[License-discuss] License which requires watermarking? (Attribution Provision)

[Clark C. Evans]

> Therefore should say on all interface screens

> "Foo, a project by Google" or, if a fork: "Bar, a

> fork of the Google project Foo" with a link back

> to its github repo.



This requirement is just too asymmetric.  What about

credit to the database glue you use?  What about the

language?  What about the other free software library

you use?   I believe it is unfair to shuffle those projects

under the carpet even if they don't have such a

requirement.   Your license should be designed such

that you'd be very happy if everyone used the provision

you propose, and in particular, that your work would

comply with respect to others' work.



I do think that there's room for an otherwise permissive

license to require reasonable acknowledgement in a

manner compatible with GPLv3.   It would require that any

derived work with an interactive interface have a prominent

way to display copyrights & other legal notices.   Then,

it'd require that your software project be mentioned in

those notices, in a manner commensurate with other

components of the whole work.



There are two parts to this.  First is community acceptance:

finding wording that is reasonably clear, effective, yet short

enough to satisfy those who are interested in a "permissive"

license isn't an easy task.   Second, and perhaps more

importantly, compliance must be quite trivial -- this requires

somesort of registry with just about every commonly used

open source work included, as well as a convenient

mechanism to use this registry to build a compliant

legal notice and acknowledgement visual display.



So, the outcome of this would be some sort of visual

menu that can be easily accessed, where your work

would be one of dozens.    I do hope to engage in a

project like this when I have some time and can find

collaborators who agree on an sensible vision.



Best,



Clark
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