[Grok-dev] Re: license for docs

Thu Jan 31 03:18:47 EST 2008

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

daniel wrote:

> Well, there's the matter of whether the ZPL is even legally applicable to
> documentation instead of software and also in what jurisdictions.
> ZPL 2.1 mentions source code, binaries, products, files... a not what I'd
> call documentation.
> 
>> +1 for the ZPL, as it matches the software, *and* fits under the IP
>> policy of the Zope Foundation, which is responsible for the hosting of
>> grok.zope.org <http://grok.zope.org/>.
> 
> When I host my documents under a microsoft service do I have to license them
> according to microsoft IP policy?

If the terms of the site say so, then yes:  those terms govern your
rights to upload / modify original or derived works there.  For
instance, I participate on a site (kompoz.com) which fosters musical
collaboration:  the site governs a set of allowed licenses, from which a
project owner selects at project creation time:  all tracks contributed
to the project are then under the same license.  The project authoer
cannot use a license which is outside the allowed set, nor change the
license after creating the project.  The very first paragraph of the
"Terms of Use" page[1] states:

  BY USING THIS SERVICE, YOU INDICATE YOUR AGREEMENT WITH THESE TERMS
  AND CONDITIONS. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS,
  DO NOT USE THIS SITE.

At the moment, we are debating what the terms-of-use should be for
grok.zope.org, under the umbrella policies established by the
controlling entity (the Zope Foundation).

> You could go all the way and force people to pass their copyright to the
> Zope Foundation too, why don't you propose that? It would certainly make
> things easier for the project.

Originally, most of the content was served from the filesystem vis SVN,
and was therefore under the ZPL, as well as joint-assigned to Zope
Corporation.  The joint assignment will be transferred to the ZF as soon
as an ugly bylaws bug gets ironed out.  As with the ZPL, joint
assignment to the ZF of content contributed through the web seems
reasonably consistent and easy to understand, and would indeed keep
things simple.

> Alas I was under the impression that grok.zope.org now redirects to the
> quintagroup hosting, not zope hosting.

It doesn't "redirect":  the server *may* be hosted on Quintagroup's
server (the IP is not in the same Class C as either www.zope.org or
quintagroup.org, so I can't tell).  If so, QuintaGroup is donating the
hosting as a service donated to the Zope Foundation, just as Amaze is
donating the hosting for wiki.zope.org and foundation.zope.org.

> I'll be open to hear the benefits of using the ZPL for documentation.
> If my documentation isn't welcome with whatever license I
> choose at the end of the process, then go ahead and take it down I have no
> problem with that.

I'll try to elaborate:

 - Keeping the license for the docs consistent with the license for the
   software makes the story simple:  the culture of the project is
   already adapted to the ZPL's "liberal" / BSD-like license terms.

 - Some docs are alread ZPL'ed / joint assigned, due to their SVN
   provenance;  again, consistency is a virtue.

 - The use of disparate licenses creates "ghettos" with unequal
   sharing rights:  the authors of some content can reuse other authors'
   content on more liberal terms than they offer for their own content.

   This problem has arisen (for software) in the past, and served to
   split the community tnto isolated factions.

 - Any other license would likely need clearance from the Zope
   Foundation under the terms of its IP Policy[2], which states:

    By signing the Membership Agreement or Committer Agreement, as
    applicable, all Members and Committers agree to comply with this IP
    Policy.  In addition, this IP Policy shall serve as the basis for
    how non-Members and non-Committers interact with the Zope Foundation
    through participation in a Project, web-sites owned, controlled,
    published and/or managed under the auspices of the Zope Foundation,
    or otherwise.(1.1)

   and

    This policy should be read to strongly discourage, but not
    prohibit, the licensing of any Content under terms and
    conditions that would require the object code, source code and
    derivative works of any Content to be distributed by the Zope
    Foundation under terms and conditions other than the ZPL. (2.1.1)

   and

    In no circumstance will the Zope Foundation accept or distribute
    contributions or Content under licenses or associated terms and
    conditions that assert “copyleft” provisions on derivative works
  . This includes but is not limited to the GNU General Public License
    (GPL). [2.1.2]

> Whether I'd bother to host it somewhere else is debatable though.

I hope you can still contribute under the terms we establish here for
grok.zope.org

 [1] http://kompoz.com/compose-collaborate/terms.music

 [2] http://foundation.zope.org/agreements/ZopeFoundation_IP_Policy.pdf

Tres.
- --
===================================================================
Tres Seaver          +1 540-429-0999          tseaver at palladion.com
Palladion Software   "Excellence by Design"    http://palladion.com
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFHoYRm+gerLs4ltQ4RAo9YAJ9HoVa6i9ENbl4PJxR4OaGb1ZrwBQCePFsl
EKCx6HSGV41W4Ab1adwiP0k=
=5BMj
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----