Zimran Ahmed on copyleft: Text online doesn’t need copyleft, it’s all essentially released into the public domain anyway.
Most of winterspeak.com is so coherent and enlightened, I was surprised to read this, which seems so obviously off-base. Example: my book is copyleft, distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License. This is a viral copyleft license similar to the GPL. It stipulates, among other things, that people can freely redistribute, modify, or translate my work, but all derivative works (including translations) are bound by the same license.
Why is this important? Four main reasons:
- It allows people to use my work in ways I had not anticipated. Andamooka took a version and added the ability to comment on each page, functionality that my site lacks. It is also distributed as part of the FreeBSD ports collection. It could also be converted to a new format (like formatted for an eBook reader, if those ever take off) without requiring me to be involved.
- It allows people to translate it, again without me being involved. Two of the four published translations occurred without my knowledge; people just up and did it, and sent me a URL after the fact. One guy didn’t even do that; I only found his translation through my referer logs. That’s totally fine; he’s under no obligation to tell me anything. I’ve never even spoken to him, not even by email. But now he and thousands of other people can read my book in his native language.
- It guarantees that the book can outlive my interest in it. If I were to move on to other things and lose interest in Python, someone could pick up the book and make corrections, or add new chapters, or update it to stay in sync with changes in the latest version of Python. Will this happen? I don’t know; I haven’t lost interest in Python yet. ;-)
- It guarantees that the book will stay free. This is what distinguishes it from text in the public domain. Even if a publisher comes along and prints up a thousand copies and sells them (which is explicitly allowed by the license), they still have to make the book (and all their corrections or additions) available for free online.
This is not to say that everything online ought to be copyleft. It makes little sense for news, weblogs, or other topical sites. It makes the most sense for scholarship, documentation, and other things that may outlive the original author’s interest.
§
Respond privately
I am no longer accepting public comments on this post, but you can use this form to contact me privately. (Your message will not be published.)
§