Re: A licence for an ‘awesome list’ (was: Starting a GNU Guile awesome list)

[John Cowan]

On Thu, Jul 16, 2020 at 4:47 PM Zelphir Kaltstahl <
zelphirkaltstahl@posteo.de> wrote:

"We also recommend the GNU FDL for dictionaries, encyclopedias, and any
> other works that provide information for practical use."
>

These are works with substantial original content, and the GFDL prevents
people from creating proprietary versions of them.  But as I said before, a
list of links is most likely insufficiently original, so it cannot be
copyrighted in any common-law jurisdiction.  For avoidance of doubt,
however, a CC0-type license is best.

I am not a lawyer; this is not legal advice, but it is not the unauthorized
practice of law either.

What is the impact or are the consequences of incompatibility with GPL,
> with regard to the list of links?
>

 I don't see any.  A list of links is unlikely to be included in the source
code of a software work.


> But I thought GPL is only meant to be used for software? Think I read
> that many times in the past, that you should not use GPL for things
> other than software.
>

Certainly a GPLed presentation or essay that is unlikely to be printed is
no problem.  Most of my presentation slides are GPLed.  But being required
to distribute the editable source for a specific copy of a printed book
along with the book (or a written offer to provide it on demand) is a
nuisance.



John Cowan          http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan        cowan@ccil.org
I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less
than half of you half as well as you deserve.  --Bilbo