LM-Light: A New E-Learning Standard
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Copyright & Licensing


Introduction

It's our intention that the LM-Light standard be as widely used as possible for both commercial and non-commercial purposes. So, we're releasing the various elements of the standard and the accompanying utilities (the Reference LMS, the development stubs and the demo courses) under the most appropriate license for each.

To do this in an open and flexible way, we're taking advantage of the great work done by the Creative Commons project. Traditional copyright gives the copyright holder (usually the author of a work or the client commissioning a work) the exclusive rights to copy, distribute, display and use the work, and/or license these rights to others. The traditional alternatives are to write a commercial license of some kind, or to place the work in the public domain where everyone can use it without restriction.

But, sometimes, we want to release a work for people to use under a limited set of circumstance - perhaps limit them to non-commercial use, or allow them to use it for any reason as long as they provide full attribution. The Creative Commons project provides a range of "some rights reserved" copyrights that give us this flexibility.

In this section, we'll give you an overview of the licensing terms for the content in this website.

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Creative Commons LicenseGeneral Copyright Statement

By default, all materials in the LM-Light website are Copyright © Addison Robson, LLC unless otherwise stated. Except where stated below, all content in the LM-Light website is released under a Creative Commons "Attribution-NoDerivs" License. In addition to any statutory rights (including "Fair Use"), this gives you the rights to:

  • copy, distribute, display, and perform the work
  • make commercial use of the work
under the following conditions:
  • You must attribute the work by including the following text:

    Copyright © Addison Robson LLC - Used with permission of the copyright holder
    under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
  • You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work (create derivative works).

  • For any re-use or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work.
Any of these conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder (Addison Robson LLC).

For more details of the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 License including the full text of the agreement, please consult www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.5

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Creative Commons LicenseThe LM-Light Standard

As with the content of the LM-Light website (see above), the LM-Light standard itself is released under a Creative Commons "Attribution-NoDerivs" License. For more details of the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 License including the full text of the agreement, please consult www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.5

Some people have asked why we haven't placed the standard into the public domain allowing unlimited use? Because, for the time being, we want to make sure that people don't start creating and publishing multiple (and potentially incompatible) versions of the standard. We believe that the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs License offers the best compromise between openness and control. Once the standard has stabilized, and depending on feedback from the user community, we'll re-examine the form of license and decide whether to change it for future versions.

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CC-GNU GPLThe Reference LMS

The Reference LMS is released under the terms of the CC-GNU GPL which grants you the following:

  • The freedom to run the program for any purpose.
  • The freedom to study how the program works and adapt it to your needs.
  • The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.
  • The freedom to improve the program and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits.
You can exercise these freedoms provided that you comply with the express conditions of the CC-GNU GPL license. For details of the CC-GNU GPL license, please refer to www.creativecommons.org/licenses/GPL/2.0

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CC-GNU LGPLThe Development Stubs

The Development Stubs are released under the terms of the CC-GNU LGPL - a license intended for software libraries, rather than executable programs. The LGPL license allows you the same four freedoms as the GPL (see above) but differs from it in some of the conditions that you must comply with. For details of the CC-GNU LGPL license, please refer to www.creativecommons.org/licenses/LGPL/2.1

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Creative Commons LicenseDemo Courses

Unless otherwise stated, we use a Creative Commons license for the demo courses on this website - the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License. This allows you:

  • to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work
  • to make derivative works
under the following conditions:
  • You must attribute the work by including the following text:

    Copyright © Addison Robson LLC - Used with permission of the copyright holder
    under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.
  • You may not use this work for commercial purposes.

  • If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a license identical to this one.
As usual, any of these conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder (Addison Robson LLC).

For more details of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License including the full text of the agreement, please consult the www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5

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A Note for Courseware Developers

It's not the intention of the LM-Light developers to impose any particular licensing system on developers of courseware that uses the LM-Light standard - you're free to develop courses to give away, offer courses for sale, place courses in the public domain … and anything in-between.

However, if you do develop courses that would be valuable to the general public, we'd encourage you to consider releasing them under a Creative Commons license. And, if you'd like to have them listed on this website, please let us know.

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A Note for LMS Developers

There's no intention to impose any particular licensing system on developers of Learning Management Systems (LMS) that use the LM-Light standard.

However, if you're basing your development on the code released as part of the Reference LMS, please note the restrictions that are implied by the CC-GNU GPL. For details of the CC-GNU GPL license, please refer to www.creativecommons.org/licenses/GPL/2.0.

If you'd like to have your LMS listed on the LM-Light website, please let us know.

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Copyright & Licensing Information
Unless otherwise stated, material in this website is Copyright, Addison Robson LLC. Use of the website content for commercial and non-commercial purposes is permitted under Creative Commons licenses. For more information, please consult [this page] or use [this form] to contact us.
Creative Commons License