wiki license

[Chris Anderson <jc...@grabb.it>]

Couchers,

It's come to my attention that the wiki has no license provision
whatsoever. As CouchDB grows in popularity there will be books etc
written about it, and if we've already got documentation under a free
license, it will increase the chances that documentation created for
inclusion in a book will be contributed back to the wiki/project in
general.

I was unable to find an example of another Apache project wiki with a
specified license, or anything on the ASF site regarding documentation
licenses, so we may be treading new ground here. If we can come to a
consensus, we should take our plan to legal-discuss or other
appropriate Apache-general mailing list, to get their feedback about
how to apply the license to the wiki (contacting past authors etc).

I'll start the ball rolling by suggesting these 3 licenses:

* Apache 2.0
+ same as our source code
- not a documentation license

* Creative Commons Attribution / Share-Alike
+ easy to grok
+ documentation friendly

* GNU Free Documentation License
+ same as Wikipedia
- some people are scared of "gnu"


I know some of you are much more versed in the pros and cons of
various licenses than I am. Also, there may be some important options
I've left out.

And if anyone can find any references to how the ASF has handled this
sort of thing in the past, that would be incredibly helpful. No need
to reinvent the wheel if we can help it.

* fingers-crossed that I don't start a licensing flame war *

-- 
Chris Anderson
http://jchris.mfdz.com

Re: wiki license

[Paul Davis <pa...@gmail.com>]

On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 1:41 PM, Chris Anderson <jc...@grabb.it> wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 10:26 AM, Nick Gerakines <ni...@gerakines.net> wrote:
>> I think the "everything under once license" approach will work best
>> here. Because project documentation tends to be very code, process and
>> design heavy it makes sense to keep it all under a single license. The
>> apache 2.0 license does explicitly cover "code and documentation
>> source and configuration" which will probably make up the bulk of the
>> wiki's content.
>
> Glad to see you say that, because it's what my gut tells me as well.
>

Sorry. Had to.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness

>
> --
> Chris Anderson
> http://jchris.mfdz.com
>

Re: wiki license

[Chris Anderson <jc...@grabb.it>]

On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 10:26 AM, Nick Gerakines <ni...@gerakines.net> wrote:
> I think the "everything under once license" approach will work best
> here. Because project documentation tends to be very code, process and
> design heavy it makes sense to keep it all under a single license. The
> apache 2.0 license does explicitly cover "code and documentation
> source and configuration" which will probably make up the bulk of the
> wiki's content.

Glad to see you say that, because it's what my gut tells me as well.


-- 
Chris Anderson
http://jchris.mfdz.com

Re: wiki license

[Nick Gerakines <ni...@gerakines.net>]

Chris (and everyone else),

I think the "everything under once license" approach will work best
here. Because project documentation tends to be very code, process and
design heavy it makes sense to keep it all under a single license. The
apache 2.0 license does explicitly cover "code and documentation
source and configuration" which will probably make up the bulk of the
wiki's content.

# Nick Gerakines

On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 10:11 AM, Chris Anderson <jc...@grabb.it> wrote:
> Couchers,
>
> It's come to my attention that the wiki has no license provision
> whatsoever. As CouchDB grows in popularity there will be books etc
> written about it, and if we've already got documentation under a free
> license, it will increase the chances that documentation created for
> inclusion in a book will be contributed back to the wiki/project in
> general.
>
> I was unable to find an example of another Apache project wiki with a
> specified license, or anything on the ASF site regarding documentation
> licenses, so we may be treading new ground here. If we can come to a
> consensus, we should take our plan to legal-discuss or other
> appropriate Apache-general mailing list, to get their feedback about
> how to apply the license to the wiki (contacting past authors etc).
>
> I'll start the ball rolling by suggesting these 3 licenses:
>
> * Apache 2.0
> + same as our source code
> - not a documentation license
>
> * Creative Commons Attribution / Share-Alike
> + easy to grok
> + documentation friendly
>
> * GNU Free Documentation License
> + same as Wikipedia
> - some people are scared of "gnu"
>
>
> I know some of you are much more versed in the pros and cons of
> various licenses than I am. Also, there may be some important options
> I've left out.
>
> And if anyone can find any references to how the ASF has handled this
> sort of thing in the past, that would be incredibly helpful. No need
> to reinvent the wheel if we can help it.
>
> * fingers-crossed that I don't start a licensing flame war *
>
> --
> Chris Anderson
> http://jchris.mfdz.com
>