Copy documentation from OpenOffice.org?

Tom.

Screenshots are considered to be "derivative works" under US Copyright
Law (refer to the US Copyright Act of 1976, Section 101 if you want
details). There is nothing wrong with including screenshots (as part
of your documentation) of an application running under Windows, OSX,
or any other operating system.

We are NOT fearful of the community, we want to RESPECT the
contributions of the community.

You are the only one who is saying anything about court cases and
lawyers, and imagining someone attacking LibreOffice.

What we are concerned with is respecting the rights and contributions
of everyone who has participated in the LibreOffice and Apache Open
Office (previously OpernOffice.org) documentation. That's it...
nothing more. The ambiguity of the license attached to the existing
Apache Open Office documentation is a minor issue that can
(reasonably) be managed... and to be honest I consider this issue
resolved and closed.

Anything more about lawyers and such silliness is bike-shedding
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikeshedding

Clayton

Hi :slight_smile:
This whole argument is bizarre considering that we seem quite happy to
include screen-shots taken on Windows platforms. it's as though we
think that MS will never be bothered about us cutting into one of
their core profit areas and would never try to find some way of
attacking us. We seem more fearful of people who wanted to actively
help the community.
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

One point about screen captures that should be considered in authoring the user guides is eliminate their use in most cases in procedural documentation--and use them only if those instances where they are really useful. Describing the appropriate menu commands with their associated submenu commands should suffice for most of the directions.

For some two decades already here in US (and likely most elsewhere) K-12 public and private schools, almost all kids routinely have computer experience by age five or younger. Assuming that the user guides are written for use by functionally literate folk, overloading documentation with screen captures is not much useful nowadays.

In addition, not having many such graphics reduces the document size and allows for much easier page formatting, especially for smaller page or display sizes.

Gary

IANAL, but Wikipedia has some interesting notes about software screenshots:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Software_screenshots

In particular, they prefer taking screenshots on FOSS operating
systems -- even mentioning us :slight_smile:

"In the case of multi-platform programs that are FOSS, and have a
visibly similar interface between platforms (such as LibreOffice or
GIMP for example), it is preferred that screenshots be taken under a
FOSS operating system (such as a Linux distribution)."

The also note: "Please ensure that the demonstration content itself is
self-made, freely licensed or in the public domain to prevent the
accidental inclusion of non-free content," pointing out that
"[s]creenshots depicting FOSS on Windows or OS X (or any other
commercial operating system) pose the potential for issues with
screenshots because they are non-free;"

They go on to say that while consensus in their project has been that
Windows Classic and Win8 Metro themes "are too basic for copyright
protection," the OSX interface elements and Aero Glass theme may be
"sufficiently original for protection."

As many of you know, Wikipedia licenses their content under the same
CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported license that we use for most of our content*, so
their analysis may be quite applicable to our situation.

Cheers,
--R

* IIRC some of our older docs might be under a different license...

Gary Schnabl wrote:

One point about screen captures that should be considered in authoring the user guides is eliminate their use in most cases in procedural documentation--and use them only if those instances where they are really useful.

The virtue of pictures is that they provide ready reference points. Something that is extremely difficult to do, using text alone.

Describing the appropriate menu commands with their associated submenu commands should suffice for most of the directions.

That works, if and only if:
* Every function can be reached using keystrokes;
* The precise sequence of keystrokes is always provided;

However, more than half of the functions within LibO can not be reached, using keystrokes alone.

Assuming that the user guides are written for use by functionally literate folk,

a) The typical 2010 college graduate from the United States would fail a sixth grade literacy test in Boston, from 1900,

b) The typical "educated" computer user has never been taught the fundamentals of computing, much less the fundamentals of using an office suite --- any office suite.

overloading documentation with screen captures is not much useful nowadays.

What is really needed, is one group of people writing documentation, and a second group creating documentation using screen recording software. IOW, one group creates PDFs, and a second group creates videos.

jonathon

Many of the people who actually refer to the books keep requesting lots of screenshots and other illustrations. I agree that some of ours are unnecessary, and I often edit them out, but otherwise I believe we are producing what our audience prefers.

--Jean