But where do we stand on OPL?

[Gary Lawrence Murphy <garym@canada.com>]

I had an email from Alessandro this morning.  His understanding is that
a document published under the OPL (esp OPL with the option to reserve
book printing rights) prevents a document from being included in the
LDP.  Is this true?  What is the stance of the LDP on the open publishing
licence?

While I can agree with people like Richard Stallman that the very best
work can only come out of GPL-style restrictions, it is also true that
some wonderful software is less restrictive.  For example, the BSD
licences and other have no restrictions against arbitrary restrictions
in the licence, and even the Linux kernel allows for (but does not
distribute) non-GPL modules. 

If we take a 100%-free stance as dogma, we miss an opportunity to have
the LDP include professionally edited and corporately sponsored
documents; allowing for some "mostly free" content might require the
multi-tier classification I wrote about before, but provides a means
for the LDP to leverage rather than compete with publishers like ORA,
IDG and MCP (who, on the other hand, freely leverage the LDP to pad
thier books)

-- 
Gary Lawrence Murphy <garym@canada.com>  TeleDynamics Communications Inc
Business Telecom Services : Internet Consulting : http://www.teledyn.com
Linux Writers Workshop Archive: http://www.egroups.com/group/linux-hack/
"You don't play what you know; you play what you hear." -- (Miles Davis)


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