OSDev.org

(Might've fitted in the wiki category as well, but i think its better off here?)

I saw a post on the forum regarding how the things on the wiki are licensed and noticed there is a complete absence of legal information.

from the object in question:

*No License Information*:

Defaults to "all rights reserved", which usually surprises both authors and
users...

I doubt there's both a fast and legally correct way to solve this?

maybe we should put a small notice on the wiki front page that all information and code defaults to public domain, but some code can be GPL or whatever if it says so on the page.

Public domain or BSD/MIT would be a good bet.

OSes are generally more leniently licensed, so the GPL is a bad idea.

What about Creative Commons?

Combuster wrote:I doubt there's both a fast and legally correct way to solve this?

Legally correct & fast would be making a page that required all users that want to post to underwrite that they release their writings into the public domain - or whatever license that does not leave the copyright with them. You need everybody that's contributed to underwrite it as well, which might prove to be impossible.

There's no shortcut - everybody that's ever edited anything holds a small bit of copyright on that stuff and you can't just take it from them, no matter how small. I think you can rip it out and replace it by equivalent but newly-written text that isn't written by them, but you might get a bit of a fight about when it's new text.

Candy wrote:What about Creative Commons?

All the CC licenses are far worse than the GPL in restrictions.

So.. Should all further contributions be put on hold until everyone reaches a consensus?

What's there to reach? The only license where the author holds no copyright is PD.

There's no legally "clean" way anymore, since many contributors to the Wiki contents are no longer here to assert their consent.

But I think it should suffice to hold a quick poll where anyone could raise hands if he / she objects to releasing anything put into the Wiki into PD / free for all (to make sure we don't get into trouble with people who are still here), and then add a note to that end to the Wiki so that it displays at the bottom of every page displayed.

I'd strongly suggest a PD / "explicit free for all" (as I used in the PDCLib). GPL is far too restrictive, and while BSD is quite nice, it still requires you to drag the license agreement along and identifying affected code sequences.

Solar wrote:I'd strongly suggest a PD / "explicit free for all" (as I used in the PDCLib). GPL is far too restrictive, and while BSD is quite nice, it still requires you to drag the license agreement along and identifying affected code sequences.

BSD/MIT hardly require much. (new-style BSD that is - without Hideous Advertising Clause)

It requires not much, but as I said it does require you keep the "borrowed" code block intact, including the license text.

My personal preference is PD as well, especially for the wiki.

Legally correct & fast would be making a page that required all users that want to post to underwrite that they release their writings into the public domain

I hereby want to release all my contributions to both the OSDev Wiki and the OSFAQ into the public domain, as well as any future contributions to either.

I support Wiki+Public Domain content.. Would it be possible that each time someone edits a page they must agree that their contributions are Public Domain?

"By submitting this content you agree it's public domain and wave all copyright..?"

With better wording obviously..

Yes but the problem is there's already all rights reserved contribs in there.

I don't think this is a major problem because anyway nobody is going to implement things exactly as shown throughout those tutorials, and that adaptation cannot be prosecuted; large text books already give examples and the author already knows that they will be used to learn and to build a new work base. The only thing the author requests by legal means is not to reproduce (duplicate) its content massively to make profit of it.