Re: Minutes for RELAX NG TC 2001-06-14

[Michael Smith <smith@xml-doc.org>]

Kohsuke KAWAGUCHI <kohsuke.kawaguchi@eng.sun.com> writes:

> I'm happy with that license.
> 
> I guess this means that test-case contributors are forced to use
> this license. Correct?

Um, I'm not sure about that. I think contributors are still be able to
specify whatever license they want for their contributions.

The thing is, when you request a new SourceForge project, they require
you choose one and only one license for the overall project. They also
state that once you pick a project license, you can't change it.

But I'm not sure what effect if any that choice has on individual
files you release. It's possible/appropriate to have different
licenses on different files within a SoureForge project. The reason is
that things like "standalone" documents (i.e. ones that aren't part of
a software+documentation "package") can have a separate license (e.g.
for documents, the GNU Free Documentation License).

The MIT license, GNU GPL, BSD etc. all refer to "the Software" or "the
Program" while FDL refers to "the Document" or "documents". For
example, the GPL has stuff like "You may copy and distribute verbatim
copies of the Program's source code as you receive it..." where FDL
has "You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either
commercially or noncommercially..."

So because software-specific licenses really aren't appropriate for
documents, you can/should license documents separately, and I don't
think anything in the SourceForge setup prevents you from doing that,
despite whatever overall license you specify when creating the project.