I have no idea why a page on the incubator.apache.org/openofficeorg structure has terms that apply to the openoffice.org domain (and subdomains?).
I also have no idea why that page has an HTML <head> comment that offers itself under ALv2, in conflict with the terms it states. I have nothing further to add to this conversation. - Dennis -----Original Message----- From: Rob Weir [mailto:robw...@apache.org] Sent: Monday, July 16, 2012 04:50 To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org Subject: Re: Terms of Service on Forums On Sun, Jul 15, 2012 at 11:26 PM, Dennis E. Hamilton <dennis.hamil...@acm.org> wrote: > I am not the one to answer that question. > > It is a policy matter for the ASF and, I presume, a determination that also > involves legal@ a.o. > My point is that since other ASF and project sites do not have a ToU statement on them, then it is not necessary to have one to conform to ASF policies. > I don't have a ToU on my web sites, though many of the pages have Creative > Commons 2.0 notices. I require commenters to be registered to comment on my > blogs, but I don't know there is a ToU that goes with any of those, although > there might have been when Google Blogger was the publishing service. > > But my needs (and responsibilities) are quite different than the those of the > ASF in fulfilling its public-interest operation and how it respects the work > of others. > Again, we don't see ToU on ASF sites. > I think it matters that the great majority of content that is already there > was already published under terms of use. There are legacy terms to deal > with in now that material is dealt with and in how visitors can regard it > without knowing when such material was contributed. > Actually, the specific example Kay brought up was our incubator site at http://incubator.apache.org/openofficeorg. None of that had legacy terms. It is all new stuff. So why do we need ToU there? > I think it matters that there are requests for permission to reuse materials > on the site and it is not clear what standing the PPMC has to approve (or > decline) such requests. > We *never* have standing to approve requests to reuse content. We (the project) do not own content. In most cases neither does the ASF. The most we can do is point users to an existing license. -Rob > - Dennis > > PS: http://apache.org has a copyright notice, a license notice (and link), > and trademark notice. There is no notice of any kind in the <head> element > of the HTML. The situation with the openoffice.org domains and their content > is not so simple. > > -----Original Message----- > From: Rob Weir [mailto:robw...@apache.org] > Sent: Sunday, July 15, 2012 18:55 > To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org > Subject: Re: Terms of Service on Forums > > On Sun, Jul 15, 2012 at 9:45 PM, Dennis E. Hamilton > <dennis.hamil...@acm.org> wrote: >> Um, yes, it definitely is the ASF that should be standing behind the ToU. >> They're the only legal entity. >> >> Of CollabNet ToU, I know not. The terms.mdtext that Kay found are very much >> the ToU of the original openoffice.org site, with someone's tweaking. So >> Oracle used them. >> >> I think removing legalese is fine, until it become bad legalese. >> >> What more would you remove? >> > > A thought experiment: what if we removed 100%? In other words, had > no ToU on the website. Would anything bad happen? What would the > risk be? I don't see a ToU on www.apache.org, or in a spot check of > several high profile Apache projects. Do we have some special risk > that they do not have that requires us to put additional legalese on > every website page? Are they helping their users less than we are > ours? How? > >> - Dennis >> >> PS: I notice there needs to be some improvement in what the terms apply to. >> The found one did not mention forums. I think it should be about the >> openoffice.org domain and its subdomains. >> incubator.apache.org/openofficeorg is a different game. >> > > If we do decide to go with ToU, one option would be to have a set of > "common terms" and then a list of additional terms which apply to only > particular services. But personally, I'd toss it all out except > necessary notices for things like privacy and trademark. We're not a > multi-billion dollar corporation and we don't need to armor our > website with legal terms like we are one. > > -Rob > > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Rob Weir [mailto:robw...@apache.org] >> Sent: Sunday, July 15, 2012 17:44 >> To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org >> Subject: Re: Terms of Service on Forums >> >> On Sun, Jul 15, 2012 at 8:11 PM, Dennis E. Hamilton >> <dennis.hamil...@acm.org> wrote: >>> @Kay >>> >>> Well, just to prove to myself that I can make use of the ASF CMS >>> Bookmarklet, I edited the terms.html page. [I didn't trigger publication >>> though, so you may have to find them in the staging place.] >>> >>> Here are the essential changes I made: >>> >>> I eliminated AOO-PPMC as the authority, since it isn't. I used the Apache >>> Software Foundation as the HOST. >>> >> >> If we think the ASF is the authority, then they should determine the >> ToU, right? >> >> In any case, this looks like the old CollabNet ToU, doesn't it? It >> looks like Dave checked in last August. It will fit our needs as much >> as a stranger's shoes would fit me. >> >> In any case, my original suggestion still applies: Let's stop trying >> to hack the legalese of existing ToU written by and for other >> organizations, since none of are lawyers and we do not understand >> fully how the parts fit together. Instead, let's state, in plain >> English, what we want to cover in the ToU and then go to legal-discuss >> for the wordsmithing. >> >> -Rob >> >> [ ... ] >>> >> >
