This is not actually about Markdown. This is about having a minimal document that we transform into the page the user sees, by adding styling, headers, errata, links to translations, or whatever the legal team wants to add. Markdown is just one example of a format that would make that easy.
I completely agree that there should be some immutable version of the license, the discussion is about what that should look like. Dan On Thursday, April 18, 2013 at 11:14 AM, Maarten Zeinstra wrote: > But really that is just silly. > > What legal is requesting is a way to get to the 'real' legal code, but > actually they are asking for a simple representation of that code. As I see > it they want something like a 'print-version' of the legal code. That would > still mean that there is markup in some way. > > I would have one basic html document, slightly different than Kinkades > example (I would stack css classes), and have two pages. One for web viewing > and another completely dressed down for print. > > I think given the option of a print version or a markdown version the > legal-team will probably choose the former. > > -- > Kennisland > | www.kennisland.nl (http://www.kennisland.nl) | t +31205756720 | m > +31643053919 | @mzeinstra > > > > > > > > > > On Apr 18, 2013, at 20:10 , Dan Mills <[email protected] > (mailto:[email protected])> wrote: > > No, end users would use HTML when used in a web context, of course. But > > consider the two use-cases I mentioned: > > > > * Adding translation links at the bottom of the legal code page. > > * Embedding the legal code into the deed in some manner. > > > > Both are HTML for the end user, but *different HTML*. > > > > So again, the point is that we need: > > > > 1) a *minimal* format to express the licenses themselves, and nothing more. > > 2) some tooling to take those licenses and format them as needed depending > > on context. > > > > And although we could write that tooling today with the HTML as-is, I would > > *much* rather write tools that know less about the license content. > > > > Dan > > > > > > On Thursday, April 18, 2013 at 10:57 AM, Greg Grossmeier wrote: > > > > > I guess the miscommunication here is: > > > what tooling will you build that needs to use something other than HTML > > > to display the license? > > > > > > What use-case do you have in mind, Dan? > > > > > > Greg > > > > > > <quote name="Dan Mills" date="2013-04-18" time="10:50:26 -0700"> > > > > Hi, > > > > > > > > The licenses still contain too much information which is not actually > > > > part of the licenses. Just open that link, view source, and behold. > > > > > > > > Of course we could parse it, but how would you decide what you can > > > > remove and what is part of the license? We need to minimize the amount > > > > of code that has such decisions embedded in it. > > > > > > > > Dan > > > > > > > > > > > > On Thursday, April 18, 2013 at 10:45 AM, Nathan Kinkade wrote: > > > > > > > > > All of the CC licenses validate as XHTML 1.0 Transitional. There are > > > > > a lot of really great XML parsers out there for manipulating such > > > > > documents. It would be trivial for us to clean up the HTML in the 4.0 > > > > > licenses to more minimal, using better nesting of id and classes so we > > > > > can use more accurate CSS selectors, and javascript can more reliably > > > > > navigate the DOM. I have already started this when I put together the > > > > > Draft 3 of the 4.0 licenses by giving a unique ID to each section and > > > > > subsection: > > > > > > > > > > http://mirrors.creativecommons.org/drafts/by-sa_4.0d3.html#s3a1B > > > > > > > > > > Nathan > > > > > > > > > > On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 1:30 PM, Dan Mills <[email protected] > > > > > (mailto:[email protected]) (mailto:[email protected])> > > > > > wrote: > > > > > > Hi Bjorn & Maarten, > > > > > > > > > > > > I think you're missing a key point that Kat is making: the legal > > > > > > team is > > > > > > looking to change the pages that the licenses are on, to add > > > > > > translation > > > > > > links. I also know that they are thinking about ways of including > > > > > > the > > > > > > licenses inside the deeds, which would also require some changes to > > > > > > the > > > > > > license pages. > > > > > > > > > > > > So the point is not "what do you think of Markdown" in a vacuum, > > > > > > it's: what > > > > > > format can we store that contains only the absolute minimum to be > > > > > > considered to be part of the licenses, so that we can build tooling > > > > > > to style > > > > > > it appropriately depending on the context. > > > > > > > > > > > > We could obviously write tooling that takes the current HTML and > > > > > > transforms > > > > > > it, but such tooling would need to be highly content-aware: it > > > > > > would need to > > > > > > know which parts of the HTML file it can remove or change, and > > > > > > which ones it > > > > > > cannot. We likely can't eliminate that completely regardless of the > > > > > > format, > > > > > > but we should try to minimize it. > > > > > > > > > > > > Markdown seems pretty close to the minimal format that lets us > > > > > > express what > > > > > > we need. We could also continue to use HTML, but we'd need to use a > > > > > > minimal > > > > > > subset--not what we use now (which includes images, scripts, links > > > > > > not part > > > > > > of the license, etc). > > > > > > > > > > > > So, looking at your (Maarten's) four points with this in mind: > > > > > > > > > > > > 1. Both markdown and HTML (HyperText Markup Language) are markup > > > > > > languages, it seems silly to convert one markup language into > > > > > > another. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > This is not a criteria for choosing a format to use. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > 2. Adding markdown to the infrastructure creates extra dependancies > > > > > > on > > > > > > a conversion between markdown and HTML, one that will probably takes > > > > > > more skill and time than doing these licenses immediately in html > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > It does, but the alternative is an HTML->HTML transformation, which > > > > > > is > > > > > > arguably more complex because HTML is so expressive. We could make > > > > > > it work > > > > > > if we enforced a very limited subset of HTML as the input, though. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > 3. Markdown is not a standard and we cannot rely on it to stay the > > > > > > same, HTML is. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > This is not actually true, the history of HTML is littered with > > > > > > examples: > > > > > > > > > > > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_layout_engines_%28Non-standard_HTML%29#Deprecated_HTML_elements > > > > > > > > > > > > But you're right that Markdown is not currently led by any large > > > > > > standards > > > > > > body. I think there are two mitigating factors: > > > > > > > > > > > > (a) The primary uses for these files will be: > > > > > > > > > > > > - to be transformed for general consumption, and > > > > > > - to serve as an archive. > > > > > > > > > > > > The first is internal to CC only, the second requires at most that > > > > > > the file > > > > > > be readable at some point in the future without our help. In other > > > > > > words, we > > > > > > do not need every client (browser) to natively understand the > > > > > > format. > > > > > > > > > > > > (b) Markdown is so incredibly simple, it's hard to imagine a future > > > > > > where > > > > > > someone will be unable to read it: > > > > > > > > > > > > http://etherpad.creativecommons.org/p/markdown-example > > > > > > > > > > > > 4. Markdown basically is short hand for HTML, again why would we > > > > > > use it? > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Simplicity, and as a forcing function to get us to stop putting in > > > > > > extraneous content in our licenses. > > > > > > > > > > > > Dan > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > > > cc-devel mailing list > > > > > > [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) > > > > > > (mailto:[email protected]) > > > > > > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-devel > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > cc-devel mailing list > > > > [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) > > > > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-devel > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > > > | Greg Grossmeier GPG: B2FA 27B1 F7EB D327 6B8E | > > > | http://grossmeier.net (http://grossmeier.net/) A18D 1138 8E47 FAC8 1C7D > > > | > > > _______________________________________________ > > > cc-devel mailing list > > > [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) > > > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-devel > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > cc-devel mailing list > > [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) > > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-devel >
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