Fwd: [Wsic] Full public domain release not possible in some places

[Stephen Paul Weber]

In relation to the licensing discussions we've had here before (having
mostly settled for now on MIT), and specifically regarding releasing
code into the Public Domain, I am forwarding the following message
about limitations on PD in some countries.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Denver Gingerich <den...@ossguy.com>
Date: Tue, May 13, 2008 at 1:10 PM
Subject: [Wsic] Full public domain release not possible in some places
To: ws...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca

Stephen and I were discussing the possibility of releasing some source
code into the public domain yesterday and I mentioned that it may not
be possible to do so in all jurisdictions as described in some posts
to the cc-community mailing list. Since other people on the WSIC list
might be interested, I'll outline the posts here.

The basic conclusion of these posts is that many European countries
recognize "moral rights" for creative works that "are independent from
the economic rights of an author and can neither be transferred nor
waived" so you cannot fully release your works into the public domain.
However, moral rights do appear limited ("They include the right to
claim authorship of a work and the right to object to any distortion
or other derogatory action in relation to the work which would be
prejudical to the author's honour or reputation") so it may not be a
huge issue, although I don't know if that's the full extent of moral
rights. The post that I took these quotes from includes some
additional information on moral rights that I suggest reading if
you're interested in the topic:

http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-community/2008-April/003581.html

The first post on the list was the following, which includes a
discussion from the cc-licenses list that suggests one cannot waive
all their rights in Norway and Germany at least:

http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-community/2008-April/003579.html

The thread that Gavin refers to on the cc-licenses mailing list is the
following:

http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-licenses/2008-April/thread.html#6344

These discussions arose from a proposal for the CC0 license, which is
intended to be an internationally-recognized public domain release,
similar to the US-centric Public Domain Dedication that Creative
Commons hosts [1]. For those interested in releasing content into the
public domain, I suggest following the development on the cc-licenses
mailing list [2] or on the CC0 wiki page:

http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CC0

I highly recommend joining the cc-community mailing list. It is a
great place to learn about different issues and questions about
Creative Commons licenses and to learn about copyright law in general.
You can subscribe at:

http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-community

Denver

1. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/
2. http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-licenses
_______________________________________________
Wsic mailing list
Ws...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/wsic

--
- Stephen Paul Weber (Singpolyma)

Web: http://singpolyma.net/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/singpolyma
IM: singp...@gmail.com

[Chris Messina]

Huh, thanks Stephen. I also talked to Dewitt Clinton at Google -- he's
kind of responsible for Google Code -- and asked him about adding PD
to the list of available licenses for hosted projects and he brought
up similar issues raised here, so we'll have to pick something else.

I waver between MIT and Apache, but also wonder if going GPL after all
would be useful for getting our code into the core of GPL projects
like WP and Drupal. The former licenses shouldn't preclude
contribution, but it's worth looking in to.

As well, I think some kind of foundation to which copyright should be
assigned may be in our future. The purpose would be to make licensing
easier, easier to change, and in general, more uniform.

Chris

Sent from a typo-prone iPhone.

On May 13, 2008, at 10:23, "Stephen Paul Weber" <singp...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[anders conbere]

On Tue, May 13, 2008 at 11:08 AM, Chris Messina <chris....@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Huh, thanks Stephen. I also talked to Dewitt Clinton at Google -- he's
> kind of responsible for Google Code -- and asked him about adding PD
> to the list of available licenses for hosted projects and he brought
> up similar issues raised here, so we'll have to pick something else.
>
> I waver between MIT and Apache, but also wonder if going GPL after all
> would be useful for getting our code into the core of GPL projects
> like WP and Drupal. The former licenses shouldn't preclude
> contribution, but it's worth looking in to.

Both MIT and BSD at least are capable of being included in GPL
projects (I have qualms with the legal standing of the BSD license
though), I'm not sure what Apache's license status is.

~ Anders

[Alexander Mette]

Hi all,

2008/5/13 anders conbere <acon...@gmail.com>:

On Tue, May 13, 2008 at 11:08 AM, Chris Messina <chris....@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  Huh, thanks Stephen. I also talked to Dewitt Clinton at Google -- he's
>  kind of responsible for Google Code -- and asked him about adding PD
>  to the list of available licenses for hosted projects and he brought
>  up similar issues raised here, so we'll have to pick something else.
>
>  I waver between MIT and Apache, but also wonder if going GPL after all
>  would be useful for getting our code into the core of GPL projects
>  like WP and Drupal. The former licenses shouldn't preclude
>  contribution, but it's worth looking in to.

Both MIT and BSD at least are capable of being included in GPL
projects (I have qualms with the legal standing of the BSD license
though), I'm not sure what Apache's license status is.

Yep, that's right, but it doesn't work the other way around as GPL is a strong copyleft (or viral, just as you like) license. MIT/BSD/X-Style are much more permissive than GPL.

If Public Domain isn't possible, it imho boils down to:
   MIT : if the DiSo projects code shall leverage DiSo in proprietary software (assuming that any organization creating proprietary products really doesn't want to code it themselves)
   LGPL : leveraging usage of DiSo also in proprietary software, but keeping the main development in the DiSo (or at least the open source) community
   GPL : keeping DiSo code free

I would not consider Apache and other licenses, but rather go with one of the "big three" as license proliferation is problematic enough already and one of them is also better for marketing purposes.

Going GPL is a problem, if the software should be _distributed_ with a software licensed under a less strong copyleft. This is for example a problem with integration into TikiWiki, which is LGPL licensed. But for that we have a mods-system, which allows installation of GPL (and otherwise) licensed code afterwards, without having it included in the main distribution of Tiki.

Somehow I'd like a "gamble" with going GPL, but don't know if in the long run the pain of integration into other projects would make up for keeping the code accessible under any circumstances. So in the end MIT or LGPL are probably the most reasonable choices as they pose the least problems imho.

greets
amette

--
ma...@amette.eu
http://amette.eu