[oi-dev] Public Documentation License (terms)

Wed May 18 01:33:00 UTC 2016

Hello All,

Given the topic of licensing has come up several times in recent 
discussions, I thought this might be a good time to talk a little more 
about the PDL license and the terms it imposes on authored works subject 
to this license.

Below I have cobbled together a few things I found on the Internet, and 
have drawn a few conclusions from it all. Please let me know whether I 
am incorrect in any of my conclusions.

First, the firebird SQL website 
(http://www.firebirdsql.org/manual/licenses-pdl.html), gives the 
following summary of the PDL:

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To give you a quick idea of what the PDL is all about, here is a short 
overview of the rights granted and requirements imposed by the PDL:

Free use: everyone may use and distribute PDL-licensed works, for free 
or for money, as long as the license notice is kept intact.

Right to modify: everyone may modify and redistribute PDL-licensed 
works, as long as any modified versions are PDL-licensed too, the 
original license notice is kept intact, and the modifications are 
documented.

Larger works: everyone may incorporate PDL-licensed documentation in a 
larger work. The larger work as a whole need not be released under the 
PDL, but the license requirements must be fulfilled for the PDL-licensed 
parts.

Please be advised that this overview is for informational purposes only 
and has no legal status whatsoever. Only the license text itself - 
following hereafter - is legally binding.

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The site then follows it up with the full text of the license:

http://www.firebirdsql.org/manual/licenses-pdl-text.html

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For an example of a license notice, there is the dtrace guide from 
dtrace.org (http://dtrace.org/guide/license.html)

This page says:

Public Documentation License Notice

The contents of this Documentation are subject to the Public 
Documentation License Version 1.01 (the "License"); you may only use 
this Documentation if you comply with the terms of this License. A copy 
of the License is available at http://illumos.org/license/PDL

The Original Documentation is the Solaris Dynamic Tracing Guide. The 
Initial Writer of the Original Documentation is Sun Microsystems 
Copyright (C) 2003-2009. All Rights Reserved. (Initial Writer 
contact(s): http://sun.com).

Contributor(s): Joyent, Inc. Portions created by Joyent, Inc. are 
Copyright (C) 2012. All Rights Reserved. (Contributor contact(s): 
http://joyent.com).

This documentation was derived from the source at illumos docbooks. For 
full changes as required by the PDL, please see the above URL.

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The above example is essentially the PDL appendix with the blank spaces 
completed.

This suggests every PDL licensed document modified by the OpenIndiana 
community (for example each book included in the PDL licensed 
redistributable docs) would need to included such a notice.

Interestingly, not all of the redistributable books appear to include a 
visible PDL notice.

For example: 
http://makruger.github.io/website/pages/books/content/getstart/html/docinfo.html

I don't see a PDL notice listed anywhere on that page.

However, the XML sources for this book all include a license declaration.

https://github.com/makruger/website/tree/master/pages/books/content/getstart

So, what's going on here. Well, to  answer that question, you need to 
look at the HTML source:

https://github.com/makruger/website/blob/master/pages/books/content/getstart/html/docinfo.html

There it is....a statement saying the document is subject to the PDL.

Other books are a bit more explicit about the license. For example on 
this page 
(http://makruger.github.io/website/pages/books/content/SYSADV1/html/docinfo.html), 
the license declaration is clearly listed.

Presumably only documents modified since their original publication 
would require a completed PDL appendix.

So, what about the 'OpenSolaris' book hosted on the Oracle website?
Are they PDL licensed as well?

The answer to that question is apparently NO.

The 'OpenSolaris' documents hosted on the Oracle website do NOT contain 
any such PDL license declaration either visibly or contained in the HTML 
source. I think it's safe to conclude PDF copies of these documents are 
not PDL licensed either.

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Taking the discussion in a slightly different direction, and looking 
once more at the PDL licensed Dtrace guide on Dtrace.org, the following 
question comes to mind:

How exactly does one go about identifying the original portions from the 
Joyent modified portions?

The answer to this question is found in the last sentence of the license 
notice which says "see the above URL". This URL references the 
Illumos-Docbooks Github repository.

This effectively means for the purpose of complying to the terms of the 
PDL, the editors of that document (illumos/Joyent) relied on the git 
logs as the means of identifying the changes made to the document and 
the contributor(s) who made those changes.

One might even say editing a PDL licensed document outside of some kind 
of change tracking system would likely NOT be in compliance with the 
terms of the license UNLESS they also manually (and might I say 
painstakingly) documented exactly what changed, and precisely who made 
the changes.

The natural conclusion here is using a change tracking system is the 
only practical way to ensure full compliance with the PDL.

I am curious whether the change tracking capabilities of a CMS system 
would be also considered 'in compliance'. I suppose as long as it tracks 
all the changes and who made them, then yes, it would be.

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Taking the discussion in yet another direction,

Given neither Illumos or OpenIndiana are legal entities, I presume for 
the purpose of complying to the terms of the PDL, the individual names 
of each contributor would need to be listed in the PDL notice of any 
document licensed under the terms of the PDL.

So, if the content found on openindiana.org or wiki.openindiana.org were 
PDL licensed, then it would also follow that any document created from 
such content would then need to include all the contributor names in 
it's PDL notice.

And if a large document such as a new handbook was created from such 
content, then the list of contributors would need to include all the 
authors from each and every source document.

While both of the websites support change tracking, this concern might 
be completely irrelevant because none of the documents found on 
openindiana.org appear to contain visible PDL license declarations or 
notices.

Just some thoughts on licensing.....

Michael