> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:blfs-support- > [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Matthias B. > Sent: 04 November 2006 22:07 > To: BLFS Support List > Subject: Re: Updated Hints - Where to send them? > > On Fri, 3 Nov 2006 23:00:43 -0000 "spike" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > I must admit that I never spotted the type of licence until after I'd > > completed the work. > > It's generally a good idea to check the license of a work closely, before > building on it. It's a mistake to believe that everything produced by the > ominous "FOSS community" is free for the taking. Many "free" licenses are > a lot more restrictive than people might think. > > > I would have thought that with a project that is fluid like LFS a less > > restrictive license would be better. > > I agree that it would be better for the LFS project, but > unfortunately I'm not so altruistic as to put the LFS project above all > else :-) > While I usually license the > software I write under open source licenses, prose is something different > for me. I feel very attached to the prose I write and will usually > not allow others to mess with it. > > One important distinction between prose > and computer programs is that the latter can only be modified by people > with a certain level of expertise and motivation, whereas everybody and > his dog can mess around with prose. With computer programs, forks are a > rare occurrence. You don't usually see people grabbing GNU sed, hacking a > thing or two and putting it on a website for download. With prose that's > different. People will steal web content, rape it and then put up a > butchered version, claiming it as their own. They do that even if it's > illegal. I don't want to encourage this. > > > If you do not have the time to keep the hint current then maybe it > > should be looked after by others? > > It's very unlikely that this will happen, because I really don't see > myself changing the licensing anytime soon. If this worries you, you > should write your own package user hint. You'll need to write it from > scratch, just based on the concepts, without looking at my hint, to avoid > "contamination", just as you would have to do when writing a free > implementation of proprietary software you've seen the source code of. > You're free to use the more-control-helper scripts, of course, since those > are licensed under an unrestrictive license. > > This may seem silly, but that's the way it is. My hints are "free as in > beer", but that's all. > > > I guess these are thoughts that the LFS administrators would have to > > discuss? > > They are free to declare the CC-ND license improper for the hints project > and to remove my hints from their archives. However, they may not > relicense them. > > MSB
Had you just said "OK, send me the update off of the list and I'll incorporate the changes" I'd have sent them to you. You'd still have retained the authorship of the hint. I'm sure I've seen a conversation in the archive where someone had updated the hint in a style you hadn't liked and you said no and rejected the updates, for what I thought were good reasons. Seems odd to me that you'll license code but not prose? I normally find that it's not updating code that is the problem. Plenty of people will do that and post the update when the script fails for them. Updating documentation is another kettle of fish. How many times have we all seen poor documentation because the person that wrote the program didn't update it or even write it in the first place? They have done the bit they enjoy in writing or updating the code. In my experience most people that can code like to code and don't like to document. Maybe I've just managed to find illiterate coders! Regards, spike... -- http://linuxfromscratch.org/mailman/listinfo/blfs-support FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/faq.html Unsubscribe: See the above information page
