[ZDP] Open Publication License

[Martijn Faassen]

Hi there,

I've just reread the Open Publication license at:

http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/

It looks good to me, but then I'm not an expert. I recall DC didn't have a
problem with it either; I wonder what DC thinks about bringing their own
guides under such a license, though.

This is a license with options (everything has features these days, even
licenses :). If we go for the license (go read it), then we also need to
figure out if we want these options included or not:

> A. To prohibit distribution of substantively modified versions without the
> explicit permission of the author(s). "Substantive modification" is defined
> as a change to the semantic content of the document, and excludes mere
> changes in format or typographical corrections.

> To accomplish this, add the phrase Distribution of substantively modified
> versions of this document is prohibited without the explicit permission of
> the copyright holder.' to the license reference or copy.

I'm not sure if we need this one; the license already lets us get the
credit, extra permission structures could work to encumber our flexibility.

> B. To prohibit any publication of this work or derivative works in whole or
> in part in standard (paper) book form for commercial purposes is prohibited
> unless prior permission is obtained from the copyright holder.

> To accomplish this, add the phrase 'Distribution of the work or derivative
> of the work in any standard (paper) book form is prohibited unless prior
> permission is obtained from the copyright holder.' to the license reference
> or copy.

This would be interesting, though. We could extract money out of publishers
this way. :) If we don't want money, we don't need this though. The rest of
the license takes care of the credit, and it takes care of the publishers
(including the compilation on a CDROM) notifying us beforehand (so we can
get in up to date changes etc).

Some more outside input on especially this last item would probably be
appreciated; I'm curious about what Digital Creations think, and I'm also
curious about what the ideas of the Open Source Writers Group are on this.
Ute, could you check back with those?

The money question is interesting anyway. It's possible that to bring this
to a good end, we need a kind of Linus Torvalds style editor. That is,
someone who puts in a lot of time and effort in collecting, converting,
layouting, editing, and completely rewriting the drafts that everybody
contributes. This is a daunting task. If we had a dedicated person doing
this, perhaps the best way to spend any money ZBook would make is to fund
this person.

On a side note, I just checked www.oswg.org for the Open Source Writers
Group pages. They have an interesting announcement:

[october 27]
> In other news, the CVS system seems to be working nicely. The autogeneration
> scripts are in the "testing" stage. These are the scripts that will
> automagically turn all the Docbook contents of the CVS system into HTML, PS,
> PDF, RTF, and DVI once per day (we're going to do a nightly build for now).
> The scripts system will likely be unveiled within a few days. 

Sounds like a good idea to look into adopting this system for the ZDP as well.

By the way, Tom and others; I'm posting a lot of messages out of the blue
here, and you and other people have been contributing a lot more recently
than I have. I don't mean to ursurp anybody's role here. So if I'm threading
on anyone's toes, please email me and say so. :)

Regards,

Martijn