Mailing List Archive

On Sun, Nov 27, 2011 at 05:41:37PM +0000, Sven Vermeulen wrote:
> Hi guys,
>
> With http://wiki.gentoo.org having their documents as CC-BY-SA 3.0, I
> thought it might be a good idea to work this out for our documents as well.
> That would allow us to "tech-write" stuff that is on the wiki properly, but
> also use the newer (and recommended) version.
>
> Of course, that won't be done by just making <license /> refer to the 3.0 as
> that will break our documents (legally, that is). Instead, I was considering
> to add @version support to the license entity (in dtd and xsl), update the
> supporting documents (xml-guide and the like) so that this can be done less
> intrusively.
>
> In other words, support "<license version='3.0' />" for documents that need
> to be CC-BY-SA 3.0, or for new documents.
>
> What's your take on this?
>
> Wkr,
> Sven Vermeulen
>

I'm for it, but what's keeping the docs team from just bumping the license
version?

According to the Gentoo Linux Documentation Project's (GLDP) policy [1], I
do not have a say in the matter regarding which license the document I
wrote is published under. This tells me that it's at the will of the GLDP
whether or not to republish the document under a new license, essentially
being just pointing `<license />' to the new text.

Which is all fine by me because the document I did write was done under
the auspices of Gentoo. Meaning I assumed that once GLDP accepted my
contribution, it then owns the documentation I contributed.

--
Mr. Aaron W. Swenson
Gentoo Linux
Developer, Proxy Committer
Email : titanofold@gentoo.org
GnuPG FP : 2C00 7719 4F85 FB07 A49C 0E31 5713 AA03 D1BB FDA0
GnuPG ID : D1BBFDA0

Footnotes:
[1] http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/gdp/doc/doc-policy.xml#doc_chap3

On Sun, Nov 27, 2011 at 05:41:37PM +0000, Sven Vermeulen wrote:
> Hi guys,
>
> With http://wiki.gentoo.org having their documents as CC-BY-SA 3.0, I
> thought it might be a good idea to work this out for our documents as well.
> That would allow us to "tech-write" stuff that is on the wiki properly, but
> also use the newer (and recommended) version.
>
> Of course, that won't be done by just making <license /> refer to the 3.0 as
> that will break our documents (legally, that is). Instead, I was considering
> to add @version support to the license entity (in dtd and xsl), update the
> supporting documents (xml-guide and the like) so that this can be done less
> intrusively.
>
> In other words, support "<license version='3.0' />" for documents that need
> to be CC-BY-SA 3.0, or for new documents.
>
> What's your take on this?
>
> Wkr,
> Sven Vermeulen
>

I'm for it, but what's keeping the docs team from just bumping the license
version?

According to the Gentoo Linux Documentation Project's (GLDP) policy [1], I
do not have a say in the matter regarding which license the document I
wrote is published under. This tells me that it's at the will of the GLDP
whether or not to republish the document under a new license, essentially
being just pointing `<license />' to the new text.

Which is all fine by me because the document I did write was done under
the auspices of Gentoo. Meaning I assumed that once GLDP accepted my
contribution, it then owns the documentation I contributed.

--
Mr. Aaron W. Swenson
Gentoo Linux
Developer, Proxy Committer
Email : titanofold@gentoo.org
GnuPG FP : 2C00 7719 4F85 FB07 A49C 0E31 5713 AA03 D1BB FDA0
GnuPG ID : D1BBFDA0

Footnotes:
[1] http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/gdp/doc/doc-policy.xml#doc_chap3

On Sun, Nov 27, 2011 at 10:11:28PM -0500, Mr. Aaron W. Swenson wrote:
> I'm for it, but what's keeping the docs team from just bumping the license
> version?
>
> According to the Gentoo Linux Documentation Project's (GLDP) policy [1], I
> do not have a say in the matter regarding which license the document I
> wrote is published under. This tells me that it's at the will of the GLDP
> whether or not to republish the document under a new license, essentially
> being just pointing `<license />' to the new text.
>
> Which is all fine by me because the document I did write was done under
> the auspices of Gentoo. Meaning I assumed that once GLDP accepted my
> contribution, it then owns the documentation I contributed.

I don't think that's true. As far as I know (I knew European and Belgian law
some time ago, but not using that knowledge clouds it a bit ;-) copyright
has not been transferred as long as this isn't done through a contract of
any kind. There were talks of asking developers to sign such a document, but
afaik this has never been implemented completely (although I know of a few
ebuild developers that did).

What we do is publish documents as allowed under its license, which is
CC-BY-SA 2.5. We are not allowed to change the license, unless the authors
of the document agree.

We *could* ask for all contributors to inform us if they allow their
documents to be licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0 but that would be a nightmare to
manage I think.

Supporting <license version="3.0" /> seems like a simple solution to this.

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen

On Sun, Nov 27, 2011 at 05:41:37PM +0000, Sven Vermeulen wrote:
> Hi guys,

> ...
> In other words, support "<license version='3.0' />" for documents that need
> to be CC-BY-SA 3.0, or for new documents.
>
> What's your take on this?
>

I think this is a good approach to manage the upgrade to 3.0 version.

Cheers!

--
Chema Alonso (nimiux)

Chema Alonso posted on Mon, 28 Nov 2011 21:21:24 +0100 as excerpted:

> On Sun, Nov 27, 2011 at 05:41:37PM +0000, Sven Vermeulen wrote:

>> In other words, support "<license version='3.0' />" for documents that
>> need to be CC-BY-SA 3.0, or for new documents.
>>
>> What's your take on this?
>>
> I think this is a good approach to manage the upgrade to 3.0 version.

What about a mechanism (in-doc comments or the like) that would allow
existing authors to indicate that they're OK (or not) with a future
upgrade to CC-BY-SA 3.0?

If authors on existing docs were encouraged to take advantage of such a
feature/policy as opportunity invited, it'd lessen the work to eventually
upgrade at least some existing docs, as well, tho it wouldn't help that
much for those no longer involved, who would in any case need to be
contacted manually before such an update. But it would at least stop the
problem from getting worse, and would incrementally ease the work
necessary if someone eventually decided to actively try for an update.

--
Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman

On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 01:11:41AM +0000, Duncan wrote:
> What about a mechanism (in-doc comments or the like) that would allow
> existing authors to indicate that they're OK (or not) with a future
> upgrade to CC-BY-SA 3.0?

Something akin to GPL's "or later" clause? Perhaps.

> If authors on existing docs were encouraged to take advantage of such a
> feature/policy as opportunity invited, it'd lessen the work to eventually
> upgrade at least some existing docs, as well, tho it wouldn't help that
> much for those no longer involved, who would in any case need to be
> contacted manually before such an update. But it would at least stop the
> problem from getting worse, and would incrementally ease the work
> necessary if someone eventually decided to actively try for an update.

I don't consider this as a "problem" per se, so I don't think we need to put
much effort in these things. Licenses evolve; documents too. Eventually,
old(er) documents will be replaced with newer ones anyhow. And it is not
that the 2.5 license has a major issue for us - it's just that 3.0 is
somewhat newer and used on the wiki.

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen

On 11/29/11 08:01, Sven Vermeulen wrote:

> I don't consider this as a "problem" per se, so I don't think we need to put
> much effort in these things. Licenses evolve; documents too. Eventually,
> old(er) documents will be replaced with newer ones anyhow. And it is not
> that the 2.5 license has a major issue for us - it's just that 3.0 is
> somewhat newer and used on the wiki.

This issue is even simpler than that. Just assume the authors (owners?)
are not going to say anything. If one or 2 do, resolve the issue
individually, or pull the doc. After all, when was the last time
there was an issue of this sort?

jmo,
James

On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 10:19:58AM -0500, wireless wrote:
> This issue is even simpler than that. Just assume the authors (owners?)
> are not going to say anything. If one or 2 do, resolve the issue
> individually, or pull the doc. After all, when was the last time
> there was an issue of this sort?

Sadly "law & regulations" don't work this way... or perhaps good that it
doesn't work this way. Depends on your point-of-view.

Anyway, from the looks of it, I guess the version attribute is generally
accepted so we can at least start with that. Eventual follow-up actions can
then be checked later if the need arises.

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen

On Sun, 27 Nov 2011 17:41:37 +0000
Sven Vermeulen <swift@gentoo.org> wrote:

> Hi
> guys,
> With http://wiki.gentoo.org having their documents as CC-BY-SA 3.0,
> I thought it might be a good idea to work this out for our
> documents as well. That would allow us to "tech-write" stuff that
> is on the wiki properly, but also use the newer (and recommended)
> version.
> Of course, that won't be done by just making <license /> refer to
> the 3.0 as that will break our documents (legally, that is).
> Instead, I was considering to add @version support to the license
> entity (in dtd and xsl), update the supporting documents (xml-guide
> and the like) so that this can be done less
> intrusively.
> In other words, support "<license version='3.0' />" for documents
> that need to be CC-BY-SA 3.0, or for new
> documents.
> What's your take on
> this?

i should weigh in on this:

sure, go ahead and add the version attribute. only issue i can see is
that we'll have a ton of different licenses in play over time, which
will lead to the same problem we have now between the wiki and /doc/,
except that the potential conflicts will all be in /doc/, between our
own documents.

as long as future docs are copyrighted to the gentoo foundation or
something, relicensing to use the latest version of CC shouldn't be
much of a problem. though i really hate the idea of blanket
relicensing in general, having seen all the issues that's caused for
gentoo-wiki.com over the years.

we might want to think about something like the "or later" clause in
recent GPL versions, just to be able to keep up with the changes in
Creative Commons. although "or later" doesn't cover switching to a
completely different license, should that become necessary.

wireless posted on Tue, 29 Nov 2011 10:19:58 -0500 as excerpted:

> On 11/29/11 08:01, Sven Vermeulen wrote:
>
>> I don't consider this as a "problem" per se, so I don't think we need
>> to put much effort in these things. Licenses evolve; documents too.
>> Eventually, old(er) documents will be replaced with newer ones anyhow.
>> And it is not that the 2.5 license has a major issue for us - it's just
>> that 3.0 is somewhat newer and used on the wiki.
>
> This issue is even simpler than that. Just assume the authors (owners?)
> are not going to say anything. If one or 2 do, resolve the issue
> individually, or pull the doc. After all, when was the last time there
> was an issue of this sort?

Adding to swift/SV's reply, as he said, the laws don't work like that,
and we /really/ don't want to go there, even if we /might/ /arguably/ be
able to get away with it for some or all of the docs.

And addressing the "last time there was an issue of this sort" question,
there was a bit (well, potentially more than a bit, but it was resolved
before it went nuclear) of a hubbub around a document with some major
work by a former dev, some years ago. In that case, it was simply that
he had been taken out of the "authors" list at the top/side, while still
credited in a footnote along with all the other contributors, the
reasoning behind the action being that for layout reasons, it made more
sense to put the current primary contact up at the top, with the rest of
the contributors still acknowledged but that acknowledgment moved
elsewhere.

I believe the issue was resolved by essentially reverting the change.

But given the hubbub that caused when it was simply moving a name
around... no, we don't want to TOUCH the whole license change without
explicit permission thing, and I'd argue, rightly so. As ESR pointed out
quite effectively in his cathedral and the bazaar series of essays and
book, the FLOSS community functions as a meritocratic gifting society,
with the primary currency being respect based on acknowledge
contributions to the community, and anything that messes with that
acknowledgment and respect is, in effect, either robbery or community
currency manipulation. For some people, therefore, changing such things
without direct permission is akin to robbing them at gunpoint, not a
small matter, indeed, and even if you believe the ESR stuff is all a
bunch of hooey, recognizing the value some others in the community place
on it can in practice save quite some community controversy at best, or
ultimately, legal trouble if it goes nuclear!

(I deliberately avoided names and explicit detail as it's long settled
now tho the issue remains a sensitive one for some, so no need to drag
out the details, but they're available in the gentoo list archives.
Additionally, the historic details aren't apropos for current list
discussion, so please take anything further on that line offlist.)

--
Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman