HC&A Report: "Haskell 98 Report" copyright
Hi all, I note with some sadness the more restrictive license that may be placed on the "Haskell 98 Report", as reported by the HC&A. The great openness/freeness of haskell, both the report and implementations, is, IMO, one of its most important features. I have just grabbed a copy of the latest revised report under the current licence. AIUI I can continue to publish this under the current licence and, assuming I change the name, incorporate any fixes etc (assuming the fixers agree to it). Also, Debian can continue to have a copy in main in the same way. I would really prefer it if such forking wasn't necessary, but if the above is the case (I am not a lawyer, etc etc) then I guess it isn't the end of the world - I must admit to not seeing what CUP would be getting out of it if this is so, though. Ian
Ian Lynagh wrote:
Hi all,
I note with some sadness the more restrictive license that may be placed on the "Haskell 98 Report", as reported by the HC&A. The great openness/freeness of haskell, both the report and implementations, is, IMO, one of its most important features.
I have just grabbed a copy of the latest revised report under the current licence.
As much as I hate forks, I guess this is the right thing to do if the Haskell report will lose its free status. Hopefully there will not be too many changes to maintain in forks. Thanks for doing this. -- Lennart
Ian Lynagh <igloo@earth.li> writes:
I note with some sadness the more restrictive license that may be placed on the "Haskell 98 Report", as reported by the HC&A.
I have a hard time imagining what this actually means. The report, as it is licensed now allows for:
I have just grabbed a copy of the latest revised report under the current licence. AIUI I can continue to publish this under the current licence and [..] incorporate any fixes etc
So what exactly is it they want copyright to? Obviously, they can have the copyright to the *book* and it's layout and such (i.e., one cannot xerox it), but the contents is already in the free, isn't it?
assuming I change the name,
Do they get to own the name?
I would really prefer it if such forking wasn't necessary
I'm not sure it would be forking, unless somebody plans on maintaining CUP's "official" version for them.
I must admit to not seeing what CUP would be getting out of it if this is so, though.
Exactly. They can't really get an exclusive copyright to a document that's free, can they? Some publishers are mostly worried about having the right to do what they will, rather than restricting others. I think at any rate it's important to be up front with CUP with this, so they know what's going to happen, so that they don't feel cheated or mislead. <strong opinion> I'd love to have it in book form, but it's much more important to have it freely available (e.g. in Debian). </> -kzm -- If I haven't seen further, it is by standing in the footprints of giants
On Tue, Nov 12, 2002 at 01:19:03AM +0000, Ian Lynagh wrote:
I note with some sadness the more restrictive license that may be placed on the "Haskell 98 Report", as reported by the HC&A. The great openness/freeness of haskell, both the report and implementations, is, IMO, one of its most important features.
I have just grabbed a copy of the latest revised report under the current licence. AIUI I can continue to publish this under the current licence and, assuming I change the name, incorporate any fixes etc (assuming the fixers agree to it). Also, Debian can continue to have a copy in main in the same way.
I've already done this, by the following process: * updated the most recent sources (Jan 2002) to match the most recent HTML release (Sep 2002) * marked it as modified, as required by the licence * put the two reports together * applied the small number of publicly discussed fixes since the HTML release * fixed a small number of typographical glitches I noticed on the way The results are at http://www.soi.city.ac.uk/~ross/haskell-report-modified/ Share and enjoy. Please let me know of any typographical errors.
participants (4)
-
Ian Lynagh -
ketil＠ii.uib.no -
Lennart Augustsson -
Ross Paterson