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step-by-step for adding license notes #11355

@eshellman

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@eshellman
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#11260 proposed adding licence notations.
#11269 gave an example, passing the linter tests.

We are now requesting PRs to add this info to our repo!

In preparation for beginning to accept PR's which add licenses, This issue proposes a step-by-step workflow to make clear how these are to be added.

  1. Select an item, preferably a book. (I found a bunch by searching merged PRs for "Creative Commons")
  2. Access the book, and look for a license statement. For example, in the book added in Update free-programming-books-langs.md with "Computational and Inferential Thinking" #9010 the contributor found the text:
"The contents of this book are licensed for free consumption under the following license: 

 [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)."
  1. We're ignoring license variants, so the text to be added to our listing should be (CC BY-NC-ND) (note the leading space) At this time we are NOT accepting notations for licenses other than Creative Commons (CC) and the Gnu Free Documentation License (GFDL).
  2. For each item you're adding a license to, write a sentence in your PR about where you found the license statement.
  3. Don't add license notes for more than one section at at time, and it's ok to do one item for a PR. If you add more than 5 license additions at a time, it will discourage PR reviewers from checking the PR.

Comments, questions and test PRs welcome!

Activity

manvith12

manvith12 commented on Oct 10, 2024

@manvith12
Contributor

hey! , i was working on this.
i found a few books where no copyright was mentioned any idea what to do about them?
for example : a beginners guide to matlab

9 remaining items

eshellman

eshellman commented on Oct 22, 2024

@eshellman
CollaboratorAuthor

The reason we are not accepting GPL, LGPL or AGPL license notations is that they are inappropriate for textual works that are not software. BSD, Mozilla, and MIT licenses have similar problems and don't have standard abbreviations.

AkshayTiwari27

AkshayTiwari27 commented on Oct 22, 2024

@AkshayTiwari27
Contributor

@eshellman can you please mention the name of acceptable licences.

eshellman

eshellman commented on Oct 22, 2024

@eshellman
CollaboratorAuthor

have added comments in #11315. Sorry for the confusion. I thought it had been specified there.

dhirajchaurasiya

dhirajchaurasiya commented on Oct 23, 2024

@dhirajchaurasiya
Contributor

@eshellman I have added few license notes to Machine Learning books. Please do check and share your review.
Thanks.

Enemuo1

Enemuo1 commented on Apr 9, 2025

@Enemuo1
Contributor

Hello, I would like to contribute as well. Is the opportunity still available?

eshellman

eshellman commented on Apr 10, 2025

@eshellman
CollaboratorAuthor

PRs are always welcome, but please follow instructions

WassCodeur

WassCodeur commented on Jun 18, 2025

@WassCodeur

Hello

My name is Wachiou (pronounced Wasiu in English), I am a backend developer and open source contributor. I have participated in several open source initiatives such as Google Summer of Code 2024 under the auspices of the Python Software Foundation.

I am passionate about free access to knowledge, especially in disadvantaged communities. That's why this issue is particularly close to my heart: adding information about licences helps ensure that resources remain free and clearly usable by everyone.

I would be delighted to contribute by helping to document the licences for these excellent books. I already know how to work with PRs and I carefully follow the contribution guidelines. I look forward to helping you!

Thank you for this opportunity.

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        step-by-step for adding license notes · Issue #11355 · EbookFoundation/free-programming-books