines to people that were not publishing 
anything that would be against the Crown.
Maybe they think the distribution of government documents including 
their statutes are so damaging to the government that this must be 
denied by copyright law ;-)

Ralph Janke