[Clipart] OO.o Contest and Problems with their license Usage

[Nicu Buculei (OCAL)]

Jon Phillips wrote:
> SO, Bryce and I found a major stumbling block with clip art that
> Sun/OpenOffice.org (because they are really one and the same) is
> licensing for their contest. Basically, their license, the Public
> Document License (yes, very easily confused with Public Domain, as I did
> on the first read) is problematic because it is viral and requires one
> to relicense any work that includes their clip art or templates to this
> Public Document License. Here is the email where I brought up the points

http://www.openoffice.org/licenses/PDL.html
PDL is a license invented by OOo specifically for documentation.
I remember what struggles we had at http://oooauthors.org, a project 
writing documentation for OOo, because the documentation was not 
released under PDL but under CreativeCommons Attribution, so we had to 
release under dual license.

> to my contact who is sponsoring this contest in an attempt to get them
> to reconsider and use Public Domain. I am hoping they do this, and if
> not, I feel a sense of responsibility to write an article discussing the
> problems and blogging heavy about why this is a unacceptable appraoch
> for users and artists. I checked out the legal things I talked about
> with some legal friends of mine (cc), but that is not legal advice (I
> always have to say that after I say what I did). Thoughts are really
> great and questions as well as where to go next....Anyway, here is my
> email:

Sorry, but I don't fully agree. You compare PDL with LGPL and argue 
against it because LGPL is a license meant for source code and not content.
As I can see, PDL talks about "Original Documentation" and "Initial 
Writer". But also I can't see how clipart or templates can be considered 
documentation...


-- 
nicu
Open Clip Art Library: http://www.openclipart.org
my cool Fedora wallpapers: http://fedora.nicubunu.ro/wallpapers/