BUG: choose a license for this repo (docs, wiki, website)

[pcmoore]

Discuss license options with the rest of the SELinux community and setup the repo's LICENSE file with the selected license.

[dburgener]

The SELinux Notebook currently makes use of the GNU FDL: https://github.com/SELinuxProject/selinux-notebook/blob/main/LICENSE

It's a rather lengthy copyleft license. I personally find some of the specific criticisms mentioned on wikipedia fairly compelling. Notably, the GNU FDL requires any modifications to be distributed under the same license. This seems stronger than the GPLv2 requirement that you merely release your own modifications under a compatible open source license. A consequence of this requirement is that it seems to me as though we cannot borrow language from the Notebook into other documentation (e.g. comments in source, or this repo) unless that documentation is under the GNU FDL.

Based on that concern, my personal preference would be to use something a bit more permissive (although that means both separate license standards for different SELinuxProject repos, and that the Notebook and this repo would not be compatible with each other).

Other open source documentation licenses we could choose from include the FreeBSD documentation license although the language there contains some FreeBSD specifics that make me hesitant to repurpose it elsewhere. Wikipedia mentions a "BSD documentation license" which strips out the FreeBSD specific parts but calls it "obscure". I can't find mentions of it outside of wikipedia and the one of its two citations that isn't a dead link.

Finally, Creative Commons seems like a fairly standard option. However, we have decisions to make, since we can specify different CC variants. Something like CC-BY gets us a more permissive MIT/BSD style license, CC-BY-SA would be similar to the GNU FDL (but of course mutually incompatible).

My initial preference personally is for the CC-BY, but I'm happy with whatever license the community chooses.

[stephensmalley]

CC-BY is fine with me but possibly this should be discussed on-list.

[dialtdd]

Although I am a SELinux user, I am unlikely to be a contributor to either the project or its documentation, so I have no skin in the game in this issue. I also have no preference between the GFDL or any other free documentation license.

I am not a lawyer, but I think I recognize in this issue and its discussion a need to consult one. Licensing, copyright, and patents are arcane subjects even to many excellent lawyers. Conflicts that may arise going forward are likely to require them, and legal advice in choosing a licensing scheme is likely to be worth the cost and delay.