Documentation wiki: license requirement?

[Andre Schnabel]

Hi Louis,

Louis Suarez-Potts schrieb:
> That seems good to me, too...  But I'd rather not allow for even the
> possibility of proprietary licenses on the wiki, which the wording
> suggested seems to permit, as does our current wording. Ie, I want
> open licenses.

whatever is meant by proprietary licenses regarding documentation ...
the most proprietary license is no license at al, as this will imply
copyright (the current situation).

>
> Thus,
>
> "Content posted after [date] is Public Domain except where otherwise
> noted, in which case copyright holders may use the Public Document
> License (PDL), as noted in the License page of OpenOffice.org,
> http://www.openoffice.org/license.html. (Residents of countries that
> do not accept the provisions of the PDL may use an equivalent license,
> though we ask that you check with the Community Council beforehand.)
> Content posted prior to the date above is copyrighted Sun Microsystems
> and the contributing authors."
>>
>> When can this be put into place?
>
> If the people here agree with the above (not sure of the clause
> excepting the PDL and how much bureaucracy that would create, nor if
> such "checking" is needed; I have in mind the creation of a list of
> licenses that can be used by countries that can't use the PDL), then
> the CC could vote this week.

I agree as long as:
- "may use" does not exclude other free licenses (e.g. Creative commons)
I'd rather have the proposed  list of "favorite" licenses - but this may
be the next step.
- we add this notice to the edit pages (these currently have a notice
that content can be changed by any wiki member and that you must not
submit content without original authors permission)

André
-

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[Jonathon Blake]

Doug wrote:

> * My opinion: the OOo wiki is a public domain forum.  I couldn't care

The major problems with claiming public domain are:
* Several major countries do not recognize the concept;
* For countries that do recognize "Public Domain", putting material in
the public domain from the date of creation is non-trivial.  A simple
declaration does not suffice.
* It is entirely possible that court rulings or Legislation will
convert material in the public domain, to material that is copyright,
with ARR status. [There are two US Court Cases that did this, in
addition to when the US Congress did this.  There is no reason to
believe that other countries won't act in a similar manner.]

> Why should it be the responsibility of a mostly volunteer project to protect the ignorati from themselves?

It is a case of the organization protecting itself from potential
legal damage. It has nothing to do with protecting the ignorati from
themselves.

> * Anyone who feels their material is too sacred to place in the public
> domain is free to publish anywhere else they would like.

That legally requires the wiki to be forked.  One wiki for people who
are domiciled in countries that do not recognize "public domain", and
one wiki for people whose domicile does recognize "public domain".
And maybe a third if a country follows the route of the US, and
retroactively places material that was in the Public Domain into ARR
Copyright status.

Louis wrote:

>So, I'd be happy with posting something like, "Content posted after
[date] is licensed in accordance with OpenOffice.org's license
policy, which can be found at http://www.openoffice.org/
license.html.  Content posted prior to this date is copyrighted Sun
Microsystems and the contributing authors."

The problem with that, is trying to figure out when the content was added.
Looking at history helps, but only if one looks at everything since
the article was initially written.  [Material that looks "original" on
1 June 2007, might have been deleted in March 2006, and originally
written in January 2005.]

##########

For Drew, Louis,etc:

My suggestion would be:
* Close down the wiki for a couple of weeks;
* Add a script that requires a specific licence (or one of a set of
licences) to be used for all material submitted;
* Delete all existing content from the wiki;
* Open the wiki;
* Invite the FAQ writers to recreate the material from scratch;

Initially, it will result in a significant decrease in the number of
FAQs.  However, it will clear up the licensing issue.  It should also
ensure that the information is applicable for current (2.0)  versions
of OOo.

xan

jonathon

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[Andre Schnabel]

Hi Jonathon,


Jonathon Blake schrieb:

> For Drew, Louis,etc:
>
> My suggestion would be:
> * Close down the wiki for a couple of weeks;
> * Add a script that requires a specific licence (or one of a set of
> licences) to be used for all material submitted;
> * Delete all existing content from the wiki;
> * Open the wiki;
> * Invite the FAQ writers to recreate the material from scratch;
>
> Initially, it will result in a significant decrease in the number of
> FAQs.  However, it will clear up the licensing issue.  It should also
> ensure that the information is applicable for current (2.0)  versions
> of OOo.

If this is the only way, I'd rather live with the non-perfect situation
and discuss about licensing issues from time to time.

There is a lot more at the wiki than FAQ. There are some extremely
usefull pages for new project members that have been written with the
idea of PD. But it would be hard to contact some of the authors :-(


Andé

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[luispo]

Hi André,


On 2007-04-04, at 13:23 , Andre Schnabel wrote:

>>

<snip>

>> Thus,
>>
>> "Content posted after [date] is Public Domain except where  
>> otherwise noted, in which case copyright holders may use the  
>> Public Document License (PDL), as noted in the License page of  
>> OpenOffice.org, http://www.openoffice.org/license.html. (Residents  
>> of countries that do not accept the provisions of the PDL may use  
>> an equivalent license, though we ask that you check with the  
>> Community Council beforehand.) Content posted prior to the date  
>> above is copyrighted Sun Microsystems and the contributing authors."
>>>
>>> When can this be put into place?
>>
>> If the people here agree with the above (not sure of the clause  
>> excepting the PDL and how much bureaucracy that would create, nor  
>> if such "checking" is needed; I have in mind the creation of a  
>> list of licenses that can be used by countries that can't use the  
>> PDL), then the CC could vote this week.
>
> I agree as long as:
> - "may use" does not exclude other free licenses (e.g. Creative  
> commons) I'd rather have the proposed  list of "favorite" licenses  
> - but this may be the next step.

Using other free licenses shouldn't be a problem, but the language  
should then be changed to,

"...holders may use the Public Document License (PDL), as noted in  
the License page of OpenOffice.org, http://www.openoffice.org/ 
license.html, or equivalent free license, as listed on that page. To  
use a license that depart from the recommended, please first contact  
the Community Council <license@...>."

We don't need, then, the other clause (about inability to use the  
PDL).  I'd also like to start with a list of favourite licenses and  
we could probably just list the relevant Creative Commons (editable)  
license as a start and then add more as needed.

We would then need to: slightly edit license.html to include CC  
(editable; not sure which atm).

> - we add this notice to the edit pages (these currently have a  
> notice that content can be changed by any wiki member and that you  
> must not submit content without original authors permission)

If that's feasible, that's fine by me, and even better than having it  
just on the footer.


>
> André

If the above is satisfactory, then I can post this proposal to the CC  
list (discuss@council) and ask for an email discussion and vote as  
soon as possible. It occurs to me that the spring/autumn holiday has  
already begun, so there may be zero action for a few days.

best
louis


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[luispo]

Hi,

On 2007-04-04, at 14:10 , Andre Schnabel wrote:

> Hi Jonathon,
>
>
> Jonathon Blake schrieb:
>> For Drew, Louis,etc:
>>
>> My suggestion would be:
>> * Close down the wiki for a couple of weeks;
>> * Add a script that requires a specific licence (or one of a set of
>> licences) to be used for all material submitted;
>> * Delete all existing content from the wiki;
>> * Open the wiki;
>> * Invite the FAQ writers to recreate the material from scratch;
>>
>> Initially, it will result in a significant decrease in the number of
>> FAQs.  However, it will clear up the licensing issue.  It should also
>> ensure that the information is applicable for current (2.0)  versions
>> of OOo.
>
> If this is the only way, I'd rather live with the non-perfect  
> situation and discuss about licensing issues from time to time.
>
> There is a lot more at the wiki than FAQ. There are some extremely  
> usefull pages for new project members that have been written with  
> the idea of PD. But it would be hard to contact some of the  
> authors :-(

I have to agree with André.


best,
louis
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[Jonathon Blake]

Andre wrote:

> > Initially, it will result in a significant decrease in the number of
> > FAQs.  However, it will clear up the licensing issue.  It should also
> > ensure that the information is applicable for current (2.0)  versions
> > of OOo.
> If this is the only way, I'd rather live with the non-perfect situation
> and discuss about licensing issues from time to time.

It doesn't matter what solution is adopted, there will be problems
related to the licence that the material is distributed under.   One
licence ---especially if it is a well understood one --- makes usage
of the material much easier for third parties. (Personally, I'd
suggest CC-BY-SA 3.0 --- The non-localized version of 3.0  --- with
"attribution" being defined as the wiki.

> There is a lot more at the wiki than FAQ. There are some extremely

I should have phrased that as "invite all prior contributors to
restart their contributions to the wiki".

> idea of PD. But it would be hard to contact some of the authors :-(

Appoint somebody to contact all authors, and for those who either can
not be contacted, or who decline to allow their material to be
relicensed, make a non-public archive of the affected pages. Depending
upon the number of pages thus affected, have two or three people
rewrite those articles from scratch.

#######

On a personal note, I'm waiting for the wiki licence issue to be
resolved, before submitting anything there. [I've got half a dozen
how-to articles on my computer.]

xan

jonathon

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[Jean Hollis Weber-3]

Frank Peters wrote:

> Louis Suarez-Potts wrote:
>> Frank Peters wrote:
>>> I would second Andre in allowing wiki pages to specify a license
>>> and have a default license for pages that do not specify the their
>>> license.
>>
>> That seems good to me, too...  But I'd rather not allow for even the
>> possibility of proprietary licenses on the wiki, which the wording
>> suggested seems to permit, as does our current wording. Ie, I want
>> open licenses.
>
> There is some stuff in, I think, Creative Commons licenses that
> Jean would like to put on the wiki. Jean?

OOoAuthors work is currently licensed under CC-BY 2.5 or later
(we'll be progressively updating this to say 3.0 or later).

To allow for the possibility of this material being placed on the
wiki with minimal fuss, I request the Community Council to
approve this as an acceptable license for the wiki, at the same
time as they vote on the wording of the licensing proposal for
the wiki.

Louis, I can send this as a separate CC agenda item if you wish.

--Jean

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[Jean Hollis Weber-3]

G. Roderick Singleton wrote:
> Search just plain sucks. See
> http://qa.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=52046
>
> In spite of the open issue, nothing has improved.

Search on the main OOo website definitely sucks. Even if it
worked well (which it doesn't) for the HTML pages on the site, I
don't think it searces for text inside PDFs or ODTs, which is the
search that would most help users. To me, the main advantage of
search on a wiki is that it searches for text inside the wiki pages.

Is search as bad on the OOo wiki as on the website? I don't think
so, but I confess I haven't searched the OOo wiki much. If the
wiki search is better, then that's another good reason for
putting end-user material (and links to end-user material
elsewhere) on the wiki.

--Jean

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[luispo]

Hi,
On 2007-04-04, at 17:02 , Jean Hollis Weber wrote:

> Frank Peters wrote:
>> Louis Suarez-Potts wrote:
>>> Frank Peters wrote:
>>>> I would second Andre in allowing wiki pages to specify a license
>>>> and have a default license for pages that do not specify the their
>>>> license.
>>>
>>> That seems good to me, too...  But I'd rather not allow for even  
>>> the possibility of proprietary licenses on the wiki, which the  
>>> wording suggested seems to permit, as does our current wording.  
>>> Ie, I want open licenses.
>> There is some stuff in, I think, Creative Commons licenses that
>> Jean would like to put on the wiki. Jean?
>
> OOoAuthors work is currently licensed under CC-BY 2.5 or later  
> (we'll be progressively updating this to say 3.0 or later).

I was thinking of that license, too.

>
> To allow for the possibility of this material being placed on the  
> wiki with minimal fuss, I request the Community Council to approve  
> this as an acceptable license for the wiki, at the same time as  
> they vote on the wording of the licensing proposal for the wiki.
>
> Louis, I can send this as a separate CC agenda item if you wish.

Could you? Thanks.

>
> --Jean

Best,

Louis

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[Jean Hollis Weber-3]

Louis Suarez-Potts wrote:

> Jean Hollis Weber wrote:
>> OOoAuthors work is currently licensed under CC-BY 2.5 or later (we'll
>> be progressively updating this to say 3.0 or later).
>
> I was thinking of that license, too.
>
>> To allow for the possibility of this material being placed on the wiki
>> with minimal fuss, I request the Community Council to approve this as
>> an acceptable license for the wiki, at the same time as they vote on
>> the wording of the licensing proposal for the wiki.
>>
>> Louis, I can send this as a separate CC agenda item if you wish.
>
> Could you? Thanks.

Done.
Regards, Jean

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