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List:       lyx-devel
Subject:    Re: Wiki question
From:       "Paul A. Rubin" <rubin () msu ! edu>
Date:       2009-06-27 15:12:39
Message-ID: h25cf5$5cg$1 () ger ! gmane ! org
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Christian Ridderström wrote:

> 
> Maybe it'd be a good idea to write some instructions on how to create 
> and _license_ a module? Does a module file needs instructions that says 
> who the author is and that it's licensed under some kind of licnese?
> 

I don't recall doing anything special about licensing with the layouts 
that were uploaded to the wiki, but perhaps that was an oversight. 
Would it be sufficient to put something on the Modules page to the 
effect that by uploading a module and linking it there, you agree to 
contribute the module under the same license that applies to LyX (GPL 2 
or later)?

There is a copyright page on the wiki that states that authoring content 
grants the wiki operators permission to distribute.  I suspect (although 
I am no lawyer) that this applies to uploads as well (not to mention 
that it would be remarkably boneheaded of anyone to upload a module he 
did *not* want distributed).  That's not exactly the same as the GPL 
license -- license to distribute does not imply license to modify, I 
think -- but is it enough?

In fact, it occurs to me that perhaps the development team should put up 
a wiki page with the licensing terms for LyX, and maybe put something 
prominent somewhere (I'm not sure where) saying that anything uploaded 
to the site must be donated to the project?  Besides modules and 
layouts, I can see people uploading translations, bind files, and maybe 
other things, all of which would raise licensing questions.

/Paul


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