[ocaml-infra] ocaml.org licensing

[Louis Gesbert]

Very good move, thanks for doing this clarification !

However we do have a number of contents on ocaml.org ; we'll need to go through them and discuss their licensing internally to give a proper response.

Thanks,
Louis

Le lundi 10 février 2014, 09:20:54 Ashish Agarwal a écrit :
> Dear all,
> 
> The content and implementation of the OCaml.org website do not have
> licenses specified, which should be fixed. Our goal is to encourage
> contributions, give appropriate credit to contributors, and maximize the
> utility of the website for the entire OCaml community. We would like the
> community's feedback on the following proposal:
> 
> (A) Content is released under CC BY-SA 4.0 [1].
> (B) Code that implements the site is released under the ISC license [2].
> (C) Code examples within content are released under the UNLICENSE [3].
> (D) Design of the site. All rights reserved by the OCaml.org project.
> (E) OCaml logo is released under the UNLICENSE [3].
> (F) Abstracts, slides from meetings. Rights retained by contributor.
> 
> Here is our reasoning for each of the above:
> 
> (A) Content refers to text that is visible by readers at
> http://ocaml.org(except for code; see (C) below). We'd like others to
> be able to use these
> materials but we don't want to create a situation where content that is
> freely given to the community (which amounts to a substantive volume of
> work) is then taken and monetized without giving back.
> 
> The CC BY-SA 4.0 license [1] allows anyone to share and adapt the work,
> including for commercial gain, as long as that work is also released under
> the same (or compatible) license. This means that commercial works could be
> produced but free versions would also have to be made available. Thus, the
> community wouldn't lose out on any derivative work.
> 
> (B) Code that implements ocaml.org. We want the code implementing the site
> to be open source and available for others to use as they wish. Examples of
> this include the files found under the 'script' folder of the repository
> [6]. The ISC licence [2] has already been chosen for OMD and MPP, two
> libraries that OCaml.org relies on substantially. Additional scripts are
> not particularly complex in nature, and we feel their use should not be
> restricted.
> 
> (C) Code examples within content. For example, you can see many of these on
> the 99 problems page [5]. These are typically small pieces of useful code
> and we want people to be able to use them however they see fit. We want to
> do this without the burden of attribution that an open source license (e.g.
> ISC) would require, so placing them in the public domain seems like the
> sensible thing to do. The UNLICENSE [3] is one way of putting works in the
> public domain and is how code examples in Real World OCaml are released [4].
> 
> (D) Design of the site. This is essentially the CSS, banner image, and
> custom logos (except the OCaml logo, see (E) below). The design uniquely
> identifies ocaml.org, and it would be awkward if another site looked
> similar. It seems sensible to reserve all rights over the design and
> disallow copying it in any form.
> 
> (E) The new OCaml logo [7], which you see in the top-left of ocaml.org,
> should be encouraged. We hope this can be a unifying symbol of all things
> related to OCaml. Everyone should use this logo in their OCaml blogs,
> websites, documentation, presentations, T-shirts, stickers, etc. Thus, it
> should be usable freely by all, which can be achieved by releasing it under
> the UNLICENSE.
> 
> (F) OCaml.org also hosts abstracts and slides for various meetings, such as
> the OCaml Users and Developers Workshop. Contributors should retain all
> rights over those works or be subject to whatever agreement they have with
> the respective meeting. They are not considered part of the Content as
> defined in (A).
> 
> [1] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
> [2] http://opensource.org/licenses/ISC
> [3] http://unlicense.org
> [4] https://github.com/realworldocaml/examples/blob/master/UNLICENSE
> [5] http://ocaml.org/learn/tutorials/99problems.html
> [6] https://github.com/ocaml/ocaml.org
> [7] http://ocaml.org/img/ocaml.png