Posted by: Dhammañāṇa
« on: November 19, 2013, 09:48:00 PM »Quote
Betreff: Re: Legal and official clearance sale of the Tipitaka
Datum: 2013-11-19 15:39
Absender: Johann Brucker <johann.brucker [ at ]sangham.net>
Empfänger: thomas [ at ] crisman.com
Dear valued Thomas Crisman,
I am sure that you have a lot of work and worries after the passing away of our high valued Sir Goenka and I wish you and the whole team of the VRI much faith and effort to keep confidence also alive in times where it seems that no support and interest are available by others.
As wished and promised to inform you about the issues of the Oxford Organisation, I sadly have to inform you that it seems that you positive wishes have not come true.
They have (they live from selling teaching, one thing we should know if we talk about scholars) put their translation work, based on the VRI Tipitaka under the Creative Commons CC0 License and honestly I don't have any optimistic thought in regard of their views and volition. We need to be aware that "Monks" are also deep involved and they too have fallen into such ways of livelihood.
The only thing I can suggest you, if you have the possibilities, is to do all possible that (I would say one of the last heritage of the noble Sangha) will not be lost for future generations. As soon as the Buddhas teachings are no more property/heritage of the noble Sangha, taken away from worldly people without faith and respect, their purpose as well as their possibilities in this world are done.
I trust that you make a wise decision and I trust that you will have support by wise people as well. How ever, there should be nothing more important than the own virtue and even such should at least not lead to overstep moral.
If it is like that, then we have to live with it as well, and most important to leave.
I too will try to find people who understand the issue, but as corruption in our days is the usual standard, it will not be easy but how ever there should be a try.
metta & mudita
JohannQuoteAm 2013-05-12 16:46, schrieb Thomas Crisman:
Hello Johann:
Regarding the potential commercial use of the text of the VRI Pali Tipitaka or any derivitive works produced thereby, I have made it crystal clear to the Oxford organization that such will not be permitted by VRI under any circumstances. They have now proposed that they will not place their work under the GNU license agreement but rather place their Wiki under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0,
a license agreement that absolutely guarantees that while attribution of changes to the text must be made for any reuse, none of the material incorporating any part of the VRI text can ever be used in any commercial way. I think that this would be acceptable to VRI.
Regarding their plan to allow people who interested in the words of the Buddha as found in the Tiptiaka to propose different translations or puncuation, etc. I don't know that VRI would object to such scholarly efforts as long as there is a clear notice that VRI does not subscribe to or condone any other textual changes or translations other than that which its own scholars have provided in the original text.
Regarding whether they have the "right view" or attitude in their project, perhaps people sometime come to the right view by trying different things and slowly realizing that they are on the wrong path. I don't know that there is any way we can really justifying not allowing them to provide further access to the words of the buddha based upon their attitude or volition, short of something like at attempt at commercialization.
I trust that this change in the proposed license agreement to be used by Oxford under their Wiki satisfies your major objections to VRI allowing them access to its Pali Tipitaka text.
With All Metta,
Thomsa
Quote from: Answer on mail Thomas Crisman, per email Sat, 11 May 2013To: thomas [at] crisman.com
Subject: Re: Legal and official clearance sale of the Tipitaka
Date sent: Sun, 12 May 2013 07:35:53 +0200
From: Johann Brucker <johann.brucker [at] sangham.net>
Copies to: help [at] tipitaka.org, info [at] vridhamma.org
Valued Thomas Crisman,
it is very good to hear such. I just like to add that this license allows even the legal change of the content of texts which are provided under this license and as the text are copied and used in this undertaking already they are subjectively already under this license and such needs to be made reversed.
In the context of the GNU license everybody would be not only able to sell it but also to modify as he wishes. And that includes in this case the quoted/copied and usedp ali texts of the Chaha Sagayana as well.
As my general impression is that those people do not have basic right view and basic devotion and gratitude, I would recommend you to use the support of a wise advocate if you think that it is useful and good to make this work useable in such an very worldly environment and pretentious "anonymous" and "occupy" movement.
Please do not regard my advices as authoritarian but as a well meant advice and there is really nothing to criticize if devotion, gratitude and basic right view with its right intention is leading to good and broader work. It would be good if as much people as possible would be able to participate in such undertakings if the objectives (which should be not for and worldly gain) are clear adjusted. But if people are not willing to accept the basic moral of the Buddhas teaching, he would not even had taught them anything further.
Yours respectfully
metta
Johann Brucker