Derek commented, in reference to his Galatians project, “So open source it will be… even if it is KJV.”
I’m not sure if he meant that he’d have to use the King James Version because it is in the public domain, or if he intends to release his work into the public domain (probably the former) but there are licensing options that come between the full ownership rights that come with copyright and releasing an item into the public domain. While I believe the sources of faith should be the common property of the faith members of a communion — which amounts to the public domain, unless it is a very small communion — the particular works of individuals needn’t be. But it might be useful — and a good way to establish a reputation — to give some of the work away.
Creative Commons has some licensing options that work; these are well known to regular blog readers as a number of bloggers have entered their thoughts into a “copyleft” situation this way.
Hard-core contributors “share and share alike” have adoped and adapted the GNU Public License — founded for free and open-source software — for written works.
Yes, I’m thinking about what kind of licensing to adopt; right now I claim copyright.
– To clarify things, if I publish my study notes on Galatians, I will need to publish with KJV text. The holders of the NRSV copyright do not allow reprints of their translation, which amount to an entire book of the Bible.
As far as my own stuff goes, my only unique contributions will be the study questions. Everything else is text from Galatians, and comments by other Unitarians and/or Universalists.