Re: New HOWTO

[David Merrill <dcmerrill@mindspring.com>]

Randy Kramer wrote:
> 
> I'm just thinking (or not thinking ;-) ) out loud -- if an author cannot
> be located after some reasonable efforts, and if his document is
> unlicensed, could we modify his document but maintain his name as the
> original author along with a sort of disclaimer statement explaining
> that we tried the following means of locating <author> but could not
> contact him, we would still like to find him, so if you know him or can
> provide any hints we would appreciate it.  In the meantime, we have
> taken the liberty of updating his document, the current maintainer is
> _______.  I would then list everything we know about the author and what
> steps we tried to locate him.
> 
> IANAL, but this would seem to demonstrate a good faith effort to find
> the original author to seek his permission.  And, if he had made his
> document available to the LDP (or made it freely downloadable from any
> other web source) it would seem to demonstrate that his intent is not to
> sell his document for profit, rather his intent is to contribute to the
> general welfare.

Unfortunately, good faith efforts have nothing whatsoever to do with
copyright law.

The only real answer is a free license. That's what we should be trying
to get every author to do.

-- 
Dr. David C. Merrill                     http://www.lupercalia.net
Linux Documentation Project                dmerrill@lupercalia.net
Collection Editor & Coordinator            http://www.linuxdoc.org

I'm a scheming, conniving bastard who doesn't care for any hurt
feelings or lost hours of work if it just results in what I
consider to be a better system...
I can say "I don't care" with a straight face, and really mean it.
     ...Because I'm a bastard, and proud of it!" -- Linus Torvalds


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