Make our user and developer docs available under a CC-by-A license

Jody Garnett

This change will take placed on both development and stable branches.

In discussion

The OSGeo Incubation process asks that our documentation be made under an open license. Creative Commons is widely understood, while by attribute alerts readers to the presence of our official documentation (and respects our documentation contributors).

\0. Currently our documentation provides the following footer: * http://docs.geoserver.org/latest/en/developer/ {panel} © Copyright 2012, TOPP. Last updated on Jan 07, 2013. Created using Sphinx. {panel} * http://docs.geoserver.org/latest/en/user/ {panel} © Copyright 2012, TOPP. Last updated on Jan 07, 2013. Created using Sphinx. {panel} * http://docs.geoserver.org/stable/en/user/ {panel} © Copyright GeoServer. Last updated on Jan 09, 2013. Created using Sphinx. {panel}

\2. Following these directions results in a revised footer: {panel} © Copyright 2013, OpenPlans. Last updated on Jan 07, 2013. Created using Sphinx. GeoServer User Manual by geoserver.org is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at docs.geoserver.org/latest/en/user/. {panel}

I recommend toning that down to the following text ((or just a small CCbyA logo on each page) {panel} © Copyright 2013, OpenPlans. License Creative Commons by Attribution. Last updated on Jan 07, 2013. Created using Sphinx. {panel}

\3. Finally we can update our license page with the following:

Document License
^\^^^^^^^^\^^^^^^^\^

GeoServer documentation is distributed using creative commons with
attribution.

For details see
[http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)/

.. image:: /images/ccAttribution.\*

• Q: Is documentation license really required?

Yes, documentation license has a different purpose to source code license. Documentation license provides an alternative to quoting text from our docs, making it easier on writers.

• Q: The source code for our documentation is in the codebase

While the GPL license for the codebase helps developers, CC by A is provided to help writers.

• Q: TOPP or OpenPlans

OpenPlans like the website - thanks Justin for asking.

n/a

Alessio Fabiani: +0 Andrea Aime: +1 Ben Caradoc Davies: +1 Christian Mueller +0 Gabriel Roldan: +0 Jody Garnett: +1 Jukka Rahkonen: +1 Justin Deoliveira: +0 Phil Scadden: +1 Simone Giannecchini: +0

• [GeoServer Provenance Review]
• [http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/GEOS-5543]
• https://github.com/geoserver/geoserver/pull/131