[Fwd: [ubuntu]dual license strategy: GFDL&CC-BY-SA]

[Corey Burger]

On 8/3/06, Matthew East <mdke at ubuntu.com> wrote:
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> * Corey Burger:
> > Ah yes, the great dual licensing debate. Given I was there talking
> > with Mako when this was decided at Mataro, I will weigh in on this.
> > Basically it boils down to Debian. Either license is acceptable for us
> > (Ubuntu) but we wanted Debian to be able to use our stuff at some
> > point as well. However, neither the GFDL nor the CC-by-sa 2.0 are
> > currently acceptable. Thus we put them under both, so if one becomes
> > acceptable, Debian can accept it under that license.
>
> Ah thanks, this is helpful.
>
> A couple of observations:
>
> 1. Debian has never (to my knowledge) used any of our material - is this
> right?

Yes

> 2. Using alternative licenses, as far as I can see, means that the only
> material *we* can copy is public domain material. If we copy some GFDL
> material (such as something from Wikipedia) then we are in violation of
> the GFDL because we haven't released it under the same terms, a
> derivative of ours might take the material and release it under the
> CC-BY-SA, which is incompatible with the GFDL.
>
> So is this dual licensing business actually a good idea?
>
> Matt

We can explicitly state that certain things are under one license or a
differen one (eg: the packaging guide), which would mean we could copy
a whole document, but not into another as part. As for Debian using
our stuff, there has not been a new draft of the GFDL (it is widely
assumed this is next for revision) nor a CC 3.

Corey