Re: [Otpasswd-talk] Changes in code and documentation. ;-)

[Hannes Beinert]

Hi all,

On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 07:58, Luke Faraone <address@hidden> wrote:
> send to list
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Tomasz bla Fortuna <address@hidden>
> Date: Sun, Jan 3, 2010 at 19:53
> Subject: Re: [Otpasswd-talk] Changes in code and documentation. ;-)
> To: Luke Faraone <address@hidden>
>
> Dnia Sun, 3 Jan 2010 19:34:42 -0500 Luke Faraone <address@hidden> napisał(a):
>>
>> It looks like you've licensed the manpage and associated
>> documentation under the GNU FDL. Just FYI, Debian only allows GFDL
>> documentation if there are no "unmodifiable sections", such as
>> front/back cover texts, or invariant sections. (see
>> http://www.debian.org/vote/2006/vote_001 for more info)
>>
>> No changes need to be made at this time, but just a word of caution
>> for the future. cc-by-sa-3.0 might be a better option.
>
> It wasn't really me, but Hannes who included LICENSE.fdl. At first I
> licensed README on GNU GPL, but that is for sure not best license for a
> README and I still haven't give it a thought.

I apologize, I didn't intend to make things more difficult.  I
basically just followed the FSF licensing pattern that had been using
for the code.  As Tomasz points out, and as the FSF argues, the GPL
isn't really optimal for documentation.

> FDL is pretty complicated that's true. I wonder what will
> savannah-"gurus" say for cc-by-sa-3.0 although it's completely ok with
> me.
>
> I just hope to keep this licensing as simple as possible and if
> possible have option to switch to BSD later (currently only GMP really
> ties us down a bit, but only a bit as it's LGPL). Can you sent your
> notice to Hannes/otpasswd-talk? (Even forward my reply if it's
> convenient for you?)

I have no particular investment in the licensing scheme, and am
perfectly happy to follow whatever guidance you (Luke & Tomasz)
provide.  Thank you, Luke, for the Debian link above -- I remember
reading about this issue on the Debian list years ago, but I'm afraid
it didn't stick.

My sense is that it would probably be best to license the
documentation, especially since leaving it unlicensed raises other
issues.  The GFDL 1.3 is slightly more compatible with the CC license,
and there is some indication that the GFDL 2 ought to be even more
"free", however it isn't published so that's academic.

I guess it comes down to the following licenses:

1. GPL
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
Free, copyleft.  This is the option that seems to be supported by
Debian.  I do think that there are issues in trying to shoehorn code
and documentation into the same license, so I'm probably disinclined
to favor this license.

2. FreeBSD Documentation License
http://www.freebsd.org/copyright/freebsd-doc-license.html
Free, non-copyleft.  This license may make it easier for transitioning
the project to a BSD license, I suppose.  The non-copyleft aspect
troubles me a little.

3. Creative Commons BY-SA v3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0
Free, copyleft.

Based on what has been written above, it appears that you are both
leaning toward the CC license?  That would certainly be fine with me.
Should we make the change?

> I hope to create some package with something like 0.5beta for tests
> soon (I've tried today, but it already changed to tomorrow).

There is (almost) always a tomorrow.  :-)

Hannes.