Re: [eigen] legal question

[Benoit Jacob <jacob.benoit.1@xxxxxxxxx>]

On a related note, I just stumbled across this LWN article which
should now be in open access:

http://lwn.net/Articles/394219/

It is about GCC developers struggling to be able to include snippets
from their GPLv3-licensed code into their GFDL-licensed documentation.

It does note, as I just did, that "the real problem is that we as a
community lack a copyleft license that works well for both code and
text."

I will make sure to bring this to the attention of Mozilla's lawyers
currently revising the MPL...

Benoit

2010/7/25 Benoit Jacob <jacob.benoit.1@xxxxxxxxx>:
> 2010/7/24 Keir Mierle <mierle@xxxxxxxxx>:
>> On Sat, Jul 24, 2010 at 3:31 PM, Benoit Jacob <jacob.benoit.1@xxxxxxxxx>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> 2010/7/24 Benoit Jacob <jacob.benoit.1@xxxxxxxxx>:
>>> > 2010/7/23 Keir Mierle <mierle@xxxxxxxxx>:
>>> >> +1 to CC-attribution
>>> >> -1 to CC-share alike. That makes the license viral
>>> >
>>> > aaaaaaaaargh
>>> >
>>> > Everytime someone uses the word 'viral' to refer to copyleft, the
>>> > aztec gods kill some kittens and Bill Gates has a burst of evil
>>> > laughter.
>>> >
>>> >> like the GPL. Is in
>>> >> really necessary?
>>> >
>>> > I just wanted to emulate the kind of weak copyleft as offered by the
>>> > LGPL and MPL licenses.
>>> >
>>> > It could well be, indeed, that CC-BY-SA is actually closer to GPL: I
>>> > just don't know!
>>>
>>> This is indeed the case, unfortunately: CC-BY-SA is a stronger
>>> copyleft than what we want.
>>>
>>> http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/legalcode
>>>
>>> Helmut's use case would actually be allowed since that would be a case
>>> of "Collective Work", I guess, but slightly more intricate cases would
>>> be unclear.
>>>
>>> For example, I want to allow people to incorporate short excerpts from
>>> our documentation, possibly in altered form, and have our copyleft
>>> only cover the _part_ of their work that is a direct adaptation of
>>> ours.
>>>
>>> The 2 questions below remain. The lack of simple weak-copyleft
>>> licenses, here too, is a real pity, and might indeed force us to
>>> release our documentation without any copyleft if we really can't find
>>> a suitable copyleft license.
>>
>> What's wrong with CC-attribution? I see no reason for copyleft here.
>
> Indeed, I've been thinking about this, and CC-BY should be good enough
> for us. The material in our documentation is mostly Eigen-specific,
> so, the more it spreads, the better for Eigen.
>
> Others, what are your opinions?
>
> Benoit
>
>
>> Keir
>>
>>>
>>> Benoit
>>>
>>> >
>>> > So we have 2 questions to answer:
>>> >  - do we indeed need some sort of weak-copyleft for the documentation
>>> > or are we OK to release documentation under a slap-me-in-the-face
>>> > license?
>>> >  - if we do want some sort of weak-copyleft for documentation, what
>>> > license would offer that? Is the SA in CC-BY-SA a too strong form of
>>> > copyleft?
>>> >
>>> > Benoit
>>> >
>>> >> Keir
>>> >>
>>> >> On Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 3:43 PM, Benoit Jacob
>>> >> <jacob.benoit.1@xxxxxxxxx>
>>> >> wrote:
>>> >>>
>>> >>> Hi,
>>> >>>
>>> >>> You do well to ask: indeed, we forgot to pick a free license for our
>>> >>> documentation. We need to do that for a variety of reasons. Debian
>>> >>> among others is distributing our documentation:
>>> >>> http://packages.debian.org/unstable/doc/libeigen2-doc
>>> >>>
>>> >>> There are 2 mainstream licenses that would make sense for us:
>>> >>>  - GNU FDL
>>> >>>  - CC BY-SA
>>> >>>
>>> >>> This page is a good read on this topic:
>>> >>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Free_Documentation_License
>>> >>>
>>> >>> My feeling is that we're a little better off with the slightly simpler
>>> >>> CC license. It seems simpler because (AFAIK) it just doesn't have
>>> >>> provisions of Cover Text / Invariant Sections. It's also nice that CC
>>> >>> licenses like CC BY-SA make it clear in their very name what they are
>>> >>> doing. No strong opinion though.
>>> >>>
>>> >>> Our wiki has defaulted to the FDL 1.2 but since there are few
>>> >>> copyright holders, it should be easy enough to relicense. We must have
>>> >>> compatible licenses for the wiki and docs, to allow moving content
>>> >>> between them.
>>> >>>
>>> >>> OK for CC BY-SA ?
>>> >>>
>>> >>> Benoit
>>> >>>
>>> >>> 2010/7/22 Helmut Jarausch <jarausch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>>> >>> > Hi,
>>> >>> >
>>> >>> > I'm selling my lecture notes in C++ to my students below cost.
>>> >>> > I'd like to attach Eigen's QuickRefPage (including the URL) as an
>>> >>> > appendix.
>>> >>> >
>>> >>> > Are there any legal problems about this?
>>> >>> >
>>> >>> > Helmut.
>>> >>> >
>>> >>> > --
>>> >>> > Helmut Jarausch
>>> >>> > Lehrstuhl fuer Numerische Mathematik
>>> >>> > RWTH - Aachen University
>>> >>> > D 52056 Aachen, Germany
>>> >>> >
>>> >>> >
>>> >>> >
>>> >>> >
>>> >>>
>>> >>>
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>