Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?

[Sam Kuper]

On 03/04/2017, Sam Kuper  wrote:
> On 03/04/2017, ron minnich  wrote:
>> Could we, please, agree on what the question is; write the question; and
>> ask a lawyer, preferably someone involved in the CC license creation in
>> the first place? All this interpretation of legalese by coders is bound to
>> end badly.

Having re-read the emails from Nico Huber and from David Hendricks in
this thread, and having also re-read the relevant parts of the FAQ, I
now agree with Nico and David about how to interpret CC BY.

Even so, I remain in favour of CC BY-SA 3.0 over CC BY, in order to
achieve license compatibility with Wikipedia, Stack Exchange, OpenZFS,
and various other wikis and technical documentation projects that
might want to include content from the coreboot wiki or vice versa.

> Here is the email I sent to Creative Commons. It is imperfect, but I
> hope will be good enough. [...]

Mari from Creative Commons replied to me, offering to check with the
Creative Commons legal team whether CC BY 3.0 gives an adapter
permission to apply a different license to the work as a whole (as I
formerly thought) rather than just to the adapter's contribution (as
David and Nico believe).

Because there now seems to be unanimity within the mailing list on how
to interpret CC BY, getting a lawyer's opinion may be superfluous.
However, I would be happy to accept Mari's offer if you or other core
coreboot contributors would like me to.

Best regards

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Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?

[ron minnich]

Could we, please, agree on what the question is; write the question; and
ask a lawyer, preferably someone involved in the CC license creation in the
first place? All this interpretation of legalese by coders is bound to end
badly.

So, first, what's the question? I've gotten lost in all this verbiage. And
please, just the question. I am sure we can state the question in 15 words
or less.


ron
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Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?

[Sam Kuper]

On 03/04/2017, ron minnich  wrote:
> Could we, please, agree on what the question is; write the question; and
> ask a lawyer, preferably someone involved in the CC license creation in the
> first place? All this interpretation of legalese by coders is bound to end
> badly.

Here is the email I sent to Creative Commons. It is imperfect, but I
hope will be good enough.




Dear Creative Commons staff,


The coreboot project is discussing adopting a CC BY or CC BY-SA
license for its wiki content. A question arose about CC BY. Please can
you answer it? (For the source of the confusion, see the postscript to
this email.)

Suppose Alice publishes her work Alpha under CC BY 3.0.

Suppose Bob substantially adapts Alpha into the new work Beta that
bears his personality.

Assuming that wherever Bob publicly performs or distributes Beta, he
notes that it is based on Alpha by Alice that was licensed under CC BY
3.0: **can Bob offer the entire work Beta under CC0**?


Many thanks for your time,

Sam Kuper


P.S. The question seems to hinge on whether the sentence highlighted
with asterisks here in Wikipedia's definition of a derivative work is
correct: a "derivative work is an expressive creation that includes
major copyright-protected elements of an original, previously created
first work (the underlying work). **The derivative work becomes a
second, separate work independent in form from the first.** The
transformation, modification or adaptation of the work must be
substantial and bear its author's personality to be original and thus
protected by copyright." (Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Derivative_work=769964199
.)

It also hinges on how exactly to interpret the yellow box at the
intersection of the "BY" row and the "PD" column in the "Adapter's
license chart" at https://creativecommons.org/faq/ .

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Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?

[Sam Kuper]

Hi David,

Thanks for taking the time to write this. It was very clear.

In the light of your email, and the part of the Creative Commons FAQ
that you quoted, I am questioning my previous position. I will clarify
what it was, in case anyone is interested.



On 02/04/2017, David Hendricks  wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 2, 2017 at 11:05 AM, Sam Kuper  wrote:
> The fundamental disagreement seems to be how an adapter's chosen license
> applies to the original work.

Not quite. I think the disagreement has been about whether the
adapter's chosen license applies to the entire adapted work, or solely
to the adapter's contribution.

In coding terms, I was assuming that the adapter's license applies to
the body of code that results from applying the adapter's patch, but
not necessarily to the patch itself. My understanding was based upon
the text of the licenses, their human-readable summaries, the
"adapter's license chart", and especially the first three sentences of
Wikipedia's article "Derivative work":

A "derivative work is an expressive creation that includes major
copyright-protected elements of an original, previously created first
work (the underlying work). The derivative work becomes a second,
separate work independent in form from the first. The transformation,
modification or adaptation of the work must be substantial and bear
its author's personality to be original and thus protected by
copyright."

(Source: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Derivative_work=769964199
.)

I assumed all three of those sentences were correct. I.e. the
derivative work is a second work that includes elements of the
underlying work, though those elements may have been transformed in
the process of making the derivative work.

I further assumed that the only entities licensable are works, and
that the only two works in the scenario described in those three
sentences were the ones explicitly named as such: the underlying work,
and the derived work.



I now see that there is a third work mentioned, but not explicitly
named as such: the "transformation, modification or adaptation"
itself. In coding terms: the patch. I now also see that you and Nico
were arguing that it is *this* work - the patch - to which the
adapter's license applies.



> Your argument seems to be that when an adapter chooses a license for their
> adaptation that the adaptation's license is applied to the original, i.e.
> the original work is re-licensed under different terms. Correct me if I'm
> wrong in my understanding of your argument.

That isn't quite what I was arguing :)

I did not believe that when an adapter chooses a license for an
adapted work, that this re-licenses the original work.

I believed that an adapter can, unless prevented from doing so by the
underlying work's license, apply a different license to an adapted
work; and that this license would apply to the entirety of the adapted
work.



> The FAQ clarifies the relationship between the license for the original
> work and the license an adapter chooses for their contribution:
> "If I derive or adapt material offered under a Creative Commons license,
> which CC license(s) can I use?
>
> If you make adaptations of material under a CC license (i.e. "remix"), the
> original CC license always applies to the material you are adapting even
> once adapted. The license you may choose for your own contribution (called
> your "adapter's license") depends on which license applies to the original
> material. Recipients of the adaptation must comply with both the CC license
> on the original and your adapter’s license."

Interesting.


> So here's how things would play out in the Alice, Bob and Mallory scenario
> you came up with:
> 1. Alice writes an article, publishes it under BY.
> 2. Bob adapts the article, gives proper attribution to Alice, and decides
> to license his contributions under CC0.
> 3. Mallory adapts Bob's article. Alice's original content is still covered
> by the BY license, so Mallory must give proper attribution to Alice. Bob's
> additions were CC0-licensed and have no such requirement.

(Note that Bob's modifications needn't be additions: they could be
subtractions or other transformations.)

Thank you for spelling this out. Your interpretation does indeed seem
to be consistent with the FAQ, and inconsistent with my previous
understanding as expressed above and in previous emails. I have
written to Creative Commons to seek confirmation, just in case I *was*
correct about the risk posed by CC BY, but it seems I was not.


>> The licenses, the human-readable summaries, and the CC FAQ all seem to
>> me to be consistent with my interpretation.
>
> Mine too ;-)

Indeed :)


> Good discussion, but I suppose it will take somebody with access to a
> lawyer to tell us who is correct, or at least who is more likely to be
> correct (since as you point out it's not really settled until some court
> ruling comes out of it).

I'll report 

Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?

[David Hendricks]

On Sun, Apr 2, 2017 at 11:05 AM, Sam Kuper  wrote:
> So, Creative Commons explicitly acknowledges that an adaptation of a
> CC BY-licensed work can indeed be licensed under CC0 (or, at least,
> that the adapter's contribution to the adaptation can be; which I note
> would be the entire adaptation, in cases such as translations or other
> comprehensive adaptations).
>
> A second derivative in such a case (i.e. an adaptation of the
> CC0-licensed work) can, of course, be licensed however the second
> downstream adaptor wishes, as corroborated by the corresponding solid
> green "PD" row in the table.
>
> (Yes, I know that the FAQ also advises people using one of the yellow
> cells in the adapter's license chart that they "should take additional
> care to mark the adaptation as involving multiple copyrights under
> different terms so that downstream users are aware of their
> obligations to comply with the licenses from all rights holders." But
> a *should* is not a *must*, and as is acknowledged in the previous
> sentence in that FAQ, there is no technical requirement for them to do
> so.)

The fundamental disagreement seems to be how an adapter's chosen license
applies to the original work. As I understand the original work retains its
license for all downstream adapters and recipients whether it's the first,
second, or Nth adaptation. Additions can be licensed under different terms,
but the original material will still be covered by the original license.

Your argument seems to be that when an adapter chooses a license for their
adaptation that the adaptation's license is applied to the original, i.e.
the original work is re-licensed under different terms. Correct me if I'm
wrong in my understanding of your argument.

The FAQ clarifies the relationship between the license for the original
work and the license an adapter chooses for their contribution:
"If I derive or adapt material offered under a Creative Commons license,
which CC license(s) can I use?

If you make adaptations of material under a CC license (i.e. "remix"), the
original CC license always applies to the material you are adapting even
once adapted. The license you may choose for your own contribution (called
your "adapter's license") depends on which license applies to the original
material. Recipients of the adaptation must comply with both the CC license
on the original and your adapter’s license."

So here's how things would play out in the Alice, Bob and Mallory scenario
you came up with:
1. Alice writes an article, publishes it under BY.
2. Bob adapts the article, gives proper attribution to Alice, and decides
to license his contributions under CC0.
3. Mallory adapts Bob's article. Alice's original content is still covered
by the BY license, so Mallory must give proper attribution to Alice. Bob's
additions were CC0-licensed and have no such requirement.


>> Have
>> you ever asked somebody at CC if your interpretation is correct?
>
> The licenses, the human-readable summaries, and the CC FAQ all seem to
> me to be consistent with my interpretation.

Mine too ;-)

Good discussion, but I suppose it will take somebody with access to a
lawyer to tell us who is correct, or at least who is more likely to be
correct (since as you point out it's not really settled until some court
ruling comes out of it).
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Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?

[Sam Kuper]

On 02/04/2017, Nico Huber  wrote:
> As the license doesn't de-
> fine it, I can only assume that copyright applies.

I agree that copyright applies, but AIUI, the rights granted in the
license also apply.

> And copyright doesn't
> magically jump over to a translator, AFAIK.

Agreed.

Anyhow, we're going in circles here. I'll email you off-list to see if
we can agree on a question to submit to Creative Commons (and/or the
Conservancy, if you prefer) in the hope of settling this.

Regards.

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Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?

[Nico Huber]

Hi Sam,

On 02.04.2017 20:05, Sam Kuper wrote:
> So, Creative Commons explicitly acknowledges that an adaptation of a
> CC BY-licensed work can indeed be licensed under CC0 (or, at least,
> that the adapter's contribution to the adaptation can be; which I note
> would be the entire adaptation, in cases such as translations or other
> comprehensive adaptations).

you did it again - writing thousands of words with plenty of quotes that
don't matter. But the one thing, the assumption you build everything
upon, you write into a note in parentheses. It's like building a sky-
scraper with a carport as foundation. Well, at least it makes it easy
for me to reply in a single paragraph: I can't spot anything about "the
adapter's contribution" in the license text. As the license doesn't de-
fine it, I can only assume that copyright applies. And copyright doesn't
magically jump over to a translator, AFAIK.

Nico


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Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?

[Sam Kuper]

Hi folks,

I do understand Nico's concern that my interpretation of CC BY 3.0
(see earlier emails in this thread) is inaccurate, and I think it is
right that, having this concern, he should challenge me to back up my
interpretation.

However, as far as I can tell, my interpretation is consistent with
the interpretations given in the CC BY 3.0 license, the CC BY 3.0
"human-readable summary", and also the Creative Commons FAQ:
https://creativecommons.org/faq/ .

Search in that FAQ for the subheading "Adapter's license chart".
Beneath that is written: "When creating an adaptation of material
under the license identified in the lefthand column, you may license
your contributions to the adaptation under one of the licenses
indicated on the top row if the corresponding box is green. CC does
not recommend using a license if the corresponding box is yellow,
although doing so is technically permitted by the terms of the
license."

The box corresponding to the first adaptation example in the scenario
I gave in my earlier email (a CC BY-licensed work being adapted, and
the adaptation being licensed as CC0 (i.e. public domain or "PD")) is
yellow.

So, Creative Commons explicitly acknowledges that an adaptation of a
CC BY-licensed work can indeed be licensed under CC0 (or, at least,
that the adapter's contribution to the adaptation can be; which I note
would be the entire adaptation, in cases such as translations or other
comprehensive adaptations).

A second derivative in such a case (i.e. an adaptation of the
CC0-licensed work) can, of course, be licensed however the second
downstream adaptor wishes, as corroborated by the corresponding solid
green "PD" row in the table.

(Yes, I know that the FAQ also advises people using one of the yellow
cells in the adapter's license chart that they "should take additional
care to mark the adaptation as involving multiple copyrights under
different terms so that downstream users are aware of their
obligations to comply with the licenses from all rights holders." But
a *should* is not a *must*, and as is acknowledged in the previous
sentence in that FAQ, there is no technical requirement for them to do
so.)

As long as there is any *possibility* that my interpretation is
correct, CC BY-SA 3.0 seems like a much safer license for Coreboot to
use.


On 02/04/2017, Nico Huber  wrote:
> On 01.04.2017 17:19, Sam Kuper wrote:
>> In the case of both CC BY and CC BY-SA, the rights granted to the
>> *recipient of the licensed work* include the freedom to create
>> adaptations and to distribute or publicly perform them, subject *only*
>> to a small list of restrictions. CC BY has a shorter list of
>> restrictions than CC BY-SA.
>
> Perfectly summarized, yet you miss the point. It doesn't say anything
> about granting to change the terms.

I think you misunderstand how permissive licensing works.

You seem to be believe that the license would have to specifically
outline every possible thing that the licensee is permitted to do. I
think that is a false belief.

Licenses often grant the recipient the freedom to do with the work
whatever they like (i.e. including redistribution under a different
license, if they wish) as long as they adhere to some short list of
conditions.

The human-readable summary of CC BY 3.0 is pretty clear: "in any
medium or format", "for any purpose, even commercially", "The licensor
cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms,"
and "No additional restrictions". I'm curious what makes you think
that CC BY does in fact impose some unspecified restriction on the
license for an adapted work?



>> As such, CC BY grants the creator of an adapted work the freedom to
>> publicly performed or distribute that adapted work under a different
>> license.
>
> A license [...] can only restrict
> permissions it granted.

Essentially, yes.


> So again, this is only the case if the license
> explicitly states permission to license the adapted work under different
> terms.

I don't think this is correct.

It can say, "You can do whatever you like with this work except X."
(This is how the CC licenses are constructed, and likewise the various
BSD licenses, the Expat License, and the X11 License.)

It does not have to say, " You can do A or B or C ...  or V or W but not X."


> I see a pattern here: Every time you claim this, you don't quote.

I've been citing the licenses themselves, and their "human-readable"
summaries, which were created by Creative Commons specifically to help
people interpret the licenses properly. That's about as authoritative
and clear a bunch of sources as one could hope for.


> Yet, you write thousands of words, have a quote on every other thing.
> Just to hide that you have nothing to substantiate this claim.

Nothing except the licenses themselves, their human-readable
summaries, and the CC FAQ linked above?


> I just have the bad feeling, that you may harm CC BY's reputation.

As I stated earlier in this thread, I 

Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?

[Nico Huber]

On 01.04.2017 17:19, Sam Kuper wrote:
> In the case of both CC BY and CC BY-SA, the rights granted to the
> *recipient of the licensed work* include the freedom to create
> adaptations and to distribute or publicly perform them, subject *only*
> to a small list of restrictions. CC BY has a shorter list of
> restrictions than CC BY-SA.

Perfectly summarized, yet you miss the point. It doesn't say anything
about granting to change the terms.

> As such, CC BY grants the creator of an adapted work the freedom to
> publicly performed or distribute that adapted work under a different
> license.

A license is about permission, not restriction. It can only restrict
permissions it granted. So again, this is only the case if the license
explicitly states permission to license the adapted work under different
terms. I see a pattern here: Every time you claim this, you don't quote.
Yet, you write thousands of words, have a quote on every other thing.
Just to hide that you have nothing to substantiate this claim.

I just have the bad feeling, that you may harm CC BY's reputation. Have
you ever asked somebody at CC if your interpretation is correct? If not,
please do so or consult an expert before you try to give other people
further advice.

Nico

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Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?

[Sam Kuper]

Typo/clarity fixes.

On 01/04/2017, Sam Kuper  wrote:
> As such, CC BY grants the creator of an adapted work the freedom to
> publicly performed or distribute that adapted work under a different
> license.

s/performed/perform/

> Respectfully, I think you are still mistaken about this. "Relicensing"
> describes a new license is applied to a work (i.e. without the work
> needing to be altered). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relicensing

The same thing, but expressed better:

Respectfully, I think you are still mistaken about this. "Relicensing"
describes a licensed work being made available with a license under
which it was not available (i.e. without the work itself needing to be
altered). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relicensing . The key
point in relicensing is that the set of applicable licenses for the
work *does* change, but the work itself *does not* necessarily change.


Regards.

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Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?

[Sam Kuper]

On 01/04/2017, Nico Huber  wrote:
> On 01.04.2017 01:39, Sam Kuper wrote:
>> On 31/03/2017, Nico Huber  wrote:
>>> On 31.03.2017 23:38, Sam Kuper wrote:
 On 31/03/2017, David Hendricks  wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 31, 2017 at 10:20 AM, Sam Kuper 
> wrote:
>> Also, to further address Patrick's point above about marketing
>> material: it is important that the provenance of information about
>> Coreboot can be established. This is a reputational matter. That
>> means
>> it is important that people should not legally be able to
>> misrepresent
>> Coreboot contributors' views, etc,
>
> Both CC-BY and CC-BY-SA have "no endorsement" clauses

 Yes, but because CC BY imposes no restrictions on *second*-derivative
 works,
>>>
>>> [...]
>>> I'm not convinced. Relicensing adapted
>>> work under different conditions would require the explicit permission
>>> by the copyright holder.
>>
>> No, it wouldn't. That's what makes CC BY different from CC BY-SA.
>
> So it changes copyright itself?

Absolutely not!

Like any such license, it relies on copyright law to grant the
*recipient of the licensed work* certain rights (a.k.a. freedoms).
I'll explain this in more detail in the next few paragraphs, but
before that, here's a tl;dr right up front.



Read the "human-readable summaries" of CC BY and CC BY-SA, and spot
the difference:

- https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

- https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/



In the case of both CC BY and CC BY-SA, the rights granted to the
*recipient of the licensed work* include the freedom to create
adaptations and to distribute or publicly perform them, subject *only*
to a small list of restrictions. CC BY has a shorter list of
restrictions than CC BY-SA.

CC BY-SA's list of restrictions includes a restriction on the license
under which an adapted work can be distributed or publicly performed.
See §4.b "only under the terms of: (i) this License; (ii) a later
version of this License with the same License Elements as this
License; (iii) a Creative Commons jurisdiction license (either this or
a later license version) that contains the same License Elements as
this License (e.g., Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 US)); (iv) a Creative
Commons Compatible License."

CC BY's list of restrictions does not include such a restriction.


As such, CC BY grants the creator of an adapted work the freedom to
publicly performed or distribute that adapted work under a different
license.


(Put in more traditional terms, CC BY-SA is a copyleft license; CC BY
is a permissive license.)


>>> And I can't find that permission in CC BY.
>>
>> See, especially, §1(a), §1(c), §1(h), §3(b), §3(d), and §4(b):
>> https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode
>
> Seriously, I ask for a single thing and you want me to search the answer
> in six places?

I was trying to be helpful. I did not write the license, and I am not
responsible for how it is laid out. Don't shoot the messenger. Read
those clauses, and they'll basically answer your concern without you
having to read the rest of the license.

Alternatively, read the whole license; it is commendably short. Or,
just compare the "human-readable summary" of CC BY 3.0 with that of CC
BY-SA 3.0, as suggested in my TL;DR above.




> If
> you really doubt the usefulness of CC BY, please take that to CC.

I don't doubt its usefulness. I do, however, severely doubt that it is
a wise choice for the Coreboot wiki content.

I think it is a great license for a creator who only cares about
receiving attribution for some work itself and for first derivatives
of that work, and who is fine with provenance and credit disappearing
or mutating after that. Such people do exist. (If I were writing a
throwaway piece - maybe a poem or a song - and I liked the thought of
pieces of it being adapted and then adapted again, such that my
adapters' adapters wouldn't have to credit me, I might be tempted to
use CC BY.)



>> (And I think you mean "licensing" rather than "relicensing", assuming
>> we are both talking about the first time that the *adapted work* is
>> licensed to the public.)
>
> No, I meant relicensing. If you license adapted work you "relicense" the
> parts which you don't have the copyright for.

Respectfully, I think you are still mistaken about this. "Relicensing"
describes a new license is applied to a work (i.e. without the work
needing to be altered). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relicensing
.

In the case of an adapted work, alteration has necessarily occurred,
so when a license is applied to the *adapted work* for the first time,
that is not a relicensing. Moreover, this license would apply to the
entire *adapted work*, not just to parts of it.



> I appreciate that you started this discussion.

Thank you. I appreciate your work on Coreboot. (And while I'm
expressing appreciation: I also very much appreciate 

Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?

[Nico Huber]

On 01.04.2017 01:39, Sam Kuper wrote:
> On 31/03/2017, Nico Huber  wrote:
>> On 31.03.2017 23:38, Sam Kuper wrote:
>>> On 31/03/2017, David Hendricks  wrote:
 On Fri, Mar 31, 2017 at 10:20 AM, Sam Kuper 
 wrote:
> Also, to further address Patrick's point above about marketing
> material: it is important that the provenance of information about
> Coreboot can be established. This is a reputational matter. That means
> it is important that people should not legally be able to misrepresent
> Coreboot contributors' views, etc,

 Both CC-BY and CC-BY-SA have "no endorsement" clauses
>>>
>>> Yes, but because CC BY imposes no restrictions on *second*-derivative
>>> works,
>>
>> [...]
>> I'm not convinced. Relicensing adapted
>> work under different conditions would require the explicit permission
>> by the copyright holder.
> 
> No, it wouldn't. That's what makes CC BY different from CC BY-SA.

So it changes copyright itself? We should stop this. IANAL, and I sup-
pose you aren't either.

I appreciate that you started this discussion. Having a license for our
documentation is really something we should have paid more attention to.
Discussing implications of particular licenses, however, is OT here. If
you really doubt the usefulness of CC BY, please take that to CC.

> 
> (And I think you mean "licensing" rather than "relicensing", assuming
> we are both talking about the first time that the *adapted work* is
> licensed to the public.)

No, I meant relicensing. If you license adapted work you "relicense" the
parts which you don't have the copyright for.

> 
>> And I can't find that permission in CC BY.
> 
> See, especially, §1(a), §1(c), §1(h), §3(b), §3(d), and §4(b):
> https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode

Seriously, I ask for a single thing and you want me to search the answer
in six places?

Nico


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Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?

[Sam Kuper]

On 31/03/2017, Nico Huber  wrote:
> On 31.03.2017 23:38, Sam Kuper wrote:
>> On 31/03/2017, David Hendricks  wrote:
>>> On Fri, Mar 31, 2017 at 10:20 AM, Sam Kuper 
>>> wrote:
 Also, to further address Patrick's point above about marketing
 material: it is important that the provenance of information about
 Coreboot can be established. This is a reputational matter. That means
 it is important that people should not legally be able to misrepresent
 Coreboot contributors' views, etc,
>>>
>>> Both CC-BY and CC-BY-SA have "no endorsement" clauses
>>
>> Yes, but because CC BY imposes no restrictions on *second*-derivative
>> works,
>
> [...]
> I'm not convinced. Relicensing adapted
> work under different conditions would require the explicit permission
> by the copyright holder.

No, it wouldn't. That's what makes CC BY different from CC BY-SA.

(And I think you mean "licensing" rather than "relicensing", assuming
we are both talking about the first time that the *adapted work* is
licensed to the public.)

> And I can't find that permission in CC BY.

See, especially, §1(a), §1(c), §1(h), §3(b), §3(d), and §4(b):
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode

Regards.

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Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?

[Nico Huber]

On 31.03.2017 23:38, Sam Kuper wrote:
> On 31/03/2017, David Hendricks  wrote:
>> On Fri, Mar 31, 2017 at 10:20 AM, Sam Kuper  wrote:
>>> Also, to further address Patrick's point above about marketing
>>> material: it is important that the provenance of information about
>>> Coreboot can be established. This is a reputational matter. That means
>>> it is important that people should not legally be able to misrepresent
>>> Coreboot contributors' views, etc,
>>
>> Both CC-BY and CC-BY-SA have "no endorsement" clauses
> 
> Yes, but because CC BY imposes no restrictions on *second*-derivative
> works,

Please find a quote for that. I'm not convinced. Relicensing adapted
work under different conditions would require the explicit permission
by the copyright holder. And I can't find that permission in CC BY.

Nico


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Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?

[Sam Kuper]

On 31/03/2017, Sam Kuper  wrote:
> Mallory, a malfeasor, spots Bob's newsletter in a cafe. She smells
> opportunity. She creates a derivative of Bob's piece, comprising "Quul
> Bal Bal Fol." Mallory publishes this under her own name, claiming
> authorship (as she is entitled to do, under CC-0).

That is, under Bob's CC-0 license. Also, Mallory *does not* mention or
credit Alice or Bob in any way. And finally, to be clear, Mallory
*does not* publish "Quul Bal Bal Fol" under a Free Culture license.

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Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?

[Sam Kuper]

On 31/03/2017, David Hendricks  wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 31, 2017 at 10:20 AM, Sam Kuper  wrote:
>> Also, to further address Patrick's point above about marketing
>> material: it is important that the provenance of information about
>> Coreboot can be established. This is a reputational matter. That means
>> it is important that people should not legally be able to misrepresent
>> Coreboot contributors' views, etc,
>
> Both CC-BY and CC-BY-SA have "no endorsement" clauses

Yes, but because CC BY imposes no restrictions on *second*-derivative
works, it is powerless to prevent such works from claiming endorsement
(or, indeed, to prevent them from claiming whatever they please).[2]


> and the source
> of derived materials will still be easily traced back to coreboot.org
> (or archive.org or wherever).

Not necessarily, and especially not if no attributions are included
(which, again, could well be the case with second-derivative works if
the wiki used CC BY licensing instead of CC BY-SA).


>> or claim Coreboot contributors'
>> work as their own.
>
> Both BY and BY-SA licenses require attribution.

Yes, but again, because first derivatives of CC BY works are not
required to share alike, second-derivatives of CC BY works are not
necessarily required to provide attribution.


>> [1] How so? Because a licensee who creates a derivative work of a CC
>> BY-licensed work can license that derivative under terms (e.g. CC-0)
>> that would allow *their* licensees do potentially misattribute or
>> otherwise create reputational risk without fear of breaching licensing
>> terms.
>
> Section 3.A.4 of the BY license covers that: "If You Share Adapted
> Material You produce, the Adapter's License You apply must not prevent
> recipients of the Adapted Material from complying with this Public
> License."
>
> So distributing a derived work with a different license does not
> nullify the original terms.

I believe you have misinterpreted that clause. Specifically, you have,
I think, mistakenly interpreted "must not prevent recipients of the
Adapted Material from complying" as meaning "must require recipients
of the Adapted Material to comply".


Regards.


[2] For purely illustrative purposes, suppose the original work
comprised "Foo Bar Baz Quux." (That is obviously too short and
unoriginal to be copyrightable, but this is just an illustration, so
replace it, in your imagination, with a substantial and convincing
copyrightable work.) Suppose it is copyright Alice, and Alice
publishes it under CC BY 3.0 on an obscure, low-traffic wiki, hoping
to capture the public's imagination and gain support for her cause.

Suppose Bob, in good faith, creates a legitimate derivative work
comprising "Fol Bal Bal Quul." Bob publishes this in an obscure,
offline newsletter, under a CC-0 license, noting in a footer that it
is an adaptation of Alice's CC BY 3.0 work, and providing the URL to
the original. He sends a copy to Alice.

Mallory, a malfeasor, spots Bob's newsletter in a cafe. She smells
opportunity. She creates a derivative of Bob's piece, comprising "Quul
Bal Bal Fol." Mallory publishes this under her own name, claiming
authorship (as she is entitled to do, under CC-0). It is extremely
successful, and Mallory is widely given credit, even though in truth
Mallory could never have come up with it by herself. This is extremely
hurtful to Alice, because she finds the message "Quul Bal Bal Fol"
extremely distasteful, and it means nothing like "Foo Bar Baz Quux",
even though she can see that it was ultimately based upon her original
work. Unfortunately, it is too late: Mallory has captured the public's
imagination. Almost everyone who might originally have been interested
in Alice's message are instead distracted by Mallory's vision. Whole
businesses put their weight behind "Quul Bal Bal Fol", even though it
is deeply inferior to "Foo Bar Baz Quux", because they never heard
about "Foo Bar Baz Quux". Mallory earns a fortune from "Quul Bal Bal
Fol". People searching the web for "Quul Bal Bal Fol" never find "Foo
Bar Baz Quux" in their search results, because it is just different
enough to rank poorly compared to all the publicity received by "Quul
Bal Bal Fol". And because Mallory's work was legitimately derived from
Bob's CC-0 work, Alice cannot readily sue Mallory for a breach of
license, and has, essentially, no sure recourse whatsoever.

(Replace "Alice" with "Coreboot" in the above, and you can, I hope,
see why I dislike the idea of Coreboot adopting a CC BY license.)

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Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?

[David Hendricks]

On Fri, Mar 31, 2017 at 10:20 AM, Sam Kuper  wrote:
> Also, to further address Patrick's point above about marketing
> material: it is important that the provenance of information about
> Coreboot can be established. This is a reputational matter. That means
> it is important that people should not legally be able to misrepresent
> Coreboot contributors' views, etc,

Both CC-BY and CC-BY-SA have "no endorsement" clauses, and the source
of derived materials will still be easily traced back to coreboot.org
(or archive.org or wherever).

> or claim Coreboot contributors'
> work as their own.

Both BY and BY-SA licenses require attribution.

>
> [1] How so? Because a licensee who creates a derivative work of a CC
> BY-licensed work can license that derivative under terms (e.g. CC-0)
> that would allow *their* licensees do potentially misattribute or
> otherwise create reputational risk without fear of breaching licensing
> terms.

Section 3.A.4 of the BY license covers that: "If You Share Adapted
Material You produce, the Adapter's License You apply must not prevent
recipients of the Adapted Material from complying with this Public
License."

So distributing a derived work with a different license does not
nullify the original terms.

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Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?

[Sam Kuper]

On 31/03/2017, Timothy Pearson  wrote:
> On 03/31/2017 11:17 AM, Sam Kuper wrote:
>> On 30/03/2017, Patrick Georgi via coreboot  wrote:
>>> I'd go with CC-BY for the simple reason that documentation acts as
>>> marketing material which should see the widest distribution possible.
>>
>> This does not make sense to me. CC BY-SA would not hinder distribution
>> of documentation.
>
> Documentation, on the other hand, is designed for public consumption and
> is generally a thankless chore for developers who would much rather be
> adding new features to the software than writing things they already
> know down.  Perhaps the knowledge that someone's name will be attached
> in perpetuity to the documentation they write might just motivate
> creation of more material?

Exactly. Which is one of several reasons why I think CC BY-SA would be
better for Coreboot than CC BY would be.

(My understanding, based upon your email above, and upon your first
reply in this thread, is that you agree with me. Thanks again for
caring about this!)

Also, to further address Patrick's point above about marketing
material: it is important that the provenance of information about
Coreboot can be established. This is a reputational matter. That means
it is important that people should not legally be able to misrepresent
Coreboot contributors' views, etc, or claim Coreboot contributors'
work as their own. Sure, there are, in some jurisdictions, protections
against that sort of thing besides licensing provisions, but licensing
provisions can help in this regard. CC BY-SA provides much better
protection on this front than CC BY does[1] which means, in my view,
that even from a purely marketing perspective, CC BY-SA soundly beats
CC BY.

Regards.

[1] How so? Because a licensee who creates a derivative work of a CC
BY-licensed work can license that derivative under terms (e.g. CC-0)
that would allow *their* licensees do potentially misattribute or
otherwise create reputational risk without fear of breaching licensing
terms.

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Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?

[Timothy Pearson]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On 03/31/2017 11:17 AM, Sam Kuper wrote:
> On 30/03/2017, Patrick Georgi via coreboot  wrote:
>> I'd go with CC-BY for the simple reason that documentation acts as
>> marketing material which should see the widest distribution possible.
> 
> This does not make sense to me. CC BY-SA would not hinder distribution
> of documentation.

For what it's worth we generally require attribution for public release
of both source and documentation.

Source can generally be handled in a "weaker" manner via GIT and the
copyright lines in the file headers, since the consumers of the source
code generally understand how to determine authorship of a file (this is
especially useful to determine who is to blame for sloppy coding /
outright bugs, and work toward a fix).  Plus, there is an intrinsic
motivation to keep working on the source code itself; it is inherently
rewarding to improve a software project and to be able to make it work
better for your specific need.

Documentation, on the other hand, is designed for public consumption and
is generally a thankless chore for developers who would much rather be
adding new features to the software than writing things they already
know down.  Perhaps the knowledge that someone's name will be attached
in perpetuity to the documentation they write might just motivate
creation of more material?

Just my $0.02.

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+1 (415) 727-8645 (direct line)
+1 (512) 690-0200 (switchboard)
https://www.raptorengineering.com
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Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?

[Sam Kuper]

On 30/03/2017, Patrick Georgi via coreboot  wrote:
> I'd go with CC-BY for the simple reason that documentation acts as
> marketing material which should see the widest distribution possible.

This does not make sense to me. CC BY-SA would not hinder distribution
of documentation.

> People who dislike licensing their content that freely can publish
> elsewhere and set up a (CC-BY'd) link.

Having people publish content outside the wiki and link to it from the
wiki would obviously lead to even more fragmentation of the
documentation than Coreboot already suffers from, making Coreboot
remain a project that requires a lot of effort to grok, and has slow
uptake. (Cf. Steve Krug's "Don't Make Me Think".)

Surely it would be better to aim to make the Coreboot wiki a "one-stop
shop" for information about Coreboot, as far as possible. This being
so, Coreboot ought to avoid licensing choices that foreseeably
fragment the documentation.

> In any case, we can (and IMHO should) decouple the discussions about
> dealing with current content and about future licensing.

Are you really willing to potentially throw away *that* many hundreds
of hours of volunteer documentation effort?

Regards

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Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?

[Patrick Georgi via coreboot]

The wiki is mostly dead, its data mostly useless. Whatever we'll build
as its replacement can start with a new, clear license system, and
wiki content is either relicensed by its author and then ported over
or deleted/rewritten.

I'd go with CC-BY for the simple reason that documentation acts as
marketing material which should see the widest distribution possible.
People who dislike licensing their content that freely can publish
elsewhere and set up a (CC-BY'd) link.

In any case, we can (and IMHO should) decouple the discussions about
dealing with current content and about future licensing.


Patrick
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Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?

[Sam Kuper]

On 28/03/2017, Dumitru Ursu  wrote:
> On 03/22/2017 12:39 AM, Martin Roth wrote:
>> I guess I dislike this as a reason for choosing our license.  If some
>> future Stack Exchange replacement comes along using a different
>> license, what then?  We're stuck with what we've already picked.
>
> To work around this, either the rights should be transferred to Coreboot
> (if it has a legal entity that is),

A reasonable suggestion. It would allow Coreboot to dual-license the
content under additional licenses as might be necessary.

> or you can license it with something
> like "CC-BY-SA 3.0 or later"

That would not make sense, because all CC BY-SA licenses already
include a clause along the lines "this version of the license or a
later one". For example, see 4(b):
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode

Regards

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Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?

[David Hendricks]

This would be a good topic to bring up in the next community chat.

On Tue, Mar 21, 2017 at 1:21 PM, Sam Kuper  wrote:
> On 21/03/2017, Martin Roth  wrote:
>> Is there a reason we shouldn't switch to CC BY 4.0?
>
> Arguably, yes: doing so would permit the use of Coreboot wiki material
> in proprietary works, which some wiki contributors might be opposed
> to.

Do these licenses separate the notions of "proprietary" and
"commercial?" For example, a hardware vendor might wish to sell a
device that uses coreboot and write the manual using some wiki
content. That aligns perfectly with the project and I think we should
strive toward removing legal obstacles for such cases.

AIUI, the GFDL would require the vendor to append or archive the
original wiki article in such cases (assuming >100 copies are made).
It's kind of a silly impediment to impose if we're trying to increase
adoption, IMO.

> It would also prevent importing material from Wikipedia or Stack
> Exchange into the Coreboot wiki.

I think the flow usually goes the other way, from coreboot.org to
other places. For cases where it's the opposite direction, we can
still link to Wikipedia or SE rather than reprinting, or perhaps seek
permission from the author to post under the license chosen for
coreboot.org.

>> - Do we really care what Stack Exchange or any other group is using?
>> How much are we copying from them?
>
> At the moment, I don't know of any Coreboot wiki content that was
> copied from SE or Wikipedia.

*nod*

>
> But as Coreboot becomes more popular, the likelihood increases that
> someone might post an answer on SE, or a description on Wikipedia,
> that is good enough that it is worth including it (either verbatim or
> appropriately edited) in the Coreboot wiki. For such inclusion to be
> possible, the Coreboot wiki's license obviously needs to be compatible
> with SE's license and Wikipedia's license.

We could just ask the author's permission in those cases, right? While
sub-optimal, I think it could be worth the tradeoff to use the more
permissive license so that we optimize for the general case and then
handle corner cases as needed.

> As an aside: it is certainly possible in principle to dual-license (or
> even triple-license, etc) the Coreboot wiki's content. So, Coreboot
> could, for instance, decide to use CC BY-SA 3.0 *and* GFDL, with the
> licensee allowed to choose whichever they prefer. On the plus side,
> this would avoid the community having to choose between them (i.e. it
> avoids the "versus" aspect of the discussion you linked to). On the
> down side, it would prevent bi-directional compatibility with SE, as I
> pointed out here:
> https://www.coreboot.org/pipermail/coreboot/2017-March/083614.html .

Seems overly complicated IMO. For simplicity's sake it would be nice
to use a single license for coreboot.org that satisfies the most users
and those who strongly disagree can post elsewhere (maybe
libreboot/librecore) and link to it.

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Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?

[Sam Kuper]

On 22/03/2017, Sam Kuper  wrote:
> On 21/03/2017, Martin Roth  wrote:
>> Wouldn't selecting CC BY-SA 4.0 also prevent that, if they're licensed
>> at CC BY-SA 3.0?
>
> No, it would not prevent *importing* it, as the CC BY-SA licenses are
> forward-compatible.
>
> However, it would prevent *exporting* material from the Coreboot wiki
> to a CC BY-SA 3.0-licensed resource.

N.B. I might have used "forward-compatible" incorrectly above (perhaps
it should have been "backward-compatible"? I get those terms mixed
up...). Everything else there is correct, though. In short, CC
BY-SA-licensed material under a given version of that license can be
re-used under the same or later versions of the license but not under
earlier versions of the license. (I'm assuming all the other
requirements of the license are complied with.)

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Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?

[Sam Kuper]

On 21/03/2017, Martin Roth  wrote:
> So from the start, I just want to say that I'm not arguing just to
> argue - I want to make sure we pick the correct license here.

Likewise, and thanks for clarifying :)

I appreciate your questions and have done my best to answer them.
IANAL, though...

>>> Is there a reason we shouldn't switch to CC BY 4.0?
>>
>> Arguably, yes: doing so would permit the use of Coreboot wiki material
>> in proprietary works, which some wiki contributors might be opposed
>> to.
>
> [...]
>
> If *SOME*
> contributor to the wiki wanted a penny for anyone who used their
> documentation, should we write that into the license?

No, as that would be a crayon license. See
https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/271080#271083

> Is picking BY
> over BY-SA actually going to prevent anyone from contributing?

I can't speak for anyone else, but I would be more hesitant to
contribute under a BY license than a BY-SA one.

> It
> seems like it PREVENTS distribution, since we need to pick the exact
> version of the license selected by other sites so that we can share
> documentation between them.

I think this is a misunderstanding. Like all licenses, it only
prevents usage that is not compliant with the license.

>> It would also prevent importing material from Wikipedia or Stack
>> Exchange into the Coreboot wiki.
>
> Wouldn't selecting CC BY-SA 4.0 also prevent that, if they're licensed
> at CC BY-SA 3.0?

No, it would not prevent *importing* it, as the CC BY-SA licenses are
forward-compatible.

However, it would prevent *exporting* material from the Coreboot wiki
to a CC BY-SA 3.0-licensed resource.

>>> How much of the coreboot documentation is
>>> applicable anywhere else?
>>
>> That remains to be seen. As Coreboot grows in popularity, its
>> documentation is likely to be more widely applicable.
>
> This also seems like an argument for CC BY over CC BY-SA.

I disagree. I'm not aware of any websites on the scale of Wikipedia or
SE that use CC BY.

>>> - Do we really care what Stack Exchange or any other group is using?
>>> How much are we copying from them?
>>
>> At the moment, I don't know of any Coreboot wiki content that was
>> copied from SE or Wikipedia. This is probably just as well, because
>> such material would be in breach of its license ;)
>>
>> But as Coreboot becomes more popular, the likelihood increases that
>> someone might post an answer on SE, or a description on Wikipedia,
>> that is good enough that it is worth including it (either verbatim or
>> appropriately edited) in the Coreboot wiki. For such inclusion to be
>> possible, the Coreboot wiki's license obviously needs to be compatible
>> with SE's license and Wikipedia's license.
>
> I guess I dislike this as a reason for choosing our license.  If some
> future Stack Exchange replacement comes along using a different
> license, what then?  We're stuck with what we've already picked.

It probably makes more sense to make the Coreboot wiki compatible with
the most obvious existing major collaborative websites than it does to
speculate about potential future websites that might never in fact
come into existence.

Besides, there's no guarantee that your hypothetical SE replacement
would use a license that is compatible with CC BY, either.

>> As an aside: it is certainly possible in principle to dual-license (or
>> even triple-license, etc) the Coreboot wiki's content. So, Coreboot
>> could, for instance, decide to use CC BY-SA 3.0 *and* GFDL, with the
>> licensee allowed to choose whichever they prefer. On the plus side,
>> this would avoid the community having to choose between them (i.e. it
>> avoids the "versus" aspect of the discussion you linked to). On the
>> down side, it would prevent bi-directional compatibility with SE, as I
>> pointed out here:
>> https://www.coreboot.org/pipermail/coreboot/2017-March/083614.html .
>
> I'm fine with people dual licensing individual documents, the same as
> we allow someone who creates a new file to choose to license it in
> ways other than GPLv2, but I'd like to have a single license that
> governs the coreboot documentation as well.  Maybe that's not needed,
> I'm not sure.  It seems like we want to be able to say though "By
> contributing documentation here, you agree that contributions are
> licensed as X".

I agree with your position.

> I guess we also need to be careful about copying code into the
> documentation as well, since it seems like nothing's compatible with
> pulling GPL code into it.  At least CC BY allows you to pull the
> documentation into the code if there were ever a reason we wanted to
> do that.

I think that having a footer on the Coreboot wiki along the lines "All
material herein is published under CC BY-SA 3.0 unless stated
otherwise" would cover that eventuality, as long as any GPL code
excerpts in the wiki were clearly marked as such. Best to ask the SFC
for certainty on this point, though.

Thanks again :)

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Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?

[Martin Roth]

So from the start, I just want to say that I'm not arguing just to
argue - I want to make sure we pick the correct license here.  I'm not
really opposed to BY-SA, but I'm not sure I see the benefit to saying
that coreboot's documentation can only be shared under that particular
version of that particular license.

>> Is there a reason we shouldn't switch to CC BY 4.0?
>
> Arguably, yes: doing so would permit the use of Coreboot wiki material
> in proprietary works, which some wiki contributors might be opposed
> to.

Ok, but does that make it the right choice for coreboot?  If *SOME*
contributor to the wiki wanted a penny for anyone who used their
documentation, should we write that into the license?  Is picking BY
over BY-SA actually going to prevent anyone from contributing?  It
seems like it PREVENTS distribution, since we need to pick the exact
version of the license selected by other sites so that we can share
documentation between them.

> It would also prevent importing material from Wikipedia or Stack
> Exchange into the Coreboot wiki.

Wouldn't selecting CC BY-SA 4.0 also prevent that, if they're licensed
at CC BY-SA 3.0?

>> How much of the coreboot documentation is
>> applicable anywhere else?
>
> That remains to be seen. As Coreboot grows in popularity, its
> documentation is likely to be more widely applicable.

This also seems like an argument for CC BY over CC BY-SA.

>> - Do we really care what Stack Exchange or any other group is using?
>> How much are we copying from them?
>
> At the moment, I don't know of any Coreboot wiki content that was
> copied from SE or Wikipedia. This is probably just as well, because
> such material would be in breach of its license ;)
>
> But as Coreboot becomes more popular, the likelihood increases that
> someone might post an answer on SE, or a description on Wikipedia,
> that is good enough that it is worth including it (either verbatim or
> appropriately edited) in the Coreboot wiki. For such inclusion to be
> possible, the Coreboot wiki's license obviously needs to be compatible
> with SE's license and Wikipedia's license.

I guess I dislike this as a reason for choosing our license.  If some
future Stack Exchange replacement comes along using a different
license, what then?  We're stuck with what we've already picked.

> As an aside: it is certainly possible in principle to dual-license (or
> even triple-license, etc) the Coreboot wiki's content. So, Coreboot
> could, for instance, decide to use CC BY-SA 3.0 *and* GFDL, with the
> licensee allowed to choose whichever they prefer. On the plus side,
> this would avoid the community having to choose between them (i.e. it
> avoids the "versus" aspect of the discussion you linked to). On the
> down side, it would prevent bi-directional compatibility with SE, as I
> pointed out here:
> https://www.coreboot.org/pipermail/coreboot/2017-March/083614.html .

I'm fine with people dual licensing individual documents, the same as
we allow someone who creates a new file to choose to license it in
ways other than GPLv2, but I'd like to have a single license that
governs the coreboot documentation as well.  Maybe that's not needed,
I'm not sure.  It seems like we want to be able to say though "By
contributing documentation here, you agree that contributions are
licensed as X".

I guess we also need to be careful about copying code into the
documentation as well, since it seems like nothing's compatible with
pulling GPL code into it.  At least CC BY allows you to pull the
documentation into the code if there were ever a reason we wanted to
do that.

Thanks,
Martin

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Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?

[Sam Kuper]

On 21/03/2017, Martin Roth  wrote:
> Hey Sam. You're absolutely right, and I appreciate you pointing this
> out.  We need to get this fixed.  Actually, as part of coreboot
> joining the Software Freedom Conservancy, our documentation NEEDS an
> open license of one sort or another.

Thanks, Martin. Good to know I'm not barking in the dark.

> Is there a reason we shouldn't switch to CC BY 4.0?

Arguably, yes: doing so would permit the use of Coreboot wiki material
in proprietary works, which some wiki contributors might be opposed
to.

It would also prevent importing material from Wikipedia or Stack
Exchange into the Coreboot wiki.

CC BY 4.0 is a free culture license, though, and would definitely be
better than no license at all :)

> - Do we really need BY-SA?

Strictly speaking, no; but see above.

> How much of the coreboot documentation is
> applicable anywhere else?

That remains to be seen. As Coreboot grows in popularity, its
documentation is likely to be more widely applicable.

> Why not just go with the least restrictive
> license?

See above.

> - Do we really care what Stack Exchange or any other group is using?
> How much are we copying from them?

At the moment, I don't know of any Coreboot wiki content that was
copied from SE or Wikipedia. This is probably just as well, because
such material would be in breach of its license ;)

But as Coreboot becomes more popular, the likelihood increases that
someone might post an answer on SE, or a description on Wikipedia,
that is good enough that it is worth including it (either verbatim or
appropriately edited) in the Coreboot wiki. For such inclusion to be
possible, the Coreboot wiki's license obviously needs to be compatible
with SE's license and Wikipedia's license.

> Here are the CC licenses: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/
> Discussion of CC BY-SA vs GFDL
> :https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/GFDL_versus_CC-by-sa

As an aside: it is certainly possible in principle to dual-license (or
even triple-license, etc) the Coreboot wiki's content. So, Coreboot
could, for instance, decide to use CC BY-SA 3.0 *and* GFDL, with the
licensee allowed to choose whichever they prefer. On the plus side,
this would avoid the community having to choose between them (i.e. it
avoids the "versus" aspect of the discussion you linked to). On the
down side, it would prevent bi-directional compatibility with SE, as I
pointed out here:
https://www.coreboot.org/pipermail/coreboot/2017-March/083614.html .

> Once we decide which license to switch to, I think we're going to have
> to remove or rewrite any documentation contributions from people who
> don't want to agree to the license or who can't be reached.

Agreed: I can't see any way around that, sadly.

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Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?

[Martin Roth]

Hey Sam. You're absolutely right, and I appreciate you pointing this
out.  We need to get this fixed.  Actually, as part of coreboot
joining the Software Freedom Conservancy, our documentation NEEDS an
open license of one sort or another.

Is there a reason we shouldn't switch to CC BY 4.0?

- Do we really need BY-SA?  How much of the coreboot documentation is
applicable anywhere else?  Why not just go with the least restrictive
license?

- Do we really care what Stack Exchange or any other group is using?
How much are we copying from them?

Here are the CC licenses: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/
Discussion of CC BY-SA vs GFDL
:https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/GFDL_versus_CC-by-sa

Once we decide which license to switch to, I think we're going to have
to remove or rewrite any documentation contributions from people who
don't want to agree to the license or who can't be reached.

Martin

On Tue, Mar 21, 2017 at 10:53 AM, Sam Kuper  wrote:
> On 17/03/2017, Sam Kuper  wrote:
>> Also: sanity check. Does anyone else here besides me and Timothy feel
>> that making the wiki documentation available under a free culture
>> license would be a good idea?
>
> A few other wiki users agreed with us, which is great:
>
> https://www.coreboot.org/User:GNUtoo#Wiki_contributions
>
> https://www.coreboot.org/User:Samnob
>
> https://www.coreboot.org/User_talk:Kl3
>
> The relative silence about this topic on this mailing list makes me
> wonder, though: does anyone here think it would be a *bad* idea for
> the Coreboot wiki contents to be under a free culture license? If you
> do, would you mind explaining why?
>
> Thanks!
>
> --
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> https://www.coreboot.org/mailman/listinfo/coreboot

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Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?

[Sam Kuper]

On 17/03/2017, Sam Kuper  wrote:
> Also: sanity check. Does anyone else here besides me and Timothy feel
> that making the wiki documentation available under a free culture
> license would be a good idea?

A few other wiki users agreed with us, which is great:

https://www.coreboot.org/User:GNUtoo#Wiki_contributions

https://www.coreboot.org/User:Samnob

https://www.coreboot.org/User_talk:Kl3

The relative silence about this topic on this mailing list makes me
wonder, though: does anyone here think it would be a *bad* idea for
the Coreboot wiki contents to be under a free culture license? If you
do, would you mind explaining why?

Thanks!

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Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?

[Sam Kuper]

On 16/03/2017, Sam Kuper  wrote:
> Ideally, Coreboot would dual-license the content under the GFDL and CC
> BY-SA 3.0, making the content entirely license compatible with content
> from Wikipedia and from the Stack Exchange network of websites.

Actually, CC BY-SA 3.0 alone would be better. That is because copying
CC BY-SA 3.0-licensed content from Stack Exchange, and then publishing
it under both CC BY-SA 3.0 *and* GFDL, would be a breach of CC BY-SA
3.0.


On 16/03/2017, Timothy Pearson  wrote:
> On 03/16/2017 04:10 PM, Sam Kuper wrote:
>> Looks like there are only 172 additional Coreboot wiki contributors to
>> account for :)
>
> Yep :-)  I just figured that if the major contributors on this list
> specified a license we'd be well on our way to fixing this!

For the (re-)licensing effort to succeed:

- the remaining 172 people need to be contacted;

- there needs to be a way to keep track of who has been responded, and
what their response was.

Contacting the wiki contributors would seem to require the involvement
of a person with privileged access to the wiki, such as Patrick Georgi
or Stefan Reinauer (CC'd). In the first instance, perhaps that person
should attempt to reach those users via MassMessage:

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Extension:MassMessage

Collating replies: I'm not sure. Make a table on the wiki with two
columns: one with all the usernames in, and one for the users to put
their signatures in to indicate willingness to license their
contributions under the proposed terms? Any better suggestions?

Also: sanity check. Does anyone else here besides me and Timothy feel
that making the wiki documentation available under a free culture
license would be a good idea?

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Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?

[Sam Kuper]

On 16/03/2017, Sam Kuper  wrote:
> Looks like there are only 172 additional Coreboot wiki contributors to
> account for :)
>
> curl -s \
> 'https://www.coreboot.org/index.php?title=Special:ListUsers==500'
> \
> | grep '^' coreboot_users.html \
> | sed 's//\n/g' \
> | grep 'Special:Contributions/[^"]*">' \
> | perl -pe 's/^(.+?User:)([^"&]+?)(["&].*$)/$2/g' \
> | wc -l

Sorry for the typo on line 3 of the above script. That should have been:

curl -s \
'https://www.coreboot.org/index.php?title=Special:ListUsers==500' \
| grep '^' \
| sed 's//\n/g' \
| grep 'Special:Contributions/[^"]*">' \
| perl -pe 's/^(.+?User:)([^"&]+?)(["&].*$)/$2/g' \
| wc -l

N.B. If you want to see the usernames of the Coreboot wiki users who
have actually made contributions, just leave off the last line.

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Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?

[Timothy Pearson]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On 03/16/2017 04:10 PM, Sam Kuper wrote:
> On 16/03/2017, Timothy Pearson  wrote:
>> On 03/16/2017 02:27 PM, Sam Kuper wrote:
>>> My understanding is that means that much (maybe all) of the
>>> documentation in the Coreboot wiki is proprietary (at least, in the
>>> overwhelming majority of jurisdictions). IANAL, though.
>>
>> This is a good point.  For what it's worth, anything contributed by
>> Raptor Engineering to the Wiki should be considered at least dual
>> licensed CC BY-SA 3.0 and GDFL; we'd love to see our content remixed /
>> improved by the community as long as attribution and share-alike is
>> maintained.
> 
> Thanks. I guess that would be this content?
> 
> https://www.coreboot.org/Special:Contributions/Tpearson
> 
> Looks like there are only 172 additional Coreboot wiki contributors to
> account for :)
> 

Yep :-)  I just figured that if the major contributors on this list
specified a license we'd be well on our way to fixing this!

- -- 
Timothy Pearson
Raptor Engineering
+1 (415) 727-8645 (direct line)
+1 (512) 690-0200 (switchboard)
https://www.raptorengineering.com
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Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?

[Sam Kuper]

On 16/03/2017, Timothy Pearson  wrote:
> On 03/16/2017 02:27 PM, Sam Kuper wrote:
>> My understanding is that means that much (maybe all) of the
>> documentation in the Coreboot wiki is proprietary (at least, in the
>> overwhelming majority of jurisdictions). IANAL, though.
>
> This is a good point.  For what it's worth, anything contributed by
> Raptor Engineering to the Wiki should be considered at least dual
> licensed CC BY-SA 3.0 and GDFL; we'd love to see our content remixed /
> improved by the community as long as attribution and share-alike is
> maintained.

Thanks. I guess that would be this content?

https://www.coreboot.org/Special:Contributions/Tpearson

Looks like there are only 172 additional Coreboot wiki contributors to
account for :)

curl -s \
'https://www.coreboot.org/index.php?title=Special:ListUsers==500' \
| grep '^' coreboot_users.html \
| sed 's//\n/g' \
| grep 'Special:Contributions/[^"]*">' \
| perl -pe 's/^(.+?User:)([^"&]+?)(["&].*$)/$2/g' \
| wc -l

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Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?

[Timothy Pearson]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On 03/16/2017 02:27 PM, Sam Kuper wrote:
> Hi folks,
> 
> I have looked at a number of pages on the Coreboot wiki, though not all of 
> them.
> 
> None of the pages I have looked at mentioned the license (if any)
> under which their content is available.
> 
> My understanding is that means that much (maybe all) of the
> documentation in the Coreboot wiki is proprietary (at least, in the
> overwhelming majority of jurisdictions). IANAL, though.
> 
> If my understanding is incorrect, please could you point me towards
> information that should correct it?
> 
> Alternatively, it would be great if Coreboot could license the
> documentation in the wiki under one or more free culture licenses:
> https://freedomdefined.org/Licenses
> 
> Ideally, Coreboot would dual-license the content under the GFDL and CC
> BY-SA 3.0, making the content entirely license compatible with content
> from Wikipedia and from the Stack Exchange network of websites.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Sam
> 

This is a good point.  For what it's worth, anything contributed by
Raptor Engineering to the Wiki should be considered at least dual
licensed CC BY-SA 3.0 and GDFL; we'd love to see our content remixed /
improved by the community as long as attribution and share-alike is
maintained.

- -- 
Timothy Pearson
Raptor Engineering
+1 (415) 727-8645 (direct line)
+1 (512) 690-0200 (switchboard)
https://www.raptorengineering.com
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[coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?

[Sam Kuper]

Hi folks,

I have looked at a number of pages on the Coreboot wiki, though not all of them.

None of the pages I have looked at mentioned the license (if any)
under which their content is available.

My understanding is that means that much (maybe all) of the
documentation in the Coreboot wiki is proprietary (at least, in the
overwhelming majority of jurisdictions). IANAL, though.

If my understanding is incorrect, please could you point me towards
information that should correct it?

Alternatively, it would be great if Coreboot could license the
documentation in the wiki under one or more free culture licenses:
https://freedomdefined.org/Licenses

Ideally, Coreboot would dual-license the content under the GFDL and CC
BY-SA 3.0, making the content entirely license compatible with content
from Wikipedia and from the Stack Exchange network of websites.

Thanks,

Sam

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