[Ichthux-devel] Penguin in the Pew Available

[Ben Armstrong]

On 5/4/05, Don Parris <evangelinux at thefreelyproject.org> wrote:
> Hmmm.  If I get the opportunity, I'll try to follow up on this this evening.
>  I *can* dual-license the book.  As far as I know, it's not too late to
> reconsider the licensing altogether.  No one has purchased the book -
> download or print - that I'm aware of.  I have not approved the review copy
> of the printed edition either.
> 
> Which of the CC licenses meet the DFSG?  Is that covered in the docs you've
> linked me to?

None of them in their current state.  And no, that is not covered in
those docs.  But there is some info here about debian-legal's
recommendations regarding CC licenses:

http://people.debian.org/~evan/ccsummary.html

This excerpt from that summary indicates that with some changes, some
CC licenses would meet the DFSG:

"The Attribution and Attribution-ShareAlike licenses, however, seem to
be intended to make works Free in a way compatible with the DFSG. For
this reason, we make the following suggestions for future versions of
the Attribution and Attribution-ShareAlike licenses that, barring
other changes, should make the licenses compatible with the DFSG."

So if CreativeCommons follows those suggestions and make new versions
of these licenses, you might be able to license your books with CC
licenses in future.

As much as it would be nice to have a made-for-books license
compatible with the DFSG, the simplest thing to do is to examine the
GPL, LGPL, BSD, Artistic etc. and see if any of these fit your needs. 
Debian does not list a comprehensive page of licenses passing the
DFSG, basically because it is an impossible task.  "Free" licenses are
being created and modified daily, and many variants exist of the main
ones as well.  Each version of each license needs to be individually
measured against the DFSG.  That being said, you could start here if
you need ideas:

http://wiki.debian.net/?DFSGLicenses

Also, you might find this page interesting:

http://jacobo.tarrio.org/Documentation_licensing_FAQ

Ben