[TAG] [lgang] Debian & OPL

[Kapil Hari Paranjape]

Dear Rick,

On Tue, 20 Feb 2007, Rick Moen wrote:
> The text of Open Publication License v. 1.0 ("OPL") can be read here:
> http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/
> 
> OPL can be summarised as a simple-permissive (as opposed to copyleft)
> licence authorising complete or partial reproductions _and_ authorising
> derivative works, with mandated references to the licence text and to the
> original work.

The one point I noticed on a quick reading of the license is that
the term "partial documents" is a bit unclear and would lead to the
usual "but I cannot extract a well thought out paragraph for use in a
man page" argument. 

Regarding the "issue downloader" package you wrote:
> However, given what "debian-legal has concluded" [sic]
> about OPL, that package would probably end up in the contrib collection,
> for what it's worth.

Oops! I'd forgotten about that.

I agree with you that the OPL as applied to the LG issues is
DFSG-free. BUT,

The main problem is the following. Some licenses like the GPL are
"standard" and a package using those would have no problem getting
cleared. Each newer license (though the OPL is no longer new!) would
be subject to a review process that is more stringent than earlier.[1]
And there are reasons why this should be so --- for example to avoid
having a lot of different licenses which have the same intent and
purpose with only minor differences.

Which is why I feel that packaging some documentation under OPL
requires a lot of commitment[2] on the part of the maintainer to
convince Debian developers that this documentation with this license
is acceptable under DFSG.[3]

Regards,

Kapil.
--

[1] Some people have even suggested that the GPL may not have passed
    such a review as easily if it was a late entrant!

[2] And large buckets of cold water to douse oneself every time
    one got the urge to "feed the energy beast" after being subjected
    to a lot of heated criticism.

[3] The alternative is to formulate a General Resolution which
    asserts that the OPL without A and B is considered DFSG-free.
    I believe that may be harder to get passed.

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