| Panel |
|---|
This page is for organizing thoughts on licensing, contributor restrictions, agreements etc for Jasig product documentation. |
From an intellectual property standpoint, open source project documentation is really no different than software source code. To have a successful open source project it is important to have both quality source code and quality documentation. As part of the Jasig projects, we want to make sure we can redistribute documentation in all the same ways that we redistribute our software, and also redistribute in ways that are unique to documentation. Some of these possible redistributions include:
- Allow the documentation to be downloaded and posted for use on other websites
- Bundle the documentation into binary software distributions as built-in help, as a PDF manual, or other forms
- Print the documentation as a physical book that can be sold at low cost
In order to do these things, it is important for Jasig to have appropriate redistribution rights to the documentation. This is accomplished in the same way as it is done with source code: via an Individual Contributor License Agreement.
This is consistent with the practices of other communities, including the Apache Foundation. The Apache Licensing webpage specifically mentions documentation as something that should be covered by a Contributor License Agreement, and the Apache License itself makes specific mention of documentation.