Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 75135
non-free graphics in docs need to be OPLed
Last modified: 2008-05-01 11:38:04 EDT
From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.0.1) Gecko/20020830 Description of problem: As listed in the colophon for all of the packages on the docs CD, the admonition graphics are not free. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1.Load any of the docs from the documentation CD. 2.Go to the colophon. 3.Note that the admonition graphics aren't free, unlike the rest of the manual which is OPLed. Additional info: I understand the need for branding and for quality graphics, but this lack of openness is shocking. The way I read the limitations on these graphics in the colophon, I can't copy these documents and distribute them in their entirety without express written permission of RH and the graphics artist who created the admonition graphics, unless I remove the graphics from the docs. Am I off base? If not, please clarify exactly what I can do with these docs. Can I post them on my website for easy access? Can I load them onto any RH 8.0 box?
I will look into this and post a response here. I am not sure about this issue and will clarify it once I have consulted with those who would be more qualified to answer it. Thanks for pointing this out! Johnray
I am adding the Documentation manager to this bug in order to help clarify the issue. J
Any clarification yet as to the redistributability (!) of these packages?
Waiting for final wording from legal, but the gist is this. The designer intended for the graphics to be freely redistributed as part of the Red Hat Docs. Any use outside of the Red Hat Docs would require her permission. This means if you are writing a new work and want fancy admonition graphics, then you would need to contact her for permission. I do not have the final legal wording for this yet, but this is the intent. So as long as the graphics are used as part of the Red Hat Docs they are freely redistributable. I will post the new wording here and close this bug when it is issued. Thank you for bringing this to my attention! Johrnay
Thanks, Johnray, et. al. It would be good to clarify this point with the new wording from legal in the colophons themselves, and to make updated packages available containing this language. A point that needs to be reinforced is that any part of the distro that's not open-sourced will draw fire, rightfully so IMHO, because it complicates redistribution (how ever you want to define this term). Maybe next time more care should be taken to ensure that issues like this don't arise in the first place.
We actually have a staff graphic designer now who is going to re-design the admonition graphics for future releases. So from here on out, there will be no additional terms associated with the admonition graphics. The re-spin has been talked about and I will post the final decision here when everyhting is complete. Again thanks for the feedback! Johnray
The graphics for all docs after 8.0 are under the same license. Thanks for bringing the issue to our attention. Johnray