From: Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net>
To: gentoo-doc@lists.gentoo.org
Subject: [gentoo-doc] Re: Supporting CC-BY-SA 3.0 and later versions
Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2011 02:19:13 +0000 (UTC) [thread overview]
Message-ID: <pan.2011.11.30.02.19.12@cox.net> (raw)
In-Reply-To: 4ED4F81E.1040105@tampabay.rr.com
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
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2011-11-30 2:20 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 10+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2011-11-27 17:41 [gentoo-doc] Supporting CC-BY-SA 3.0 and later versions Sven Vermeulen
2011-11-28 3:11 ` Mr. Aaron W. Swenson
2011-11-28 18:05 ` Sven Vermeulen
2011-11-28 20:21 ` Chema Alonso
2011-11-29 1:11 ` [gentoo-doc] " Duncan
2011-11-29 13:01 ` Sven Vermeulen
2011-11-29 15:19 ` wireless
2011-11-29 15:39 ` Sven Vermeulen
2011-11-30 2:19 ` Duncan [this message]
2011-11-29 21:00 ` [gentoo-doc] " Joshua Saddler
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