Is GFDL Compatible with GPL?
public
aaron - Thu, 2008-04-10 00:57
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Free_Documentation_License says that GFDL is the counterpart for documentation to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gpl, so I'm wondering if they are compatible, and if documentation published under GFDL may be packaged with modules in the Drupal.org repository?
Thanks,
Aaron Winborn
http://aaronwinborn.com/
2 questions before committing to cvs
1) is it GPL (not just compatible)
2) is it easily available from other places on the internet
The first answer has to be "yes" though things that are BSD or LGPL can be re-licensed by the person who commits them. The second answer has to be "no". It sounds like the documentation you mention might lose out on both counts. Can you link to the specific documentation so we can know what you're talking about?
See http://drupal.org/node/66113 for more details.
--
Open Prediction Markets | Drupal Dashboard
Hypothetical
It was actually a quasi-hypothetical question. I wanted to start making my own documentation and other writings on my sites marked as freely available, and was trying to find the best license for that. As much of that is related to Drupal, I wanted to find a compatible license. In general, it wouldn't end up in the repository anyway, but there are some circumstances where it might make sense.
I also wondered if it might make sense to use the GFDL license in general for Drupal documentation anyway, based on that article, particularly as they were both created by the FSF to go hand in hand:
Aaron Winborn
AaronWinborn.com (my blog)
Advomatic, Web Design for Progressive Advocacy, Grassroots Movements, and Really Cool Causes
ah - well, there are some solutions
Well, you could do a multiple license for as many licenses as you like. That way you could tri-license as:
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Open Prediction Markets | Drupal Dashboard
GPL and CC-BY-SA
Ah, didn't know about multiple licensing. Looks like there are portions of the GFDL (in the invariant sections) that I'd rather not get into, so I'll probably go with dual licensing for GPL and CC-BY-SA.
Thanks for the suggestions!
Aaron Winborn
AaronWinborn.com (my blog)
Advomatic, Web Design for Progressive Advocacy, Grassroots Movements, and Really Cool Causes
GPL + CC-BY-SA seems like a
GPL + CC-BY-SA seems like a good choice. Word on the street (well, in san francisco at least ;) is there is slow progress towards compatibility between GFDL and CC; there may be some news on it later this year..
Multi-licensing
Be careful with multi-licensing, as if you get patches (or the documentation equivalent) from others dual-licensing can get messy. Under which license is someone submitting feedback, and can you then mutate it into the other one? Open question. For Drupal-related human-language documentation, I'd suggest sticking to CC like the handbooks so that those can intermingle.
copyright and multiple licensing
Larry,
Let's make it more concrete, since multiple licensing does get confusing.
Here's a scenario - I write some documentation and post it on my website under any license I choose. I then take that documentation and commit it to CVS as part of my new module's README.txt.
So - as the copyright holder (the original author), there is no problem, right? the website copy is distributed as ??? CC, for example. The copy in CVS is GPL. It's multiple licensed, in as much as anyone who gets it from the website may use it under CC, but anyone getting it fmor CVS may use it under GPL.
So, there is any potential for confusion? I guess if another person submits a patch for the docs in CVS, you might not be able to use this change on your own website without the patch submitter's permission?
Actually, can we even (without permission of any/all authors) take docs in CVS and post the content in the handbooks?