[csw-maintainers] [POLICY] opencsw-policy: The copyright notice

[James Lee]

On 02/03/11, 14:27:03, Sebastian Kayser <skayser at opencsw.org> wrote
regarding Re: [csw-maintainers] [POLICY] opencsw-policy: The copyright
notice:

> > > > Would a supporter please explain which parts of GPL help in defining a
> > > > policy document?
> >
> > > http://lists.opencsw.org/pipermail/maintainers/2011-March/014269.html
> >
> > http://lists.opencsw.org/pipermail/maintainers/2011-February/014062.html

> Citing from above:

>   "This is a false choice. Most of the policies we need, we already have
>   written up."

> Would you honestly second that our policy is near complete and that we
> could not possibly make use of policy bits which have been distilled
> over time within a project that is noticably larger than ours?

I see it as possible but not necessary.

Citing from above:
   "You make it sound like we are facing a choice of either writing
    hundreds of pages ourselves, or copying wholesale from debian"

Plus the idea we copy passages without carefully digesting the meaning
is worrying, so I don't see it as difficult to write our own policies
simply by doing the same amount of thought.


> Even, if you do think so. Would you object to use GPL if someone else
> (i.e. Maciej) was working on the policy and found it helpful to
> integrate some Debian policy bits? If so, why? Where's the harm?

Yes.  The harm is that anyone in the future can't use material from a
GPL incompatible source but I recommend creating for the purpose and
not copying others then you are free as in free to make your own
choices.  GPL is not free in that it imposes one author's restriction
(the restriction to not restrict) on all others it touches.

This doesn't address the irrelevance point.  The documents are
written by OpenCSW for OpenCSW.  GPL does not protect the documents,
far from it, it actually grants people rights to create unauthorised
copies - unauthorised in that they are not authorised OpenCSW
documents, the ability to create variants is authorised by GPL.
GPL constrains (2+)th parties in the way that derived works and
additions remain source accessible per the wishes of the 1st party
but wait, it's text not complied source anyway and who are these 2+
parties?




James.