Hi Be -- thanks for sharing your perspective, On Thu, Nov 19, 2015 at 5:21 PM, Be <b...@gmx.com> wrote:
> Grabbing mappings off the forum, with no review and often without > consent, is how we got to the current messy state of mappings in Mixxx. > One user saying the mapping works is a low bar. Yes, this is an unfortunate inherent problem with not owning hardware to do actual testing. > Of course testing the > functioning of the mapping with the controller would be ideal, but > that's not an excuse for not bothering to review it at all. I don't know > why the bar has been set so much lower for mappings than C++ code. The standards are much lower since there is little risk to doing so. If we took in C++ patches without review we could cause crashes or actual damage to the user's computer. The sandboxed environment we run Javascript in is not capable of this. While it's true that Javascript can trigger unexpected behavior in Mixxx there is not an effective way to explore the set of possible inputs a script will provide to Mixxx without the device in hand. In most cases, a preset is not going to take down Mixxx. The main downside of committing a bad preset is that users who want to use that device will have a bad experience. That's not good of course, but it's nowhere near as bad as things could go if we took random C++ patches without review. On the other hand, if a device is not supported at all (or the preset is many years old) then the benefit of including a newer (and actively maintained by someone like bestdani) preset is IMO worth the risk of the preset not working. In the event that there was no existing preset then the user is no worse off. In the event that the old preset worked better -- then that's a bad outcome but not irrecoverable as they can downgrade if they find their way to the forums via the direct in-app link. That's why we use positive comments from other forum users as a signal to tell whether something is an improvement. In the specific instance of this preset, there have been numerous positive comments telling bestdani that it was a great improvement. > None of us are lawyers, so we should not be making decisions about a > legal grey area. I think the legally clearest and safest situation would > be to require mappings to be licensed under the GPLv2 or later and have > mapping authors sign the agreement. I understand your position here. I've consulted lawyers about this. I'd prefer to not discuss this any further on our public email list. > I don't really see any good reason > not to do this. Why should mappings be separate from the rest of Mixxx? > The more, high quality mappings are included in Mixxx, the better users' > experiences with Mixxx will be. > I think this is non-sequitor to the question of permission to distribute. I'm all for efforts to improve the code quality and documentation of our mappings and I'm thrilled you're interested in helping with that (and for all of your efforts around documentation in general!). I dropped some comments in your other thread on mapping guidelines. > > The author of that mapping did not ask for it to be included in Mixxx. > When I was overhauling the wiki, I remember seeing this happen on some > old forum threads too. Yes -- this is what we have done for quite a long time. Without user contributions our controller support would be non-existent. We make the (quite reasonable, IMO) assumption that by posting a preset on our forums they intend for it to be shared. Our installer and hardware support page (or other wiki pages) describe what a "Community Mapping" is. Lastly, we also give the author attribution in Mixxx itself when the mapping is loaded. I think it would be hard to get too far into the process of making a mapping without realizing that the Forum is the standard place we share these things and that many of those shared on the forums end up distributed with Mixxx as a Community Mapping. It's worth noting that in nearly decade of doing this (wow -- time flies) we haven't received a complaint of the type you're describing. I'm inclined to say that we're doing OK on this front. Thanks for the input (and your work in general! the wiki is in the best shape it's ever been), RJ > > On 11/19/2015 12:03 PM, RJ Ryan wrote: > > I would prefer that we not collect signatures for preset contributors. > > The reasons being that it will be hard to disentangle "real copyright > > owners of the Mixxx codebase" from "people whose files we are > > distributing with Mixxx" if we ever need to in the future. They are > > very different in legal standing! > > > > If the installer is unclear, we should add the text: "All community > > presets bundled with the permission of their respective authors. Consult > > the preset file for licensing details or EULA." > > > > > > > > > > On Thu, Nov 19, 2015 at 8:11 AM, Owen Williams <owilli...@mixxx.org > > <mailto:owilli...@mixxx.org>> wrote: > > > > > > ok I posted the link to the agreement on the forum > > > > On Thu, 2015-11-19 at 17:05 +0100, Sébastien BLAISOT wrote: > > > > > > > > > from a phylosophical point of vue, the presets are bundled inside > our > > > packages/installers and the licence agremment attached to that > > > package/installer doesn't make any difference between mapping and > > core > > > code IIRC. > > > > > > So making contributors sign the agreement doesn't hurt and avoid > > > future question that can be directed to this bundling. > > > > > > --- > > > Sébastien Blaisot > > > > > > > > > Le 19/11/2015 16:37, Sean M. Pappalardo - D.J. Pegasus a écrit : > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On 11/19/2015 07:10 AM, Owen Williams wrote: > > > > > do we need to get this forum user to sign the contributor > > > > > agreement? > > > > > Controller stuff is always hazy for me > > > > > > > > The main reason for that agreement is to allow us to make > license > > > > changes to the source code if needed without having to track > down > > > > every > > > > past developer to get their permission. Since controller > > presets are > > > > sort of "at arm's length" (not compiled in, just distributed > with > > > > the > > > > application,) they can have their own licenses. So we really > just > > > > need > > > > permission to distribute them with the application, since if we > > ever > > > > change the application's license, it wouldn't necessarily apply > to > > > > the > > > > controller presets themselves. > > > > > > > > That said, it wouldn't hurt to have preset writers sign the > > > > agreement > > > > because it would avoid any future confusion. It's just not > > required. > > > > > > > > IANAL so correct me if any of this is wrong. > > > > > > > > Sincerely, > > > > Sean M. Pappalardo > > > > "D.J. Pegasus" > > > > Mixxx Developer - Controller Specialist > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > Get Mixxx, the #1 Free MP3 DJ Mixing software Today > > > > http://mixxx.org > > > > > > > > > > > > Mixxx-devel mailing list > > > > Mixxx-devel@lists.sourceforge.net > > <mailto:Mixxx-devel@lists.sourceforge.net> > > > > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mixxx-devel > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > > _______________________________________________ > > > Get Mixxx, the #1 Free MP3 DJ Mixing software Today > > > http://mixxx.org > > > > > > > > > Mixxx-devel mailing list > > > Mixxx-devel@lists.sourceforge.net > > <mailto:Mixxx-devel@lists.sourceforge.net> > > > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mixxx-devel > > > > > > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > > Get Mixxx, the #1 Free MP3 DJ Mixing software Today > > http://mixxx.org > > > > > > Mixxx-devel mailing list > > Mixxx-devel@lists.sourceforge.net > > <mailto:Mixxx-devel@lists.sourceforge.net> > > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mixxx-devel > > > > > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Get Mixxx, the #1 Free MP3 DJ Mixing software Today > > http://mixxx.org > > > > > > Mixxx-devel mailing list > > Mixxx-devel@lists.sourceforge.net > > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mixxx-devel > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > _______________________________________________ > Get Mixxx, the #1 Free MP3 DJ Mixing software Today > http://mixxx.org > > > Mixxx-devel mailing list > Mixxx-devel@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mixxx-devel >
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