On Sat, Aug 6, 2011 at 10:07 PM, Jean Hollis Weber <[email protected]> wrote: > On Sat, 2011-08-06 at 21:05 -0400, Rob Weir wrote: >> I don't think that we can simply say, "If it is >> not official product doc in a release then it is appropriate to allow >> anyone to edit it anonymously under whatever license they want". > > To me this is a complete strawman. I don't think anyone has suggested or > is advocating either anonymity or "any license you want" for future > edits. Every community wiki I've seen has some statement that if you
I'm describing the OOo wiki as it is today. I can create an account today with a pseudonym and a fake email address. I can enter a new wiki page with a copyright and no license for others to use it. In particular, when I edit a page I am given the following message: "You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see OpenOffice.org Wiki:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission!" So assigning an open license is entirely optional. I could upload a page under by personal copyright and demand payment of 20 chickens or 1 goat for copying the document. For example: http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/FAQ/General/What_is_a_good_rhyme_about_OpenOffice%3F I think this is a problem. Although I could easily accept some sandbox where random contributions could be made under a variety of eclectic licenses, we should be concerned with a few things: 1) How do we ensure that contributions are made in a way that is consistent with the rights we need to even host the contributed content. 2) How do we prevent core documentation and project pages from being contaminated by contributions that are incompatibly licensed? In other words, how do we preserve the rights of this project and our users and downstream consumers to be able to copy, modify, translate, redistribute, etc., contributed content. > contribute to the wiki in any way, you agree for your work to be under > the stated license for the wiki (or the specific page), and/or when you > get an account on the wiki you are required to agree to the license. > This is a very low barrier to participation, in terms of both time and > effort required, but it is NOT the same as going through the steps to > get committer status... unless there is some legal or other reason that > a simple "I agree to the license" isn't good enough. > I'm less concerned with the barriers than the license question. If we can first agree on the license appropriate for various classes of pages then the appropriate level of control needed to ensure that license will follow naturally. > --Jean > >
