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Subject: 
Re: Parts license
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.cad.dev
Date: 
Mon, 25 Sep 2000 21:09:12 GMT
Viewed: 
1312 times
  
Steve Bliss wrote:

My
simplified view of how things should be:

- Anyone is free to redistribute unmodified versions of the library
(unmodified includes conversion to another format without changes to the
content) if they only charge a small fee, give credit to the authors and
include the license.

What does 'conversion to another format' mean?  Do you mean converting the
ARJ archive to ZIP format?  How about converting the ASCII data to EBCDIC?
Or doing a straight conversion to a binary format?[1]  How about
reorganizing the directory structure?  How about unarchiving the
distribution file, and posting all the files individually on a webserver?

  I think all of those examples are simply conversions to other formats,
they don't change the contents of the files. This could be added to the
'Definitions' section of the license.

- Anyone is free to redistribute modified versions of the library if
they give credit to the authors, list their changes and publish the
changes to existing files under our license. New files added to the
library can have any license.

"give credit to the authors" needs to be defined more clearly.  Right now,
it's very difficult to give credit to each author.  Over time, this will
probably become even more difficult.  How about "give credit to ldraw.org"
or "give collective credit to the authors".

  From the zlib license:

1. The origin of this software must not be misrepresented; you must not
   claim that you wrote the original software. If you use this software
   in a product, an acknowledgment in the product documentation would be
   appreciated but is not required.

  We could change the last sentence from "not required" to "required"
and add the part about having a link to www.ldraw.org.

  Actually the zlib license is very simple, it only has 2 more
paragraphs:

  2. Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and must
not be
     misrepresented as being the original software.
  3. This notice may not be removed or altered from any source
distribution.

I'm not sure about "list their changes".  How about requiring that they
flag each file they change, by adding a comment to the file header?

  Maybe requiring a 'changelog' to be included would be better ?

Also, they may *not* mark new files with the tags "Original LDraw
[Part|Primitive|Subpart]" or "Official LCAD [Part|Primitive|Subpart]".

  How about: "Any parts that have their contents changed must have the
line "Original/Official ..." removed" ?

Finally, I'm not sure about the advisability of stating "New files add to
the library can have any license".  (A) We can't *tell* them how to
distribute their own property, (B) How are downstream users going to know
which are which?  I'd rather require that new files either a) be
distributed separately/distinctly from the library or b) new files be
distributed under the same terms.

  Sounds reasonable. All we need to do is change "New files added to the
library can have any license." to "New parts can only be distributed
with the library if they are published under this license, otherwise
they must be distributed separately.". Now we'll need to define
'separately' :)

1) BTW, truly 'dumb' conversions to binary (where every parameter is
written as a 4-byte floating point) don't seem to save any space.

  I think only in a few cases it does: A float is 4 bytes, so if you
have 3 ASCII digits plus a space then both formats have the same size
but if you get a number with decimal places then the binary format will
usually be smaller.

Leonardo



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: Parts license
 
(...) My thoughts: ARJ to ZIP? Simple Conversion ASCII to EBCDIC? Simple Conversion text to binary? Essential change reorganizing the directory structure? Major change posting all the files individually on a webserver? Major change (...) Hmmm. (...) (24 years ago, 26-Sep-00, to lugnet.cad.dev)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Parts license
 
(...) I agree. (...) What does 'conversion to another format' mean? Do you mean converting the ARJ archive to ZIP format? How about converting the ASCII data to EBCDIC? Or doing a straight conversion to a binary format?[1] How about reorganizing the (...) (24 years ago, 25-Sep-00, to lugnet.cad.dev)

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