Licensing
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NOTE: The contents of this page are not set in stone, and are subject to change! This page is a draft in active flux ... |
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This page covers licensing and copyright issues as they pertain to the One Laptop Per Child project.
For those already familiar with open licenses, our advice is:
- Are you writing code for an end-user application? Use the GPL.
- Are you writing a code library? Use the LGPL or MIT license.
- Are you creating something else? Release your work into the public domain with the CC-PD declaration. If you can't do that, use CC-BY.
For a succinct introduction to open licensing, see the Open Knowledge Foundation's Guide to open licensing.
For a list of open licenses and information on how to apply them, see their licenses page.
OLPC is a strong advocate for and practitioner of open licensing, as the project is designed around the idea of the free sharing of knowledge. Our goal is to empower children to share and build on what they learn in every way imaginable. There should be no barriers to children who wish to recreate and build on the materials, software, and tools they are given; everyone should be free to use, redistribute, and produce modified version of and works derived from these things. For more on OLPC's specific views on this, see the OLPC on open source software and OLPC on free knowledge sections.
License setting on the XO
There are a few points of intervention where one can set license defaults and licenses for material created on an XO. One: a setup menu, which will offer controls of system-wide defaults including default license across activities. Another: in the Journal, when viewing and searching for materials. A third is via a choose from within the context of each activity -- this could be a service that drops down on a certain keystroke.
Customizable defaults : what the default license is, and what licenses are available 'above the fold' and show up when the small license chooser appears. These could be varied by country-build according to national standards.
The metadata used by default is under discussion.