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The Open Publication License 1.0 covering this book can be ./configured as a free or non-free license. The base Open Publication License 1.0 is free; the OPL with either of the Section VI options is not free.

All of these corporate attacks on your liberty, all of these draconian restrictions are being paid for by the money YOU spend on corporate-sponsored books, DVDs, CDs, VHS tapes and trips to the multiplex. If you want it to stop you need to re-orient your priorities and better target your entertainment dollar.

If you like movies, go to Atomfilms or head down to the local art-house cinema that shows truly independent work instead of the mega-mall. If you like music, go to mp3.com or use services like Napster and pay artists you like directly via Fairtunes or Paypal. If you are an artist, release your work to the public under the terms of the OPL and let the public know about your account at Paypal.

Don't spend dime one on anything for sale at Amazon.com. Use your local library instead. If you simply must have some piece of corporate media, buy it used.

The only power these pimps have is the power YOU give them. For the DMCA and everything else the RIAA and MPAA have done to your rights, and plan to do to them in the future, you must choke off their access to the cash they expect to have available to fund their ongoing attacks against you, your family and your children. Hollywood has had a terrible year, box office receipts are way off. Keep it up! Make the first decade of the 21st century a finacial Waterloo for them!

Every one of these abuses flows from the ability of corporate money to pervert your democracy, your birthright. Support alternatives to the corrupt two-party system. One week from today vote Nader or Harry Browne.

Night
Geek Goddess

These books are not the "book" equivalent of "open source software". They are mearly texts whose copyright have expired. "Open Source" works are by definition still covered by copyright.

Gutenberg is quite cool, but it only contains OLD books. For "new" work authors need to use something like the GNU's free content license or the Open Content license.

It's worth noting that the author is publishing this under the Open Content Publication License as opposed to the GNU Free Documentation License which seems just as adequate.

In his foot note, the author even states, "The best known license for applying the open-source concept to other forms of expression besides computer code is the OPL." He does not explain why.

My favourite (by miles) was and is "Running Debian GNU/Linux" by Bill McCarty (published by O'Reilly). Not only is this a great introduction to the GNU OS which comes with Debian GNU/Linux (oh well I guess slink is finally out of date...a bit better than all those RedHat 5.2 and 6.0 books out there though) but it is also published under the Open Publication License. Not a for dummies book, I'd be far happier to give this to a dummy than any for dummies book I have ever seen. It Rocks

:)

I think the Open Content license would be more appropriate for everything outside CS thesi. But a better question is why you would want to. The academic community has no desire for collaboration on a single paper, instead they cite other works within existing copywrite law. Rather than making your thesis Open Content, it would be a much more beneficial act to ensure that it's available on-line (for free) so that everyone could read it to enhance their own work.

Several months ago I saw that Deja.com was not providing an open access to Usenet and programmed a solution for it. My project is hosted at sourceforge..

My girlfriend has started a company for it and we now try to keep this free service in operation. Our operational costs are $90/month and we need a few daily visitor to break even. The advertisement income would cover our hosting cost. The advertisements are not yet on-line, but will need to be soon.

In the spirit of Open Source the full Usenet archives can also be downloaded.

Check out the open source usenet archive. If you would like to contribute source code to this Open SOurce project, or want to run your own deja.com-like server, please send me and e-mail.

• My own OpenFlick.Org site
• The Open Content site
• The Copyright Commons effort.
• The Internet Public Media Project
  

--

XHTML is (mostly?) backwards compatible because it's basically just well-formed HTML. If you're already using CSS then writing XHTML rather than HTML won't do much to cramp your style. If you're not: you should be! Using XHTML is like tabbing your code -- there's no reason not to and it might help you later on. Download HTML tidy to help you along the way.

I must say I feel the same way about XML. I've written DTDs and linked CSSs such that it displays nicely in IE5, but I'm not sure where this is leading. What we need is a database of DTDs so that instead of writing my own I'll try and make something that is compatible with someone else's. Obviously for a major project I can consistantly use a DTD interally, but for just random web docs there should be an Open Content repository.

And yes, I know about XML.ORG's list, but they're hardly RFCs.

From the Ask Slashdot:
I am concerned about the ownership rights to this compilation. The useage agreements seem reasonable enough now, but what assurance is there that this work will not become just another asset of the Time/Warner/AOL (read Netscape) media empire?

Your post:
Is this really the right place to be asking this? Maybe you could just read the license instead.

Okay, I don't want to sound like an asshole but "What does your post have to do with the question?". The original poster is worried about how possible it would be for AOL, which has a liberal open content license with respect to dmoz currently, to decide to start exerting ownership rights and using proprietary practices with the dmoz project?

This is a very valid question and here's my answer. It is very possible for AOL to change the licensing agreements and become a ball buster with the dmoz project. Look no further than CDDB which changed it's license after being bought out by corporate interests and becoming a big enough entity. Of course, the solution to this is for there to be several such open services so that even if 1 of them becomes corrupted by greed the others will flourish and take it's place (like CD Index or FreeCDDB are replacements for CDDB).

The original poster also asks about Open Content Licenses and since I just read 30 posts and none of them mentioned this I'll also try to answer this question.

As to whether Open Content Licenses are practical, I say Yes, after all the dmoz project's license has proved this.

What about the other part of this question: "Are the existing open content licenses practical?"

• Are there content licenses other than Open Content?
• Has anyone actually improved on a work under this license?
• Would this license work for the Open Directory Project?

OK,
for the record you may republish any and all of my posts as long as you cite the author... please just be responsible and follow basic Open Content guidelines.

However, I think that if you're going to use our posts from a public forum, you ought to make the book freely available on the web. This only seems appropriate given how you obtained (at least some) of it's content, and considering how important some of that material might be for teens unable or unwilling to purchase the publication on paper.

The Open Content web site has a link to a page of open content works available on the net at http://wiley.byu.edu/opencontent/

is nothing wrong with people paying for things.

It's always the same with copyrighted material: The system encourages publishers to publish trash. There is no warranty on the content, only on the media. If a fella doesn't like the content, he can't return it; he has been irreversibly screwed out of four hours of work.

The warez system is a way to try before you buy, and content authors who realize this may release their content under GNU FDL, OPL, or something similar.

Yes, check out the Free Music movement. There is also the Open Content license. IIRC, Richard Stallman is working on a similiar license.

But music differs from source code in one aspect. It can be performed. If I play your GPLed song in a place where people pay to get in, is that commercial use? (Or is it considered a service?) Do I have to acknowledge everyone who contributed to the song from the stage? Do I have to put all the rest of my songs in the same set under the same license? Do I have to tape the show and make it available for modification?

The Open Content web site contains a brief article that discusses one of the problems faced by open source documentation that is not faced by open source software. There are barriers to collaboration in writing that are not present in coding. Corrections of typos and updating command syntax is one thing, but there are issues of style for which there is no single right answer. So my question is, have you found any ways to increase the level of collaboration in order to lift the burden of completing each large documentation project from the shoulders of a single writer?

Uhhh... They were rebroadcasting American TV. There's nothing but mega-media controlled crap on TV. You hate the mega-media. I hate the mega-media. Let the DCMA do us a favor and keep the Canadians away from that mind-numbing drivel.

Personally, I hope more open content or open publication projects take off. The DCMA can't control my ideas. I'm planning on putting out as much of my creativity as possible under those licences soon. Hopefully more people will follow suit. I'd rather other people enjoy my work rather than have it waste away while I try to get it published. Anything the internet community puts out certainly can't be any worse than what comes from the mega-medias.

I'm not sure I like this as much as I like the Open Content License. The FDL seems a lot more restrictive than the GPL or LGPL ever was. Then again, documentation is very different from software, so these added restrictions might well be necessary.

It seems as though the FDL is geared specifically towards software documentation, whereas the OPL is more general-purpose. I wonder if this was intentional. Somehow I'm not certain that it was.

Don't forget to register your open texts and open web sites: At OpenContent.org there's a database specificaly for works under the Open Content license, and of course you should also register them with Freshmeat.net.

The database at OpenContent.org is pretty impressive but a lot of existing Open Content titles are missing from there.

Thanks

Bruce

Using 2 licenses is fine for a first edition, but the second edition should include corrections and additions submitted to the online documentation from third parties, that gets more complicated...

Using 2 licenses is fine for a first edition, but the second edition should include corrections and additions submitted to the online documentation from third parties, that gets more complicated...

Now, what is the FSF model of making money from writing documentation?

Consider this: Many companies (I don't think I need to name Red Hat here) pay people to write code that's to be released under the GPL. It doesn't seem too unreasonable to me to assume that they would pay people to write the free documentation (under the FDL) the same way that they pay people to write free software. It's rather complementary, IMO.

Something else: What about documentation that's been languishing for several revisions of the software? If this license becomes widely used (which I suspect it will, eventually, because of the reputation of RMS), then it would be no problem to just hire somebody to modify the documentation, much the same way as, say, ESR became the maintainer of popclient. (In fact, you wouldn't need any permission; ESR sought this from popclient's previous maintainer out of tact.) This could also simplify matters for the LDP if they decide to standardize on this license (much as they standardize on the file formats they accept).

You give the documentation away, and you make money by...? By what? Support of the documentation? That is, you get paid for adapting, modifying, and or re-writing the documentation? I don't think this works.

However, I don't know how this will fare up against other free-documentation licenses, such as the OPL. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

--

But if you do the above, the online documentation gets maintained and the dead tree version does not. At some point you need to re-synch. But what pair of licenses allows that?

Personally I think that it would be good to create some sort of arrangement where the exact text and arrangement of a document may or may not be free, but it and all its derivatives must allow the technical information in them to be free to use in any other document using either of the pair of licenses. IOW O'Reilly or anyone else can come out with clearly differentiated books, but the information contained in such has to be available as free documentation.

But if you do the above, the online documentation gets maintained and the dead tree version does not. At some point you need to re-synch. But what pair of licenses allows that?

Personally I think that it would be good to create some sort of arrangement where the exact text and arrangement of a document may or may not be free, but it and all its derivatives must allow the technical information in them to be free to use in any other document using either of the pair of licenses. IOW O'Reilly or anyone else can come out with clearly differentiated books, but the information contained in such has to be available as free documentation.

The Slashdot Code is a measure of how much of a Slashdot Geek/Addict you
really are. It should not be confused with the Slash Code which is the Perl code
that runs the Slashdot web site.

To be considered a serious Slashdot Geek, there is no other requirement
more important than actually reading the site. Okay, you don't have to read
it but you should visit it often.

r++++
All of r+++ and more. I can give a good guess as to when the editors
sleep and schedule my life so that I am never away from Slashdot at any
other time. I have bookmarks to all of the static pages on the site.
r+++
Slashdot is my home page. I never
leave it except to follow links from stories there or to find material to
post. I compulsively click the Reload button to see if there are
new stories.
r++
I visit Slashdot several times a day. I read the summary of every
article. I have it bookmarked.
r+
I visit Slashdot at least once a day. I don't want a single article to
disappear off the main page before I've read it.
r
I visit Slashdot occasionally. It's one of a number of sources I use
for my news.
r-
Been there. Wasn't impressed.
r--
I read it once, but I didn't understand what everyone was talking
about.
r---
Slash what?

Posting comments

To be a member of the Slashdot community, you need to actually
participate. One of the easiest ways to do that is to post comments about
articles, since you don't even have to have an account.

Part of how Slashdot works is through Karma and scoring, which are
intimately intertwined. Any Slashdotter should at least have an opinion about
Karma.

Obviously, for posting and Karmic purposes, having a user account is
essential. There are certain subtleties to that that should not be
overlooked.

Submitting articles is a part of the Slashdot experience as well.

To do this I used a rather unusual publication policy, as far as I know I've invented it:

By submitting this article you grant Technocrat.net a separate and independent copyright to your posting, and you keep your own copyright. That means that you can do anything you wish with your posting, and so can we.

That allows us to apply a license to the postings after the fact.

However, this doesn't address the complaint, which is that Usenet sites seem to have a more liberal copyright policy that allows them to be filtered and presented differently by various web sites, and weblogs like Slashdot and Technocrat do not. I'm not sure that stands, legally. The Usenet doesn't demand a particular copyright and the default if you don't copyright your posting would be All Rights Reserved.

Thanks

Bruce

I just got wind of this. It seems a web service for reading Usenet will be highlighting keywords within the articles displayed through their site with links to advertisers who have purchased that service. The press release from the service itself is here. It is high time to start digitally signing everything with either PGP or GPG and licensing it only for unaltered redistribution.

This comment is licensed under the OpenContent License (OPL) Version 1.0, July 14, 1998. The relevant paragraphs concerning modification are as follows:

2. You may modify your copy or copies of the OpenContent or any portion of it, thus forming works based on the Content, and distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:

a) You must cause the modified content to carry prominent notices stating that you changed it, the exact nature and content of the changes, and the date of any change.

b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the OC or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License, unless otherwise permitted under applicable Fair Use law.

"with every participant at the web site giving up as many legal rights as any participant in any mailing list."

So you would ask that several hundred thousand users give up their rights to their comments, just to participate?

I, for one, would not participate if I did not have that choice avaliable to me. I would also resent it if ever Rob did such a thing.

"This is a much more direct solution than writing a new GPL something or other licence"

We probably wouldn't need to write a new GPL something. In my original comment, I suggested something HTTP specific (called it the SlashComment Public License). It would appear that the open content license could be easily modified to serve this purpose.

"put web hosted forums on the same playing field as majordomo mailing lists."

I would argue that there's enough of a difference between the two to call for a different license/redistribution structure. The biggest difference, IMHO, is that web forums allow you to be totally anonymous. With a maling list, you aren't totally guaranteed anonymity by virtue of having to have an email address to participate. If I wanted to badly enough, I could probably trace your email address back to you. With Slashdot, I have no such ablility.

Therefore, I would propose a slightly different structure. Just as you have the ability to pop in and post to /. as an AC, so should you have tha ability to decide what is done with the comment you just submitted.

Am I making sense here?

Here's my copy of DeCSS. Where's yours?

Elf Sternberg, an long-time personality on Usenet, anticipated some of the growing problems with it and has put this proposal on his web site for a distributed solution. It is worth reading, especially in light of the idea for a Slashdot/NNTP gateway.

This article may be copied and distributed under the terms of the OpenContent License (OPL) Version 1.0, July 14, 1998.

Some Anonymous Coward writes a moving, compelling manifesto against the MPAA-- concise, easy to comprehend, with easy steps one might take to fight them.

If only the general public would read this post from Anonymous Coward-- why, they'd undestand the issue, their hearts would melt, and public sentiment rally against the dictatorial Valenti and his ilk.

Now, let's say everyone wants to repost this moving article on their web site. Can they do it, legally? Do they have to ask the original poster for permission to print it in its entirety?

And if the author was an Anonymous Coward, how could they ever get permission? What then? Maybe the open content (http://www.opencontent.org) license could be applied to all postings or something (?)

I posted this previously but /. didn't seem to think the story was worth running... OpenContent is currently updating our license per this announcement. It definitely sounds as if you want something like the Open Publication License; if it isn't exactly what you want, come help us fix it so that it is.
--------
meta4
dw2-dont-spam-me-@opencontent.org
http://davidwiley.com/

When the OPL was first announced on slashdot in 1998 it was a very strict license. It didn't even allow for modification of an OPL'ed work. David Wiley responded to concerns that there wasn't much point to an "open" license that didn't allow for modification very quickly. David received lots of input from other parties both for and against modification rights in the OPL. He indicated to me in email that RMS was giving him some feedback and the OPL was more or less a knock off of the GPL with some stuff removed.

It seems that some academics who had interest in creating an open license for content were strongly opposed to giving up modification rights. Their concern was that their professional integrity might be a stake. The license you see now if the compromise that was made and it seemed really good at the time. David Wiley got feedback from everyone interested and had the modification made in less than a day!

When "flaws" were initially identified in the OPL the license's maintainer (David Wiley) sprang into action and found a solution that satisified everyone interested. Hopefully that any valid concerns raised here also find their way into a discussion about updating the OPL. But caution is merited in this. Are the people raising concerns here the same people who are releasing content under the OPL or are the complaints just philosphical? Does anyone who needs to or plans to release "open" content actually find the license to be faulty for their purposes?

It is really encouraging to see that RMS is working on new license for documenation. It is worth pointing out that the OPL is not just for documentation and is designed to cover written/non-software works of many kinds. An "open documenation license" may in fact have different requirements than an "open content license." RMS, more than anyone else, is qualified to come up with a relevant new license.

MOSR is a great site; I've been reading it pretty much daily for about four years now, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anyone who's interested in what's going on with Apple and the Mac world. :-)

I think the Open Content License has been shown to work quite well. Take, for example, Havoc Pennington's GTK+/Gnome Application Development, released from New Riders earlier this year.

Havoc has a page online with errata for the book, an online version is available, and there's even a CVS version available. That's the power of an open publication license - I think it's great.
----

The issue has been cited with the existing Perl man pages that they have grown to an unmanagable size. The problem is that anyone can contribute material to them, but there is a genuine reluctance to cut anything written by another author. They are clearly huge and it is obviously hard for some newbiews to find a starting point. This issue is discussed at the Open Content web site.

This problem could be solved by finding individuals willing to act as the editors for particular sections. Make it clear to your contributors that their contributions will be proofread. They may not be accepted, or they may be reworded to make them more concise. Such a move will probably discourage some contributors, but it is probably the necessary balance to maintain a good book over time.

By the way, the home of the Open Content License is here.

The issue has been cited with the existing Perl man pages that they have grown to an unmanagable size. The problem is that anyone can contribute material to them, but there is a genuine reluctance to cut anything written by another author. They are clearly huge and it is obviously hard for some newbiews to find a starting point. This issue is discussed at the Open Content web site.

This problem could be solved by finding individuals willing to act as the editors for particular sections. Make it clear to your contributors that their contributions will be proofread. They may not be accepted, or they may be reworded to make them more concise. Such a move will probably discourage some contributors, but it is probably the necessary balance to maintain a good book over time.

By the way, the home of the Open Content License is here.

http://www.opencontent.org

The opencontent site can probably provide a good solution for people looking for a GPL-style liscense for written works. I don't know RMS's opinion on it, but it has a well-built site with lots of information.

I think the GPL is icky when people attempt to apply it to written works; one deals with software and software terminology like "the source to this program," it becomes a messy kludge when people attempt to apply the GPL. Leaves many areas open for interpretation. I wouldn't trust my written works out there without an appropriately-worded license. (that is, if i had any "written works" to begin with ;)

www.opencontent.org

I think this is what you're looking for.

There allready is a license for open content. Check out www.opencontent.org.

My choice is biased, of course, since I'm a developer at the WorldForge project, but I must say there has been amazing progress at WorldForge in the last year.

In only about 13 months, we have gone from nothing to 25 megabytes of code in CVS, 23 megabytes of media, an amazing amount of information on the website, many very productive and friendly members, several hundred people on the mailing lists and a very warm-hearted community. I have never seen an online project that smells so much of success as this one does.

For those who don't know about WorldForge, it's an effort to create a Massively Multiplayer Online RPG (similar to titles such as Everquest and Ultima Online) system, that will allow world developers full customisability and clients that can connect to any server through a single protocol (Atlas). We even have support for multiple client types - 3D, 2D isometric, even text - of which we already have several functioning implementations. We have many talented graphics artists (both 2D and 3D) and many, many coders from various locations of the world. All code is covered by the GPL (or LGPL if it proves more appropriate for libraries) and content (graphics, music, text, ...) is covered by the OPL. On September 13 1999 we released our first public client/server demonstration, the Skeleton demo, featuring a server that supports collision detection, visibility and hearing limitations, in-world chat and movement, and an isometric client with very nice graphics :).

Trying to be as objective as possible, I think WorldForge deserves it. Take a look at what's on our website or drop by at irc.worldforge.org and you'll see how far this project has advanced in only one year.

I've been doing a lot of emailing with RMS of late, and something that I think must annoy him is silly twats like me failing to go to the ever-useful philosophy section of his website.

Just a few notes about Free Books. Richard has - I may be hearing FUD here - previously called O'Reilly the "parasite of Free Software". O'Reilly was and is the de facto "Publisher to Hackerdom", and their license terms used to inspire RMS to say:

Once upon a time, many years ago, I thought I would learn Perl. I got a copy of a free manual, but I found it hard to read. When I asked Perl users about alternatives, they told me that there were better introductory manuals--but those were not free.

Why was this? The authors of the good manuals had written them for O'Reilly Associates, which published them with restrictive terms--no copying, no modification, source files not available--which exclude them from the free software community.

That wasn't the first time this sort of thing has happened, and (to our community's great loss) it was far from the last. Proprietary manual publishers have enticed a great many authors to restrict their manuals since then.

Many times I have heard a GNU user eagerly tell me about a manual that he is writing, with which he expects to help the GNU project--and then had my hopes dashed, as he proceeded to explain that he had signed a contract with a publisher that would restrict it so that we cannot use it.

- Free Software and Free Manuals

Of course, things have changed now. O'Reilly has begun to talk about their Open Publishing License (or whatever it is), and have begun to put certain books online. I would be interested in seeing if Richard considers these to be "Free Documentation" or not.

BTW, I'll agree that the GPL does not really address documentation very well. The OpenContent License is aimed at this sort of stuff.

As someone else pointed out: Richard's constant mantra is "Free documentation, like free software, is a matter of freedom, not price".

Books still have their advantages over online docs, mind you. For example, a book has a near-zero boot time, has effectively infinite uptime, has extremely high definition displays, allows you to add your own notes directly to the 'file' (requires a Pen (tm) or Pencil (tm)), it is highly portable, it is compatible with most People, it can be found in alternate formats for non-compatible people (ie Braille), it can be given as a gift, it can be thrown at a faulty TV screen, it can be used to attract attention from others (thy fellow geek) or to drive it away (thy fellow 'blond').

Online documentation is searchable, so that you can curse and swear when you don't have the precise phrase you need. It's quick, and cross-linked and whatnot, and utterly inscrutable. Oh, and you can print it out yourself ...

Be well;

JC.

The GPL is not really appropriate for documents (see below). View the OpenContent licence for a more appropriate document.

The OpenContent Content Database (I love that name!) lists the few documents that are known to have been released under the licence.

From the OpenContent FAQ:

Why do we need the OPL?

Computer software can already be made free for public consumption and improvement by distribution under one of several Free Software licenses as mentioned above. If you're developing executable code with instructional potential, please consider licensing it as "Free Software" so that it can both be a part of the Bazaar development cycle and freely accessible to everyone.

Other Content (Learning Objects) such as graphics, images, sound bytes, video clips, models, lecture notes, tutorials, HOW-TO's and anything else that can be "referenced during technology supported learning" can not be released under these licenses because they are written specifically for computer software. The OpenContent License has been created to provide instructional designers and content specialists the same benefits, protections and assurances programmers gain from Free Software licenses. The OPL (pronounced "opal") is always open for comment. This version draws inspiration (and some verbiage) from the GPL and Debian's Social Contract.

a copyright license that allows people to distribute an etext freely and ensures that no one down the line can take that freedom away. However, people should be forbidden from altering the etext, and the author should always receive credit for the work.

Check out the Open Publication License at http://www.opencontent.org. Even RMS says that GPL is not suitable for books. He has thought up a wide variety of new licenses for different types of books, and is unusually open for discussion on that topic.

But PG books are not copyrighted and so can't be protected by a license. Unless somehow the Database Protection Act passes Congress and somehow PG could fall under that, and use some sort of shrinkwrap license for its productions. Hmm..., who has the most experience with this type of thing?

An alternative to copyright is the [cc] symbol, with a link to the website at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/cc/. Since copyright is now the default for all new creative expressions, we need some other symbol to indicate that a work is in the public domain, that the public domain is important, and that we will fight to keep it that way.

Then we need to figure out some way to transition the online work to printed form so that O'Reilly and Associates or another publisher can actually afford to publish it. That will require some license like a modified Open Publication License, I think, so one might consider starting from there anyway. But PG can't--the works are already in the public domain.

"Open Source" books should be encouraged as much as "Open Source" code....

A small correction. Project Gutenberg texts are in the public domain and they are not Open Source. They come with a license that essentially states they are allegedly in the public domain, along with a disclaimer of warranty and a branding statement that must be stripped off if the work is reused.

They are not copyrighted, as Open Source works are, and PG books are not distributed with a license that promises the work must always remain free of access, as the GPL and OPL require. It would be legally possible to reuse a PG book (without the long PG preamble) and sell it or even place it under copyright. PG does not promise to defend against anyone who tries to take the work away from free access and exercise exclusive copyright. It simply states that such an act would be unlikely, since PG believes the work was first published before 1923 and thus is in the public domain. But in other countries the work may still be under copyright. Thus a copyright owner in another country could sue to have the book withdrawn, so it is not read by the citizens of that other country. And we know that works in the public domain can be returned to full copyright--that happened with many works when the GATT provisions of U.S. copyright law went into effect. We don't know what will happen if such a case arose. The license doesn't promise anything. PG is not a corporation and it is hard to tell how Michael Hart might react. Whoever scanned and contributed the work is not offered protection.

There is a big difference between works allegedly in the public domain and works under the Open Publication License or other devices to maintain free public access.

Simply speaking, it would be wrong to say that Project Gutenberg is Open Source. It might be an admirable outfit, but it doesn't relate directly to Linux, Open Source, Free Software, or those things, IMHO.

This liscense is much more like the open content liscense than like the GPL. The colophon says that redistribution is allowed, but doesn't speak of modifications. Therefore, any modifications of his text would have to be distinguished from the original (which is how the open content liscense works), which is contrary to the GPL (which forbids authors from requiring credit be due to them or the distinguishing of derived content from the original content).

Of course, after a eleven-hundred years, it's all public domain, although with the rate at which Disney and the late Rep. Sonny Bono were conspiring to extend the duration of copyrights, such an assumption might soon be invalid. ;)

To an extent, Slashdot itself is a good example. This site provides technical information and commentary and is contributed to by a large community. In this case, copyright probably prohibits redistribution in a purely open source sense, but everyone has free access to the site.

The Educational Object Economy (EOE) is a global community for web based learning tools in Java. They have a collaboratively maintained repository of links, so this is an open source database (even if the tools linked to may not all be open source).
http://www.eoe.org

The EOE site has many great links to related efforts and related papers, such as the Open Library for creating and distributing educational course materials.
Open Library

Project Gutenberg is a collection of free electronic texts, contributed by many people, and so is an open source repository of electronic texts.
http://www.gutenberg.org

Another effort is Open Content, a site created to "facilitate the prolific creation of freely available, high-quality, well-maintained Content."
http://www.opencontent.org/home.shtml

The Open Source Community on Manufacturing Knowledge (OSCOMAK) is a project I've started. It is intended to create a distributed global repository of manufacturing knowledge about past, present and future processes, materials, and products. The idea is ultimately to allow cooperative groups to design and simulate anything from a pre-industrial farming village to a self-replicating space habitat.
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak

-Paul Fernhout

I've seen the OPL and it seemed incomplete or somehow too simplistic; so, I created my own rendition of the GPL that I call the Oasis Public License (because that's the name of the website for which I originally intended to use it). It can be shortened to OPL but I realize that that causes an acronym collision. :)

I wanted to be able to retain control of documents and yet allow people to copy and redistribute them similar in spirit to what the GPL accomplishes for software. The Oasis Public License is pretty much a wholesale conversion of the GPL to apply to documents with a few additions from other public licenses.