Re: Org-mode exporters licensing

[Marcin Borkowski <mbork@mbork.pl>]

On 2015-07-27, at 14:52, Daniele Nicolodi <daniele@grinta.net> wrote:

> On 27/07/15 14:42, Greg Troxel wrote:
>> 
>> Daniele Nicolodi <daniele@grinta.net> writes:
>> 
>>> On 27/07/15 13:52, Marcin Borkowski wrote:
>>>> I disagree.  Licensing a tutorial with GPL is a stupid thing to do.
>>>> A tutorial may contain code which people naturally mimic (or even
>>>> copy).  Such things should definitely be in PD.
>> 
>> [many excellent comments.   As a nit, to reuse another's work under the
>> GPL under a BSD license, you need more than them not to object; you
>> need their affirmative permission.   And if much of org is assigned to
>> the FSF, as I believe it is, that means the FSF's permission.  That's a
>> use of resources about something that doesn't really matter much.]
>> 
>> Indeed.  A major point of which Marcin seems unaware is that licensing
>> in a project in is more than a legal matter.  The license terms are a
>> declaration of intent for how the code will be shared, and people
>> contirbute under an expectation that those norms will be followed.
>> 
>> In particular, the GPL is designed to allow sharing only when the
>> recipients receive rights to further share (and more).  In other words,
>> not only is the code Free Software, but any derived works (that are
>> distributed) will also be Free Software.  With a BSD-style license, or
>> PD, derived works may or may not be Free.
>> 
>> Regardless of licensing, you can't make a derived work from copyrighted
>> code and have it be PD.   And as Daniele points out, new works being PD
>> only works in some jurisdictions (hence CC0).
>
> Very good points!

Indeed!

> I really like the "declaration of intent" pint of view.

And I do not.  I suspect that many authors don't care, and use GPL (or
BSD, or other license) just so that they don't have to write a license
themselves.  Of course, this is only my suspicion, and I might be
totally wrong.

> Cheers,
> Daniele

Best,

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science
Adam Mickiewicz University