Re: DSSSL Documentation Project?

[David Megginson <dmeggins@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Why not use the Free Software Foundation's GPL for all of the
documentation?  

- it contains some useful legal text about not having a warrantee and
  about your limited liability (i.e. they've already payed the
  lawyers);

- it allows you to designate a copyright holder (a GPL'd text or
  program is NOT public domain); and

- it allows redistribution either for free or for profit (as long as
  no one tries to prevent other people from further redistributing it).  

For example, if someone else adds to your documentation and publishes
the result, they will have to allow you (or anyone else) to distribute
their enhanced version freely as well (this is not true of public
domain texts).  Furthermore, no matter who owns the copyright, they
could not prevent you from, or charge you for reprinting part or all
of the tutorial in your own book, as long as you included authorship
and copyright details.

Of course, a copyright has no validity if you're not willing to
enforce it, so you could assign the copyright to Yuri's foundation,
the Free Software Foundation, or anyone else who would be willing to
go to court if necessary, or at least to send out nasty lawyer's
letters.
  

All the best,


David

-- 
David Megginson                 ak117@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Microstar Software Ltd.         dmeggins@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
University of Ottawa            dmeggins@xxxxxxxxxx
        http://www.uottawa.ca/~dmeggins

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