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On 03/31/2017 11:17 AM, Sam Kuper wrote:
On 30/03/2017, Patrick Georgi via coreboot coreboot@coreboot.org wrote:
I'd go with CC-BY for the simple reason that documentation acts as marketing material which should see the widest distribution possible.
This does not make sense to me. CC BY-SA would not hinder distribution of documentation.
For what it's worth we generally require attribution for public release of both source and documentation.
Source can generally be handled in a "weaker" manner via GIT and the copyright lines in the file headers, since the consumers of the source code generally understand how to determine authorship of a file (this is especially useful to determine who is to blame for sloppy coding / outright bugs, and work toward a fix). Plus, there is an intrinsic motivation to keep working on the source code itself; it is inherently rewarding to improve a software project and to be able to make it work better for your specific need.
Documentation, on the other hand, is designed for public consumption and is generally a thankless chore for developers who would much rather be adding new features to the software than writing things they already know down. Perhaps the knowledge that someone's name will be attached in perpetuity to the documentation they write might just motivate creation of more material?
Just my $0.02.
- -- Timothy Pearson Raptor Engineering +1 (415) 727-8645 (direct line) +1 (512) 690-0200 (switchboard) https://www.raptorengineering.com
On 31/03/2017, Timothy Pearson tpearson@raptorengineering.com wrote:
On 03/31/2017 11:17 AM, Sam Kuper wrote:
On 30/03/2017, Patrick Georgi via coreboot coreboot@coreboot.org wrote:
I'd go with CC-BY for the simple reason that documentation acts as marketing material which should see the widest distribution possible.
This does not make sense to me. CC BY-SA would not hinder distribution of documentation.
Documentation, on the other hand, is designed for public consumption and is generally a thankless chore for developers who would much rather be adding new features to the software than writing things they already know down. Perhaps the knowledge that someone's name will be attached in perpetuity to the documentation they write might just motivate creation of more material?
Exactly. Which is one of several reasons why I think CC BY-SA would be better for Coreboot than CC BY would be.
(My understanding, based upon your email above, and upon your first reply in this thread, is that you agree with me. Thanks again for caring about this!)
Also, to further address Patrick's point above about marketing material: it is important that the provenance of information about Coreboot can be established. This is a reputational matter. That means it is important that people should not legally be able to misrepresent Coreboot contributors' views, etc, or claim Coreboot contributors' work as their own. Sure, there are, in some jurisdictions, protections against that sort of thing besides licensing provisions, but licensing provisions can help in this regard. CC BY-SA provides much better protection on this front than CC BY does[1] which means, in my view, that even from a purely marketing perspective, CC BY-SA soundly beats CC BY.
Regards.
[1] How so? Because a licensee who creates a derivative work of a CC BY-licensed work can license that derivative under terms (e.g. CC-0) that would allow *their* licensees do potentially misattribute or otherwise create reputational risk without fear of breaching licensing terms.
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Sam Kuper -
Timothy Pearson