Changes to front cover and copyright notice required for user guides to go on Amazon

As I mentioned in an earlier note, I have been looking into getting
our user guides sold through Amazon
and other venues, now that Lulu is not charging a fee for this.

In order for our books to qualify, some minor changes are required to
the files sent to Lulu. These changes do not need to be made to PDFs
we distribute ourselves, but I would recommend we make the changes
there too.

For distribution through Amazon etc, the front cover of the book must
include the name of the author of the book, and that name must match
the name given in the copyright statement and in the metadata we
provide to Lulu.

I have been listing "LibreOffice Documentation Team" as the author in
the metadata, and I propose to change the copyright statement in each
book to read:

"This document is Copyright © 2014 by the LibreOffice Documentation
Team. Contributors are listed below. You may distribute or modify it
under the terms of either the GNU General Public License
(http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html), version 3 or later, or the
Creative Commons Attribution License
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), version 3.0 or later."

I, or Klaus-Jürgen or someone, need to add "LibreOffice Documentation
Team" to the front cover design for v4.2, at least for the cover
provided to Lulu.

--Jean

It's not a formal vote. If someone has an objection to the proposed
copyright wording change, for a good reason, we certainly need to
discuss it and come to an agreement.

--Jean

Hello Jean

If the changes get the LO guides out to a wider audience then I have no objections to the wording change for copyright.

Regards

Peter Schofield
psauthor@libreoffice.org

Hi :slight_smile:
+1
from a lurker.

I don't get a vote as i don't contribute to or do any work in the team
itself, also i'm not a member of TDF. Also i'm not sure if this is a
formal vote or if a "proposal" needs a "seconder" but if it is and if
it does then i would if i could.
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

For distribution through Amazon etc, the front cover of the book must
include the name of the author of the book, and that name must match
the name given in the copyright statement and in the metadata we
provide to Lulu.

Ok

I have been listing "LibreOffice Documentation Team" as the author in
the metadata, and I propose to change the copyright statement in each
book to read:

"This document is Copyright © 2014 by the LibreOffice Documentation
Team. Contributors are listed below. You may distribute or modify it
under the terms of either the GNU General Public License
(http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html), version 3 or later, or the
Creative Commons Attribution License
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), version 3.0 or later."

Couple of points:

1) I don't believe the "LibreOffice Documentation Team" is a legal
entity, so I'm not sure that it can hold copyright (at least not in
the US).

2) In general, I believe TDF/LibreOffice does not request copyright
assignment, so copyright in contributions to code, wiki pages,
documentation, etc.. is all held by the individual contributors, or
the company/organization for which they work, if it is a
work-for-hire.

Here's the text we use in the 'About' box in LibreOffice:

  "This release was supplied by The Document Foundation.
   Copyright (c) 2000 - 2014 LibreOffice contributors."

Thanks,
--R

Hi Jean, all,
short answer.

[...]

I, or Klaus-Jürgen or someone, need to add "LibreOffice Documentation
Team" to the front cover design for v4.2, at least for the cover
provided to Lulu.

As no one else except you and me have the original svg, I will do it.

And I will present the actual proposal for the new 4.2 covers in the next few days. But this will be another thread.

+1 Robinson. I think that the "LibreOffice Documentation Team" isn't a legal entity.

So, what about:

"This document is Copyright © 2014 by The Document Foundation.
You may distribute or modify it under the terms of either the GNU General Public License (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html), version 3 or later, or the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), version 3.0 or later."

my 2 cents!
Have a nice day,
Marina

Hi Marina,
Thanks for the suggestion!

I'm still pretty sure that TDF doesn't hold copyright to these guides
(and if they do, perhaps only to a small portion of the overall
contributions), so implying that these works are solely "copyright
TDF" would not meet our licensing obligations.

Best,
--R

First, and probably most important, I think that we should make the required changes and I am not really a stickler for how it must read, that seems to be a question for a "legal person" if needed.

Recap:

Jean:

This document is Copyright © 2014 by the LibreOffice Documentation
Team.

Couple of points: 1) I don't believe the "LibreOffice Documentation Team" is a legal entity, so I'm not sure that it can hold copyright (at least not in the US). 2) In general, I believe TDF/LibreOffice does not request copyright assignment, so copyright in contributions to code, wiki pages, documentation, etc.. is all held by the individual contributors, or the company/organization for which they work, if it is a work-for-hire. Here's the text we use in the 'About' box in LibreOffice: "This release was supplied by The Document Foundation. Copyright (c) 2000 - 2014 LibreOffice contributors." Thanks, --R

If you choose to be pedantic, I expect that "LibreOffice contributors" is also not a legal entity, but it is probably closer to the truth as to who owns the copyright :slight_smile:

I also do not know how important it is that the front cover and meta-data directly reference a legal entity, especially if the truth of the matter is that the individual contributors hold the copyright for their own contributions. I also don't expect the individual contributors to go after people that violate the copyright. I think that Sun (when they owned OOo) had copyright assigned to them (or something like that) so that they could enforce it.

What do other open source foundations use for their front cover
artwork? Or is this a brand new change to the requirements?

The actual license for LIbreOffice says "Copyright © 2007 Free
Software Foundation, Inc." Not understanding the innerworkings of the
documentation team's relationship to the corporation, wouldn't it make
more sense that the actual entity listed on the cover would be the
"Free Software Foundation, Inc." rather than the documentation team?

Anyways, just some thoughts since you were asking for input.

Couple of points: 1) I don't believe the "LibreOffice Documentation Team"
is a legal entity, so I'm not sure that it can hold copyright (at least not
in the US). 2) In general, I believe TDF/LibreOffice does not request
copyright assignment, so copyright in contributions to code, wiki pages,
documentation, etc.. is all held by the individual contributors, or the
company/organization for which they work, if it is a work-for-hire. Here's
the text we use in the 'About' box in LibreOffice: "This release was
supplied by The Document Foundation. Copyright (c) 2000 - 2014 LibreOffice
contributors." Thanks, --R

If you choose to be pedantic, I expect that "LibreOffice contributors" is
also not a legal entity,

true

but it is probably closer to the truth as to who
owns the copyright :slight_smile:

When I read the info box, I see "LibreOffice contributors" as a group
of people, not a single/formal entity (e.g. "LibreOffice
Contributors"), similar to "the Open Document Format" vs. "an open
document format".

I also do not know how important it is that the front cover and meta-data
directly reference a legal entity, especially if the truth of the matter is
that the individual contributors hold the copyright for their own
contributions.

Good point. I think it would be fine to put something like
"LibreOffice Documentation Team, et al." on the front cover (with a
longer explanation inside), but because copyright is held by
individuals, an explicit implication of copyright such as "(c) 2014
LibreOffice Documentation Team" or "(c) 2014 TDF" seems misleading.

Best,
--R

What do other open source foundations use for their front cover
artwork?

good question

Or is this a brand new change to the requirements?

There are various licensing-related discussions available online, for example:
https://kdp.amazon.com/community/message.jspa?messageID=597677

The actual license for LIbreOffice says "Copyright © 2007 Free
Software Foundation, Inc."

Where are you seeing that copyright message?

Our licensing page provides the text of the LGPLv3 license:
https://www.libreoffice.org/download/license/

The FSF does hold copyright on the *text* of the LGPLv3 license, but
not (necessarily) on anything created and placed under the LGPL.

Cheers,
--R

On the LGPL License page actually:

http://www.libreoffice.org/download/license/