Hello, In the general meeting of yesterday evening we proposed to have a discussion about licencing.
Some hints:
* There are many licences in the wild : http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Accepted_licences
* as long as "art" is involved (at least I know this for photography), there is an inalienable right for the author (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention_for_the_Protection_of_Literary...)
That said the problems of licencing of artwork are numerous. I could lead a similar discussion for documents for the LDP that had as result this licence page http://wiki.tldp.org/LdpWikiDefaultLicence
The problems:
* artwork is often difficult to label - how can we know who is the author? (exifs for photographs, but for drawings or logos or posters or flyers?)
* there are often many authors for the same work
* we do not have enough artists in openSUSE. As we don't have money to pay for some, we have to reward them. The minimum reward is to credit them of the work.
Some solutions:
* have a document in the distro/wiki... with the artwork authors name like in news papers
* copy this document in the release notes
What kind of licence
Given we have many artworks in the distro/project, having various licences may lead to great difficulties.
A very common licence is cc-by-sa.
sa (share alike) may conflict with other licence, say GPL. If we have to make a document with both cc-by-sa artwork and gpl'ed artwork, is this allowed by the initial licence?
by (credit) may also give problems: if we make a poster with lot of logos, where can we give credit for each author?
So the best licence for the distribution is "cc" alone - with cc-by-sa with attribution of the hole result to the openSUSE project. Not sure how this agree with Berne convention.
any ideas welcome - I have no decision power on the subjet for openSUSE (nor want any). result of discussion will be sent to the artwork team and the board :-)
thanks jdd
On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 2:00 AM, jdd jdd@dodin.org wrote:
Hello, In the general meeting of yesterday evening we proposed to have a discussion about licencing.
Some hints:
- There are many licences in the wild :
http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Accepted_licences
- as long as "art" is involved (at least I know this for photography), there
is an inalienable right for the author (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention_for_the_Protection_of_Literary...)
That said the problems of licencing of artwork are numerous. I could lead a similar discussion for documents for the LDP that had as result this licence page http://wiki.tldp.org/LdpWikiDefaultLicence
The problems:
- artwork is often difficult to label - how can we know who is the author?
(exifs for photographs, but for drawings or logos or posters or flyers?)
there are often many authors for the same work
we do not have enough artists in openSUSE. As we don't have money to pay
for some, we have to reward them. The minimum reward is to credit them of the work.
Some solutions:
- have a document in the distro/wiki... with the artwork authors name like
in news papers
- copy this document in the release notes
What kind of licence
Given we have many artworks in the distro/project, having various licences may lead to great difficulties.
A very common licence is cc-by-sa.
sa (share alike) may conflict with other licence, say GPL. If we have to make a document with both cc-by-sa artwork and gpl'ed artwork, is this allowed by the initial licence?
by (credit) may also give problems: if we make a poster with lot of logos, where can we give credit for each author?
So the best licence for the distribution is "cc" alone - with cc-by-sa with attribution of the hole result to the openSUSE project. Not sure how this agree with Berne convention.
any ideas welcome - I have no decision power on the subjet for openSUSE (nor want any). result of discussion will be sent to the artwork team and the board :-)
thanks jdd -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-artwork+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-artwork+owner@opensuse.org
That is a good summary of the situation. I know that in the past, when I have done artwork for companies, I have been asked to sign a release form in which I agree to give up the work I made and give it to the company. That way the company is responsible for copyright of a finalized work and I have agreed for them to do so. It seems to me a very simple and transparent idea. The thing is also that many time we create artwork that does not become official. It is not shipped with the distribution. In that case we could have CC take care of everyone's work.
We could have a central place, as mentioned here, where our artwork is gathered. Once the artwork moves up and makes it into the distribution, we could sign a release form to openSUSE.
This is just a thought based on what JDD just wrote here.
Andy (anditosan)
On 2011-12-07 08:24:56 (-0700), andi robert anditosan1000@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 2:00 AM, jdd jdd@dodin.org wrote:
[...]
any ideas welcome - I have no decision power on the subjet for openSUSE (nor want any). result of discussion will be sent to the artwork team and the board :-)
It's the power of a good discussion and convincing :) There is no other power required :)
That is a good summary of the situation. I know that in the past, when
Yes indeed, sorry for cutting it off, those who want to read Jean-Daniel's summary can do so in the OP of the thread. Thanks for collecting those bits.
I have done artwork for companies, I have been asked to sign a release form in which I agree to give up the work I made and give it to the company. That way the company is responsible for copyright of a finalized work and I have agreed for them to do so. It seems to me a very simple and transparent idea. The thing is also that many time we
Sure, that's also how it works for software. Your contract with your employer specifies that the result of your work is owned by them, not you.
But if we want to apply the same idea to openSUSE: 1) it doesn't help regarding which license we should use :\ 2) it's actually the idea of copyright assignment
Now, copyright assignment is a very, very tricky thing. That approach has proven itself to keep contributors away and provide all the benefits to the owner, and none to the contributor. For examples, look at OpenOffice.org or what Canonical is attempting to disguise as a great thing with their "Harmony".
For even further details, and insight, please read this excellent blog post by Michael Meeks: http://people.gnome.org/~michael/blog/copyright-assignment.html
create artwork that does not become official. It is not shipped with the distribution. In that case we could have CC take care of everyone's work.
True, but I'm not sure we can really divide it into two categories. We'll probably use parts of the official artwork for the marketing material, etc... (to have an identity).
We could have a central place, as mentioned here, where our artwork is gathered. Once the artwork moves up and makes it into the distribution, we could sign a release form to openSUSE.
I don't believe that would actually be needed, at least not in an explicit way.
If the license permits reuse and modification (as long as it gives credit to the author(s), of course), we don't need any sort of copyright assignment process.
Would there be artwork that we want to restrict in terms of usage? e.g. "only openSUSE community may use it" ? (I don't believe that is feasible from a license point of view anyway :)
Let's see whether Marcus can dig something up, that will definitely be useful insight to start with.
cheers
On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 12:51 PM, Pascal Bleser pascal.bleser@opensuse.org wrote:
On 2011-12-07 08:24:56 (-0700), andi robert anditosan1000@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 2:00 AM, jdd jdd@dodin.org wrote:
[...]
any ideas welcome - I have no decision power on the subjet for openSUSE (nor want any). result of discussion will be sent to the artwork team and the board :-)
It's the power of a good discussion and convincing :) There is no other power required :)
That is a good summary of the situation. I know that in the past, when
Yes indeed, sorry for cutting it off, those who want to read Jean-Daniel's summary can do so in the OP of the thread. Thanks for collecting those bits.
I have done artwork for companies, I have been asked to sign a release form in which I agree to give up the work I made and give it to the company. That way the company is responsible for copyright of a finalized work and I have agreed for them to do so. It seems to me a very simple and transparent idea. The thing is also that many time we
Sure, that's also how it works for software. Your contract with your employer specifies that the result of your work is owned by them, not you.
But if we want to apply the same idea to openSUSE:
- it doesn't help regarding which license we should use :\
- it's actually the idea of copyright assignment
Now, copyright assignment is a very, very tricky thing. That approach has proven itself to keep contributors away and provide all the benefits to the owner, and none to the contributor. For examples, look at OpenOffice.org or what Canonical is attempting to disguise as a great thing with their "Harmony".
For even further details, and insight, please read this excellent blog post by Michael Meeks: http://people.gnome.org/~michael/blog/copyright-assignment.html
create artwork that does not become official. It is not shipped with the distribution. In that case we could have CC take care of everyone's work.
True, but I'm not sure we can really divide it into two categories. We'll probably use parts of the official artwork for the marketing material, etc... (to have an identity).
We could have a central place, as mentioned here, where our artwork is gathered. Once the artwork moves up and makes it into the distribution, we could sign a release form to openSUSE.
I don't believe that would actually be needed, at least not in an explicit way.
If the license permits reuse and modification (as long as it gives credit to the author(s), of course), we don't need any sort of copyright assignment process.
Would there be artwork that we want to restrict in terms of usage? e.g. "only openSUSE community may use it" ? (I don't believe that is feasible from a license point of view anyway :)
Let's see whether Marcus can dig something up, that will definitely be useful insight to start with.
cheers
-o) Pascal Bleser /\ http://opensuse.org -- we haz green __v http://fosdem.org -- we haz conf
I see, that is good to know jdd.
Andy (anditosan)
Hi all.
In the general meeting of yesterday evening we proposed to have a discussion about licencing.
Some hints:
- There are many licences in the wild :
http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Accepted_licences
- as long as "art" is involved (at least I know this for photography),
there is an inalienable right for the author (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention_for_the_Protection_of_Literary...)
That said the problems of licencing of artwork are numerous. I could lead a similar discussion for documents for the LDP that had as result this licence page http://wiki.tldp.org/LdpWikiDefaultLicence
The problems:
- artwork is often difficult to label - how can we know who is the
author? (exifs for photographs, but for drawings or logos or posters or flyers?)
there are often many authors for the same work
we do not have enough artists in openSUSE. As we don't have money to
pay for some, we have to reward them. The minimum reward is to credit them of the work.
Some solutions:
- have a document in the distro/wiki... with the artwork authors name
like in news papers
- copy this document in the release notes
What kind of licence
Given we have many artworks in the distro/project, having various licences may lead to great difficulties.
A very common licence is cc-by-sa.
What about CC0:
http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode
it's fully compatible with GPL (even the permissive fallback license).
Greets Marcus
Le 07/12/2011 17:45, Marcus Moeller a écrit :
What about CC0:
http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode
it's fully compatible with GPL (even the permissive fallback license).
really?
it's the "CC" that I spoke of. It's the simpler for the artwork team work.
That said it's very permissive. I see no protection against reuse without credit (but my english is a bit short for such text :-()
thanks jdd
Hi all.
http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode
it's fully compatible with GPL (even the permissive fallback license).
really?
it's the "CC" that I spoke of. It's the simpler for the artwork team work.
That said it's very permissive. I see no protection against reuse without credit (but my english is a bit short for such text :-()
I am still in conversation with my brother who is managing director at the wikimedia foundation. They had similar issues in the past.
I will keep you updated.
Greets Marcus
On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 10:42 AM, Marcus Moeller marcus.moeller@gmx.ch wrote:
Hi all.
http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode
it's fully compatible with GPL (even the permissive fallback license).
really?
it's the "CC" that I spoke of. It's the simpler for the artwork team work.
That said it's very permissive. I see no protection against reuse without credit (but my english is a bit short for such text :-()
I am still in conversation with my brother who is managing director at the wikimedia foundation. They had similar issues in the past.
I will keep you updated.
Please do, that's great info. Thanks Marcus.
Greets Marcus
-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-artwork+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-artwork+owner@opensuse.org
On 12/07/2011 06:42 PM, Marcus Moeller wrote:
Hi all.
http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode
it's fully compatible with GPL (even the permissive fallback license).
really?
it's the "CC" that I spoke of. It's the simpler for the artwork team work.
That said it's very permissive. I see no protection against reuse without credit (but my english is a bit short for such text :-()
I am still in conversation with my brother who is managing director at the wikimedia foundation. They had similar issues in the past.
Wikipedia is using CC0 as option for media files. It is similar to public domain, but protected by law.
I think it is a good option for artwork and even allows re-licensing.
The only problem I see, is that we usually combine artwork with copyright protected aspects like the openSUSE logo. An option could be to release unbranded art as public domain and the branded copyrighted.
Greets Marcus
-
andi robert -
jdd -
Marcus Moeller -
Pascal Bleser