[Textbook-l] wikiversity licensing

Thu Aug 21 16:45:21 UTC 2003

> Sanford Forte wrote:
>
> >If a school district, or a private printer, want to
> >satisfy the general frameworks required by a
> >specific state, *all* of the material should be
> >able to clear, *without* hassles.
>
> How is mixing and matching incompatible licenses in the same book making
> things easier? All this does is make it a bigger hassle for the school
> districts; now instead of adhering to the terms of one license, they have
to
> adhere to the terms of more than one and possibly many.
-----------------
That was my point (obviously, I didn't express it well).

> >For maximum impact, *every* basic curriculum taken
> >on by WP should have *all* materials available as
> >non-GNU-limited...even if that means starting from
> >scratch with some modules for which there is already
> >GNU-limited content available.
>
> What is so limiting about the GNU FDL? It was specifically written for
> textbooks and manuals.
--------------
The combinations  and permutations that come out of all these licensing
'possibilities' are confusing (to me, anyway...and I imagine these issues
might also confuse naive (unfaniliar with the deep vagaries of open source
licensing) users who want to deploy these materials).

In short, what I'm trying to say, is that if a school district, or a private
printer, want to take the first WP pilot (let's say it's in history), they
should be able to do that wihout having to worry about copyright issues,
period. (and that includes being able to use all the modules [if that's the
way it's done], no matter the license.  If my worries about that, relative
to this project, are unfounded, great. And, thanks for hanging in there and
hashing this out; it's confusing.

One thing: I would love to see a simple (a few paragraphs) explanation -
written for the layperson (I'm one of those) of what the advantages and
limitations are of using (for starters) material from the pilot, given the
license(s) deployed in that project.

> >I can just see a sales representative form Prentice Hall
> >(all the way up to the CEO of that company's textbook
> >division) wining and dining textbook committee people
> >from various states and bringing stuff like this up just
> >before srucial votes are cast to accept or not accept
> >certain books for district consideration.
>
> And they would not do the same for any other copyleft textbook?
--------
Sure. However, to the degree that the licensing *doesn't* permit seamless
use, and *understanding of issues created by incompatible lecenses in the
body of material being considered* by the users, to that degree the argument
against using this stuff will be that much stronger. Again, if what I've
just brought up is a non-issue, based on how the pilot will play out, great.
(I'm still trying to decipher all of this licensing mumbo-jumbo ;)

>
> >Also, I can see the 'copyright police', prompted by
> >commercial publishers, trying to intimidate privae
> >and home schools into doing certain things with
> >GNU-limited material. This industry knows how to
> >use 'dirty'tricks to get its way.
>
> Since the text is free, then how are they going to do that? We already
plan to
> work with the GNU people to fix the parts of the license we don't like.
----------------
Great, that helps clear up the issue for me.

Sanford

>
> -- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
>
>
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