Developemnt and use - Training manual

[Blaise Alleyne]

(Apologies if I'm repeating myself a bit... a messed up my last post to 
the list and it broke outside of the thread...)

George Farris wrote:
> On Mon, 2008-04-28 at 10:38 +0300, Billy Cina wrote:
>   
>>> Right, so if we want to use the manual in our Community Education course
>>> to introduce and teach Ubuntu Linux while charging the student a fee for
>>> the course, this would be okay?
>>>
>>> Note: these are not degree courses they fall into the same category as
>>> "learn to paint" or "better life through yoga".  Strictly for community
>>> personal interest with charges usually between $50.00 - $199.00
>>>   
>>>       
>> Non-profit are key words. $50 - $199.00 sounds like profit seeking to me.
>>
>> Billy Cina
>>     
>
> Exactly which brings me back to the original question.  
>
> It seems a little out of touch with the rest of Ubuntu.
>   

It's not only out of touch with Ubuntu's philosophy [0], but out of 
touch with open source [1] and free software [2] philosophies... the 
ability to charge for free software is always protected, free is about 
freedom not price. And, as I noted before, it's out of touch with the 
rest of the free culture movement. [3]

Taking away someone's freedom to profit from their work is.. well, dumb.
> If one can take Hardy Heron and use it to present a course on Linux
> while charging for the course, why wouldn't you have the license similar
> for the documents?  Charge for the course (not the material) but use the
> material to refer to in the course.
>   

There are several other, better, licenses which are in line with 
Ubuntu's philosophy (i.e. which, if software, would land in the 
universe, not the multiverse!):

* CC BY
* CC BY-SA
* GNU Free Documentation License

I don't see why Ubuntu's training material ought to contradict it's 
commitment to free software and open source software.


[0] http://www.ubuntu.com/community/ubuntustory/licensing (the software 
portion retains the right to sell, though documentation is on a 
case-by-case basis)
[1] http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd (see the first part of the 
definition)
[2] http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html
[3] http://freedomdefined.org/