Dossy <dossy / panoptic.com> writes:

> In the case of a translation, as long as it is made available
> under terms that do not conflict with the OPL, then you or anyone
> else has the right to do exactly what was done.

I don't believe this is correct. The derived work must be under the
OPL. Consider the alternative.

We produce an OPL'd work, stating that permission must be obtained
before producing a commercial printed version. Someone doesn't like
that, so they take the work, change something, claim that it now falls
under their copyright, and relicense the work under their terms. They
then go ahead and produce a printed book without asking. The original
copyright holder has just lost all the rights that they had when they
licensed the work.

Although the OPL is a liberal license, it's still a license, and it
does not permit unrestricted rights.

I feel nervous even discussing this here: I'm very glad there's a
freely available German translation, and I want to encourage other
translations. If I didn't, I wouldn't have negotiated with AWL to have
the license changed to the OPL after the book was first published.

I want to see more people do what we're doing and opening up their
Ruby books. However, this relies on the good will of publishers.
Publishers are in the IP business, and live by copyright laws and
licenses. If they get the impression that open licenses are not
respected by the communities they're trying to serve, then I can see
that Programming Ruby may well be the last OPL book released by
Addison Wesley, and that would be a shame.


Regards



Dave