On Fri, Jun 24, 2011 at 12:32 AM, Richard Fontana <rfontana@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Hi, > > I think the following issue is partly one of policy so I am first > raising it here. For those who don't know who I am, I am a Red Hat > lawyer and among other things I deal with software and documentation > copyright and licensing issues. > > Formal Fedora-branded documentation uses a default legal notice that > among other things uses the following universal copyright notice: > > Copyright © <YEAR> Red Hat, Inc. and others. > > followed by, typically, a CC BY-SA license notice and some trademark > notice boilerplate. > > If I remember correctly, this is implemented via the Fedora Publican > brand package. > > This form of copyright notice is found elsewhere in the Fedora > universe, as in the footer of fp.o web pages. > > I recognize the convenience of a universal legal notice for purposes > of automating generation of documentation, but there is something > about it that bothers me. Consider two examples: the Fedora 14 Amateur > Radio Guide and the Fedora 15 Musician's Guide. From what I can tell, > the actual authors of these documents are not, and were not at time of > authorship, Red Hat employees. (Moreover, it is not necessarily the > case, in any given situation, that Red Hat would be copyright holder > of all or some of the text even if they had been Red Hat employees, > but for simplicity let's ignore that issue.) > > Now, the copyright notice is correct nonetheless because Red Hat holds > copyright on the Fedora logo image, and, as I recall, all > documentation includes some standard language (like the typographical > conventions section) over which, let us assume, Red Hat has some > copyright interest. > > Nevertheless, why should a document that was actually written > exclusively by non-Red-Hat employees use "Copyright Red Hat, Inc. and > others" (what a friend of mine has called a "Gilligan's Island > copyright" after the original Gilligan's Island theme song which > famously referred to the important characters of the Professor and > Mary Ann as "and the rest")? > > I don't think the Red Hat copyright ownership of the Fedora logo image > justifies the Gilligan's Island copyright notice, as in fact the CC > BY-SA license notice is designed (and perhaps should be improved in > this regard, even though it ought to be obvious) to make clear that > the logo image itself isn't being licensed under CC BY-SA. So if > anything it is the intention for the copyright notice *not* to refer > to the logo. (And, if you want a copyright notice because of the logo, > have a special line saying "Logo copyright <year> Red Hat, Inc.") And > while Red Hat might hold copyright on some small standard portions of > the text, the substantial part of what is creative and expressive in > the examples I gave were written by people unaffiliated with Red > Hat. > > So, in the case of at least that subset of Fedora documentation that > is written by those who aren't Red Hat employees (but perhaps, er, the > rest too), what purpose is the Gilligan's Island copyright notice > serving? It doesn't provide the public notice of actual substantial > copyright ownership in at least some cases. It doesn't provide > attribution to the actual human authors. To me, all it really does is > communicate the following: > > 1) Red Hat has an intimate connection to the Fedora Project. > > 2) Red Hat is "first among equals" when it comes to attribution for > Fedora project documentation; non-Red-Hat-associated contributors to > Fedora documentation merit only second-class status. > > I submit that 1) is already rather obvious to the world and is, if > anything, problematically exaggerated in the public mind. I submit > that 2) is an inappropriate use of a copyright notice even if the > policy were legitimate. Copyright notices aren't supposed to be used > for attribution - I recognize that in free software they often do > serve that purpose - but if they *are* used for attribution, > attribution ought to be given to the human authors. Or to the Fedora > Project as collaborative thing. (A nice thing about CC licenses is > that they decouple attribution from copyright ownership, as in fact > you can see in the default documentation legal notice which states > that attribution is to be given to the Fedora Project -- not Red Hat.) > > I submit further that it serves no valid purpose to overemphasize the > degree to which Red Hat is the copyright holder of Fedora > documentation anyway. Fedora contributors do not assign copyright to > Red Hat. If you want to give credit to Red Hat, or overemphasize the > intimacy of the Fedora/Red Hat relationship, do so in some other way: > have a "The Fedora Project is sponsored by Red Hat" line or something > like that (though I don't see the point of that either, and if we > really cared about that I assume we would have had a requirement to > give attribution to Red Hat rather than the Fedora Project). > > It may be that the only practical alternative is not to have a > copyright notice at all. That is by no means beyond consideration, > given that copyright notices have rather limited significance anyway. > In the specific examples I noted above, I would say that what little > legal value copyright notices have is not present at all. This could > well be true of other cases. > > So I guess I'm interested in knowing whether there is a strong desire > (particularly among those on this list who are not Red Hat employees > yet who have contributed to Fedora documentation) to maintain the > tradition of the Gilligan's Island copyright notice, and whether > alternatives are feasible and preferable. The Musician's Guide shows > that one can prominently credit the principal human author of the > document at the beginning. The Amateur Radio Guide shows that one can > do the same thing but with "The Fedora Documentation Project" as the > author. > > If no such strong desire exists, it is my desire to recommend changes > that will eliminate the use of the Gilligan's Island copyright notice > in Fedora documentation. > > > - Richard Hi Richard, If I had my druthers, I'd like to see something along the lines of: 'Copyright © <YEAR> Fedora Project' if we used a copyright notice or perhaps even better: 'Copyright © <YEAR> Fedora Project Contributors' My initial reaction to your analysis of not needing a copyright notice is intellectual acknowledgement, but also a thought that it seems counter-intuitive. I guess that reaction is the question in my mind if we seem to de-emphasize subconsciously those things that don't have a clear statement of ownership. I may be alone in that analysis, though, and I don't really oppose dropping the existing copyright notices, as I think it has some of the ill unintended consequences you mention. As for attribution to contributors. I thought long ago that we decided that author listing was 'The Fedora Documentation Project' at the beginning of the document (e.g. what's in Author_Group.xml) and to have a Contributor section as an appendix. This was done for a number of reasons, but the big one in my mind, is that with a large document such as the install guide, no one wants to page through 3 pages of authors, editors, and translators before getting to the content. Perhaps this has changed. Sadly I can't seem to find the thread in the archives where we agreed on that, but seems like it was late 2008 or early 2009 and a discussion started by Karsten. Perhaps I have missed a change, as I haven't been as active in Docs in the past year or so. Thanks for bringing the discussion to the list, --David -- docs mailing list docs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/docs
