The Creative Commons organization has developed licenses that, as their website puts it:
...will help you tell others that your works are free for copying and other uses—but only on certain conditions. You’re probably familiar with the phrase “All rights reserved” and the little © that goes along with it. Creative Commons wants to help copyright holders send a different message: “Some rights reserved.”
While I still do own the copyright on this tutorial, there are some rights which I wish others to have. What follows has been adapted from the Creative Commons page, and I’ve expanded it to give my reasons for my choices. You may also see the full license.
You may copy, distribute, display, and perform the work. In return, you must give the original author credit. I chose this option because I put a lot of work into the tutorial, I am proud of it, and I want others to know whose work it is.
You may copy, distribute, display, and perform the work. In return,you may not use the work for commercial purposes—unless you get my permission. As you may have detected from the preceding text, I’m in this for the ego, not for the money. Also, I have used many Open Source and Free Software tools to help me create this site. I got those tools for free; by keeping this site free of monetary charges, I feel I am giving back to that community.
You may copy, distribute, display and perform only unaltered copies of this site—not derivative works based on it. This is where I am parting company with the true “Free Software” folks. In most Open Source / Free Software licenses (one of which I used for the older version of this tutorial), you have the right to modify the tutorial as you please, as long as those modifications are freely shared with others on an equal basis.
I would have loved to use this option, but a previous bad experience dissuaded me from doing so. A couple of years ago, I did a search for “Korean tutorial” on the web and found one at the Unification Church website. This is the church run by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, whom I consider to be a dangerous lunatic. I decided to take a look, and, lo and behold, there was my tutorial, copied in full (without ever getting my permission!). Copied in full, that is, except for the index page, where the text had been altered to make it look as though I had written the tutorial expressly for them. I emailed them and told them that I was not happy with their change, and they were kind enough to add wording to make it clear that I was not affiliated with their church, and had not written the tutorial for them.
That’s the reason that I chose the “no derivative works” option. I have no objection to people copying and distributing the tutorial, but I do not want them to put words into my mouth.
This also means that if you find any bugs or any mistakes in the tutorial, you can’t correct them yourself and redistribute the tutorial. You can, however, contact me and let me know about the errors so that I can fix them; I’d appreciate that.
Choosing the “no derivative works” option was not an easy decision, but I finally decided that I wanted the protection that this option offers. To those folks who are strong proponents of Free Software, I know you are disappointed, and I’m sorry.
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