[scribus] Copyright -- Free to copy license

[Murray Strome]

Thanks for the advice.  I think I was making life too complicated for myself.  The actual terms of the GFDL are close to what I would want, but to actually use the license is impractical. I wonder how many documents there are out there which say they are under GFDL, but do not contain a copy of the license, or where the authors have never even read it for that matter! 

I guess the biggest potential problem for me would be if I wanted to use parts of a document licensed under GFDL in my own document as I would then be obliged to have the resulting work also GFDL, and include a copy of the license.

Murray


--- On Mon, 8/11/08, Frank Swygert <farna at att.net> wrote:
From: Frank Swygert <farna at att.net>
Subject: Re: [scribus] Copyright -- Free to copy license
To: scribus at lists.scribus.net
Date: Monday, August 11, 2008, 2:14 PM

Insert the copyright notice, then the conditions that you will allow the
document to be used without charge or prior notification. I've done that on
a number of documents. Something like:

"Copyright 2008, FARNA Systems Publishing. This document may be freely
posted or printed as long as the above copyright notice is published along with
it and no changes are made. It must be published in it's entirety. If
you'd like to publish in part or make changes contact the publisher first.
If you believe there are errors please contact the publisher."

Just because you have a copyright doesn't mean you can't let others use
your work without charge. It does mean that you can dictate how and when it can
be used. At least that's my interpretation. I use the above mainly on tech
data documents for old cars. A lot of people believe things that grand dad told
them that just aren't true, especially about Rambler and AMC (no, they
didn't buy all their parts from others and build a car, they did buy A FEW
parts from other manufacturers though!).

--------------
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2008 09:54:19 -0700 (PDT)
From: Murray Strome <wmstrome at yahoo.com>

If I produce a document, I would like the copyright to be such that people are
free to copy and modify it, but to retain the credit for my part of the work.
Initially, I thought that the GNU Free Documentation License (GFPL) would be a
good choice. However, one condition makes it completely impractical, namely that
you must : "...include a copy of the License in the document" and that
it must be a verbatim copy.

This is completely impractical for short documents, and even for a 300 page
book, I would not want to have to put in several pages, just for the sake of
including a copy of the GFPL.

-- 
Frank Swygert




      
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