[Centos-docs] Documentation Licenses again

[Paul Heinlein]

On Fri, 3 Nov 2006, Ralph Angenendt wrote:

> Johnny Hughes wrote:
>> The yum doc is released under this license:
>>
>> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.html
>
> We already had that - and I still think it is too complicated 
> (especially if neither english nor legalese are your native 
> language).

While I understand the general need for a license, I'm unclear what 
consensus exists (if any) about the goals for the one chosen to govern 
the CentOS wiki.

Some questions are more obvious than others:

* Can people freely reprint the texts as-is, or does it make a
   difference if they're trying to make a profit on the works?

* Can people freely reprint altered versions of the texts? If so,
   what sort of attestation is necessary to delineate the boundary
   between the original text and the published version?

* Do the original authors have to be mentioned by name in reprints?
   How about the CentOS project and/or wiki?

I suppose there are plenty of less-obvious questions, but getting a 
simple consensus on the ones above would perhaps clarify what license 
is required.

For me, I like the intention of the Create Commons "Attribution 
NonCommercial ShareAlike" license: people are free to copy and make 
derivative works of a text as long as they attribute the work and 
release it under similar terms. Anyone wishing to profit from the text 
needs the explicit permission of the copyright holder.

I'm interested to know what rights others are expecting the chose 
license to protect.

-- 
Paul Heinlein <> heinlein at madboa.com <> www.madboa.com