Re: Consider adding license information to freedesktop.org wiki contents?
On Sun, May 6, 2018, at 3:36 PM, Daniel Stone wrote: > OK, done now. Thanks! By digging into that, I confirmed that Federico is the sole author of the file manager interface spec that kicked off this discussion. A couple of people, myself included, have adjusted formatting since the transition to ikiwiki, but that's not a creative work. I've emailed Federico to ask about licensing, and I'll let you know when he responds. I've also built a list of which users edited which page on the MoinMoin wiki, to make it easier to do this for other pages: https://gitlab.com/takluyver/xdg-moinmoin-archaeology/blob/master/page_editors.json This data would have been public when that version of the wiki was live, and the equivalent data is public for the current wiki, so I don't think there can be any privacy concerns. I haven't re-published the raw wiki data I generated it from, in case that has some sensitive info, but anyone with access to annarchy.freedesktop.org can get the raw data if they want to check. The repo contains two notebooks with the code I used to put that list together. Thomas ___ xdg mailing list xdg@lists.freedesktop.org https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
Re: Consider adding license information to freedesktop.org wiki contents?
On 6 May 2018 at 14:56, Thomas Kluyver wrote: > On Sun, May 6, 2018, at 1:56 PM, Daniel Stone wrote: >> The wiki doesn't run on MoinMoin anymore. All the wiki content is > > I'm trying to get the history - a lot of the wiki pages in the current system > were converted from moin, so that old data is needed to try to work out who > wrote them. Sorry for not explaining that clearly enough. OK, done now. I understand the frustration, but we're all volunteers with (extremely) limited time. ___ xdg mailing list xdg@lists.freedesktop.org https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
Re: Consider adding license information to freedesktop.org wiki contents?
And I apologise for sniping. It doesn't excuse my words, but I'm frustrated because discussions about the wiki seem to get radio silence until I irritated people. On Sun, May 6, 2018, at 2:56 PM, Thomas Kluyver wrote: > > > On Sun, May 6, 2018, at 1:56 PM, Daniel Stone wrote: > > The wiki doesn't run on MoinMoin anymore. All the wiki content is > > I'm trying to get the history - a lot of the wiki pages in the current > system were converted from moin, so that old data is needed to try to > work out who wrote them. Sorry for not explaining that clearly enough. > ___ > xdg mailing list > xdg@lists.freedesktop.org > https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg ___ xdg mailing list xdg@lists.freedesktop.org https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
Re: Consider adding license information to freedesktop.org wiki contents?
On Sun, May 6, 2018, at 1:56 PM, Daniel Stone wrote: > The wiki doesn't run on MoinMoin anymore. All the wiki content is I'm trying to get the history - a lot of the wiki pages in the current system were converted from moin, so that old data is needed to try to work out who wrote them. Sorry for not explaining that clearly enough. ___ xdg mailing list xdg@lists.freedesktop.org https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
Re: Consider adding license information to freedesktop.org wiki contents?
Hi, On 5 May 2018 at 18:50, Thomas Kluyver wrote: > I have found where the Moinmoin data is located > (/srv/www.freedesktop.org/moin/data on annarchy.freedesktop.org). Could > someone add me (takluyver) to the www-data group so I can investigate it > further? Or you could make all that data world-readable. The wiki doesn't run on MoinMoin anymore. All the wiki content is publicly accessible here: https://cgit.freedesktop.org/wiki/ > On Sat, May 5, 2018, at 6:00 PM, Thomas Kluyver wrote: >> I also stole about 30 sheets of toilet paper from a hotel a few weeks >> ago. Please, someone explain property law to me! >> >> More seriously, it's clear that my proposed solution is not going to >> fly, because we're taking copyright Very Seriously. Since we are taking >> copyright Very Seriously, there are two problems: Yes, we are because we have to. >> 1. No-one can copy code samples from the wiki, or redistribute >> specifications or anything, because they don't have a license. This is >> what the thread was originally about, and it seems like a pretty major >> flaw for a body making interoperability specifications for open source >> software. Most specifications are _not_ hosted on the wiki, but are hosted here: https://specifications.freedesktop.org/ Some of those specifications have licenses, others do not. For those without licenses, it would be good to fix that by getting the content properly licensed by agreement of the contributors. >> 2. Whoever runs freedesktop.org is violating all the contributors' >> copyright by redistributing the content they created, because you're not >> asked to grant a license when you edit the wiki. >> >> Is anybody interested in fixing this? Do we even have a record of who >> edited what before the wiki was migrated to its current form? >> >> If you think we can live with the ambiguous copyright situation as it >> is, then you weren't really taking copyright law Very Seriously, you >> were just picking an argument with me for trying to suggest a solution. Personally, yes, I am very interested in seeing the situation fixed and regularised. Roughly in order, the steps to fix that would be: * agree with people who currently and regularly contribute, or who have made substantial contributions in the past, what the new license should be * declare this new license as required for new pages * contact the authors of old wiki pages and specifications, seeking their approval to relicense content * tracking content which has not been relicensed and deciding at some later stage whether to rewrite it, jettison it, or maintain it with the old 'implicit' disclaimer I don't have any time to do this, but will happily support anyone who is interested in doing it, so long as it doesn't involve having to put up with pointlessly sarcastic sniping. Cheers, Daniel ___ xdg mailing list xdg@lists.freedesktop.org https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
Re: Consider adding license information to freedesktop.org wiki contents?
On 06/05/18 21:25, rhkra...@gmail.com wrote: > On Sunday, May 06, 2018 05:49:15 AM Simon Lees wrote: >> if I wrote anything on the wiki which I don't think I did I would be >> more then happy for it to be relicensed under a BSD/MIT style license >> but would be less happy to allow because I don't think its the right >> license for the task. > > allow ___??? Sorry this is what happens when you get interrupted by kids, I was probably going to put some form of gpl in that blank as an example, but there are many different licenses I could list there instead. -- Simon Lees (Simotek)http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ xdg mailing list xdg@lists.freedesktop.org https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
Re: Consider adding license information to freedesktop.org wiki contents?
On Sunday, May 06, 2018 05:49:15 AM Simon Lees wrote: > if I wrote anything on the wiki which I don't think I did I would be > more then happy for it to be relicensed under a BSD/MIT style license > but would be less happy to allow because I don't think its the right > license for the task. allow ___??? ___ xdg mailing list xdg@lists.freedesktop.org https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
Re: Consider adding license information to freedesktop.org wiki contents?
On 06/05/18 20:06, Thomas Kluyver wrote: > On Sun, May 6, 2018, at 10:49 AM, Simon Lees wrote: >> The only way that I think we can realistically make the wiki situation >> better is by changing it now to say new changes are under the following >> license, then in 10 years hope that enough of the content has been >> changed that someone can delete all the remaining non licensed content >> then get someone else to fill in any gaps. > > I'm hoping it might also be possible to work at the level of individual > pages: find everyone who has contributed to a page and get their agreement to > put a license on it. In combination with agreeing a license for new changes, > of course. > That might work for the most part, then at least we'd just end up with a list of pages / sections of pages that need to be rewritten. >> If we were to go with the suggestion I wrote above >> there are many others who could make that change easier then myself who >> has no access. > > Do you know who these people are? Part of what makes this tricky is that I > don't even know who can do admin stuff on the wiki. Unfortunately not, I only started having an interest in this area over the last couple of years. > >> Either way if something is going to change there needs to be more >> discussion yet as no one has agreed on which license we would use, which >> you need to decide before contacting previous contributors. > > OK, let's try to move that forwards. I propose that we use the MIT license > for any code on the wiki, and CC-BY for text and any other non-code content. > These are equivalent in spirit, but MIT is written for source code. > Id agree that's reasonable. -- Simon Lees (Simotek)http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ xdg mailing list xdg@lists.freedesktop.org https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
Re: Consider adding license information to freedesktop.org wiki contents?
On Sun, May 6, 2018, at 10:49 AM, Simon Lees wrote: > The only way that I think we can realistically make the wiki situation > better is by changing it now to say new changes are under the following > license, then in 10 years hope that enough of the content has been > changed that someone can delete all the remaining non licensed content > then get someone else to fill in any gaps. I'm hoping it might also be possible to work at the level of individual pages: find everyone who has contributed to a page and get their agreement to put a license on it. In combination with agreeing a license for new changes, of course. > If we were to go with the suggestion I wrote above > there are many others who could make that change easier then myself who > has no access. Do you know who these people are? Part of what makes this tricky is that I don't even know who can do admin stuff on the wiki. > Either way if something is going to change there needs to be more > discussion yet as no one has agreed on which license we would use, which > you need to decide before contacting previous contributors. OK, let's try to move that forwards. I propose that we use the MIT license for any code on the wiki, and CC-BY for text and any other non-code content. These are equivalent in spirit, but MIT is written for source code. Thomas ___ xdg mailing list xdg@lists.freedesktop.org https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
Re: Consider adding license information to freedesktop.org wiki contents?
On 06/05/18 17:40, Thomas Kluyver wrote: > On Sun, May 6, 2018, at 8:40 AM, Simon Lees wrote: >> Anyone >> who goes to the effort of editing a wiki knows and acknowledges that the >> content they have produced will be displayed on the wiki in its current >> form and are therefore giving permission for the content they have >> created to be redistributed by the wiki in its current form. > > I'm fine with this 'implicit license' approach, but it's precisely the sort > of grey area that other people insisted cannot possibly be allowed. > I am only fine with the 'implicit license' approach for the one area I mentioned (being distributed on the original wiki with the same access that existed at the time of writing. Unless someone can point me to a precedent that does otherwise. > It's frustrating that people have the time and energy to argue about > copyright, but nobody seems to be interested in doing anything to improve the > wiki. > The only way that I think we can realistically make the wiki situation better is by changing it now to say new changes are under the following license, then in 10 years hope that enough of the content has been changed that someone can delete all the remaining non licensed content then get someone else to fill in any gaps. (Note the person deleting the content really needs to be different from the people writing the new content, technically the people writing the new content probably should have never read the old content). I personally don't think any other approach is going to work, yes it sucks, which is why i'm not spending time on it. (but I won't stop you if you want to). If we were to go with the suggestion I wrote above there are many others who could make that change easier then myself who has no access. Where as contributing to this mailing list thread has taken not much more then 10 minutes of my Sunday afternoon. Either way if something is going to change there needs to be more discussion yet as no one has agreed on which license we would use, which you need to decide before contacting previous contributors. For example if I wrote anything on the wiki which I don't think I did I would be more then happy for it to be relicensed under a BSD/MIT style license but would be less happy to allow because I don't think its the right license for the task. -- Simon Lees (Simotek)http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ xdg mailing list xdg@lists.freedesktop.org https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
Re: Consider adding license information to freedesktop.org wiki contents?
On Sun, May 6, 2018, at 8:40 AM, Simon Lees wrote: > Anyone > who goes to the effort of editing a wiki knows and acknowledges that the > content they have produced will be displayed on the wiki in its current > form and are therefore giving permission for the content they have > created to be redistributed by the wiki in its current form. I'm fine with this 'implicit license' approach, but it's precisely the sort of grey area that other people insisted cannot possibly be allowed. It's frustrating that people have the time and energy to argue about copyright, but nobody seems to be interested in doing anything to improve the wiki. Thomas ___ xdg mailing list xdg@lists.freedesktop.org https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
Re: Consider adding license information to freedesktop.org wiki contents?
On 06/05/18 02:30, Thomas Kluyver wrote: > I also stole about 30 sheets of toilet paper from a hotel a few weeks ago. > Please, someone explain property law to me! > > More seriously, it's clear that my proposed solution is not going to fly, > because we're taking copyright Very Seriously. Since we are taking copyright > Very Seriously, there are two problems: > > 1. No-one can copy code samples from the wiki, or redistribute specifications > or anything, because they don't have a license. This is what the thread was > originally about, and it seems like a pretty major flaw for a body making > interoperability specifications for open source software. > 2. Whoever runs freedesktop.org is violating all the contributors' copyright > by redistributing the content they created, because you're not asked to grant > a license when you edit the wiki. > I am no legal expert and hence my wording may not be legally correct but the idea behind it stands. I suspect your #2 here is a non issue. Anyone who goes to the effort of editing a wiki knows and acknowledges that the content they have produced will be displayed on the wiki in its current form and are therefore giving permission for the content they have created to be redistributed by the wiki in its current form. If you were to take a private wiki and make its contents public then you have an issue because it was not reasonable for authors to expect that the content they created would become publicly available. If this did not hold then the issue would extend beyond wiki's into bugtrackers, forums etc -- Simon Lees (Simotek)http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ xdg mailing list xdg@lists.freedesktop.org https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
Re: Consider adding license information to freedesktop.org wiki contents?
I have found where the Moinmoin data is located (/srv/www.freedesktop.org/moin/data on annarchy.freedesktop.org). Could someone add me (takluyver) to the www-data group so I can investigate it further? Or you could make all that data world-readable. On Sat, May 5, 2018, at 6:00 PM, Thomas Kluyver wrote: > I also stole about 30 sheets of toilet paper from a hotel a few weeks > ago. Please, someone explain property law to me! > > More seriously, it's clear that my proposed solution is not going to > fly, because we're taking copyright Very Seriously. Since we are taking > copyright Very Seriously, there are two problems: > > 1. No-one can copy code samples from the wiki, or redistribute > specifications or anything, because they don't have a license. This is > what the thread was originally about, and it seems like a pretty major > flaw for a body making interoperability specifications for open source > software. > 2. Whoever runs freedesktop.org is violating all the contributors' > copyright by redistributing the content they created, because you're not > asked to grant a license when you edit the wiki. > > Is anybody interested in fixing this? Do we even have a record of who > edited what before the wiki was migrated to its current form? > > If you think we can live with the ambiguous copyright situation as it > is, then you weren't really taking copyright law Very Seriously, you > were just picking an argument with me for trying to suggest a solution. > > Thomas > > On Sat, May 5, 2018, at 3:29 PM, Thomas U. Grüttmüller wrote: > > On 13.04.2018 13:11, Thomas Kluyver wrote: > > > On Fri, Apr 13, 2018, at 11:48 AM, Bastien Nocera wrote:> > > >> This isn't how copyright works, sorry. > > > > > > Thanks, I was aware of this. No, it doesn't strictly adhere to 'how > > > copyright works', but realistically, people who contribute to a freely > > > available wiki about open source software are not going to sue you for > > > putting an open source license on it. > > > > People might change their view on free software. > > > > People might also die, and their rights will be inherited by their heirs. > > > > > It's not even clear what they'd sue for: you can't lose revenue on wiki > > > content that is already accessible at zero cost. > > > > It does not matter. Copyright violation is a criminal offense, just like > > trespassing or slander. It does not matter for it to be forbidden, if > > the victim suffers financial damage or not. > > > > > As I said, this is something I have seen projects do. The Ubuntu wiki > > > underwent relicensing in 2011, for instance, with the wording in an email: > > > "In the absence of a substantial number of objections, this change will > > > be made to the Ubuntu wiki after approximately one month." > > > > This is dangerous for re-users of the work, because they rely on the > > license, but the license is invalid. So, without knowing, the re-user > > will do a copyright violation and might be sued. > > > > Thomas > > ___ > > xdg mailing list > > xdg@lists.freedesktop.org > > https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg > ___ > xdg mailing list > xdg@lists.freedesktop.org > https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg ___ xdg mailing list xdg@lists.freedesktop.org https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
Re: Consider adding license information to freedesktop.org wiki contents?
I also stole about 30 sheets of toilet paper from a hotel a few weeks ago. Please, someone explain property law to me! More seriously, it's clear that my proposed solution is not going to fly, because we're taking copyright Very Seriously. Since we are taking copyright Very Seriously, there are two problems: 1. No-one can copy code samples from the wiki, or redistribute specifications or anything, because they don't have a license. This is what the thread was originally about, and it seems like a pretty major flaw for a body making interoperability specifications for open source software. 2. Whoever runs freedesktop.org is violating all the contributors' copyright by redistributing the content they created, because you're not asked to grant a license when you edit the wiki. Is anybody interested in fixing this? Do we even have a record of who edited what before the wiki was migrated to its current form? If you think we can live with the ambiguous copyright situation as it is, then you weren't really taking copyright law Very Seriously, you were just picking an argument with me for trying to suggest a solution. Thomas On Sat, May 5, 2018, at 3:29 PM, Thomas U. Grüttmüller wrote: > On 13.04.2018 13:11, Thomas Kluyver wrote: > > On Fri, Apr 13, 2018, at 11:48 AM, Bastien Nocera wrote:> > >> This isn't how copyright works, sorry. > > > > Thanks, I was aware of this. No, it doesn't strictly adhere to 'how > > copyright works', but realistically, people who contribute to a freely > > available wiki about open source software are not going to sue you for > > putting an open source license on it. > > People might change their view on free software. > > People might also die, and their rights will be inherited by their heirs. > > > It's not even clear what they'd sue for: you can't lose revenue on wiki > > content that is already accessible at zero cost. > > It does not matter. Copyright violation is a criminal offense, just like > trespassing or slander. It does not matter for it to be forbidden, if > the victim suffers financial damage or not. > > > As I said, this is something I have seen projects do. The Ubuntu wiki > > underwent relicensing in 2011, for instance, with the wording in an email: > > "In the absence of a substantial number of objections, this change will be > > made to the Ubuntu wiki after approximately one month." > > This is dangerous for re-users of the work, because they rely on the > license, but the license is invalid. So, without knowing, the re-user > will do a copyright violation and might be sued. > > Thomas > ___ > xdg mailing list > xdg@lists.freedesktop.org > https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg ___ xdg mailing list xdg@lists.freedesktop.org https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
Re: Consider adding license information to freedesktop.org wiki contents?
On 13.04.2018 13:11, Thomas Kluyver wrote: On Fri, Apr 13, 2018, at 11:48 AM, Bastien Nocera wrote:> This isn't how copyright works, sorry. Thanks, I was aware of this. No, it doesn't strictly adhere to 'how copyright works', but realistically, people who contribute to a freely available wiki about open source software are not going to sue you for putting an open source license on it. People might change their view on free software. People might also die, and their rights will be inherited by their heirs. It's not even clear what they'd sue for: you can't lose revenue on wiki content that is already accessible at zero cost. It does not matter. Copyright violation is a criminal offense, just like trespassing or slander. It does not matter for it to be forbidden, if the victim suffers financial damage or not. As I said, this is something I have seen projects do. The Ubuntu wiki underwent relicensing in 2011, for instance, with the wording in an email: "In the absence of a substantial number of objections, this change will be made to the Ubuntu wiki after approximately one month." This is dangerous for re-users of the work, because they rely on the license, but the license is invalid. So, without knowing, the re-user will do a copyright violation and might be sued. Thomas ___ xdg mailing list xdg@lists.freedesktop.org https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
Re: Consider adding license information to freedesktop.org wiki contents?
On Fri, 2018-04-13 at 11:40 +0100, Thomas Kluyver wrote: > On Fri, Apr 13, 2018, at 10:11 AM, Daniel Stone wrote: > > Sorry for the lack of reply, I've been quite busy lately. I also > > don't > > have a great answer for you. We cannot post-hoc enforce a licence > > on > > content: anything that is there is copyright to the actual author. > > We > > can enforce a licence on new content, but relicensing the existing > > content is quite a time-consuming process: first finding who wrote > > it > > in the first place, and then getting in contact with them. The > > former > > is difficult because we have moved from twiki -> MoinMoin -> > > ikiwiki, > > in most cases losing history. We can find the history, but it takes > > a > > lot of time. Secondly, this content dates back in some cases to > > 2004, > > and contacting people after 14 years is notoriously difficult. > > I have seen other projects tackle relicensing by *attempting* to > contact all contributors and explicitly giving some timeout - "if we > don't receive any objections in a month, we'll go ahead". This seems > like a sensible compromise - most people don't care about the > licensing of two sentences they wrote on a wiki five years ago. This isn't how copyright works, sorry. If you think those 2 sentences are trivial, replace them. You now have copyright on those. If you think that some contribution is trivial (say, a typo fix), you need to show that it is trivial and therefore that there's no copyright claim for that change. Even assuming good faith, relicensing people's work when you've failed to contact them isn't how relicensing works. It might be how you protect yourself in court though... > Of course, finding the list of contributors and valid email addresses > for each one would still be quite a lot of work, but that strategy > makes it a manageable amount rather than a crazy amount. > > Is the history from the previous wiki systems preserved somewhere? > ___ > xdg mailing list > xdg@lists.freedesktop.org > https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg ___ xdg mailing list xdg@lists.freedesktop.org https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
Re: Consider adding license information to freedesktop.org wiki contents?
On Fri, Apr 13, 2018, at 11:48 AM, Bastien Nocera wrote:> > This isn't how copyright works, sorry. Thanks, I was aware of this. No, it doesn't strictly adhere to 'how copyright works', but realistically, people who contribute to a freely available wiki about open source software are not going to sue you for putting an open source license on it. It's not even clear what they'd sue for: you can't lose revenue on wiki content that is already accessible at zero cost. As I said, this is something I have seen projects do. The Ubuntu wiki underwent relicensing in 2011, for instance, with the wording in an email: "In the absence of a substantial number of objections, this change will be made to the Ubuntu wiki after approximately one month." Thomas ___ xdg mailing list xdg@lists.freedesktop.org https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
Re: Consider adding license information to freedesktop.org wiki contents?
On Fri, Apr 13, 2018, at 10:11 AM, Daniel Stone wrote: > Sorry for the lack of reply, I've been quite busy lately. I also don't > have a great answer for you. We cannot post-hoc enforce a licence on > content: anything that is there is copyright to the actual author. We > can enforce a licence on new content, but relicensing the existing > content is quite a time-consuming process: first finding who wrote it > in the first place, and then getting in contact with them. The former > is difficult because we have moved from twiki -> MoinMoin -> ikiwiki, > in most cases losing history. We can find the history, but it takes a > lot of time. Secondly, this content dates back in some cases to 2004, > and contacting people after 14 years is notoriously difficult. I have seen other projects tackle relicensing by *attempting* to contact all contributors and explicitly giving some timeout - "if we don't receive any objections in a month, we'll go ahead". This seems like a sensible compromise - most people don't care about the licensing of two sentences they wrote on a wiki five years ago. Of course, finding the list of contributors and valid email addresses for each one would still be quite a lot of work, but that strategy makes it a manageable amount rather than a crazy amount. Is the history from the previous wiki systems preserved somewhere? ___ xdg mailing list xdg@lists.freedesktop.org https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
Re: Consider adding license information to freedesktop.org wiki contents?
On Fri, 2018-04-13 at 11:11 +0200, Daniel Stone wrote: > > > It would be great if anyone could help me get into contact with the > > original > > author of https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/file-mana > > ger-interface > > . Besides, I believe setting up a default license for > > freedesktop.org contents > > should be of higher priority given freedesktop.org's fame and > > importance in > > FLOSS world. > > I've CCed the two people who I believe wrote the content originally, > who can answer for the spec. They could assign a licence to it and > perhaps move it to the specifications repo as well. I've never touched this, sorry. ___ xdg mailing list xdg@lists.freedesktop.org https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
Re: Consider adding license information to freedesktop.org wiki contents?
Hi Boyuan, On 13 April 2018 at 03:03, Boyuan Yang <073p...@gmail.com> wrote: > Several weeks have passed and seems that there's no progress here; the mail > copy sent to original discussion participants got no replies and one of the > email address also bounces. Sorry for the lack of reply, I've been quite busy lately. I also don't have a great answer for you. We cannot post-hoc enforce a licence on content: anything that is there is copyright to the actual author. We can enforce a licence on new content, but relicensing the existing content is quite a time-consuming process: first finding who wrote it in the first place, and then getting in contact with them. The former is difficult because we have moved from twiki -> MoinMoin -> ikiwiki, in most cases losing history. We can find the history, but it takes a lot of time. Secondly, this content dates back in some cases to 2004, and contacting people after 14 years is notoriously difficult. This is not to say that it can't be done, it's just that we don't have the time for it right now. Volunteers welcome. :) > It would be great if anyone could help me get into contact with the original > author of > https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/file-manager-interface > . Besides, I believe setting up a default license for freedesktop.org contents > should be of higher priority given freedesktop.org's fame and importance in > FLOSS world. I've CCed the two people who I believe wrote the content originally, who can answer for the spec. They could assign a licence to it and perhaps move it to the specifications repo as well. Cheers, Daniel ___ xdg mailing list xdg@lists.freedesktop.org https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
Re: Consider adding license information to freedesktop.org wiki contents?
On Fri, Apr 13, 2018, at 2:03 AM, Boyuan Yang wrote: > Several weeks have passed and seems that there's no progress here; the mail > copy sent to original discussion participants got no replies and one of the > email address also bounces. I get the impression that no-one really feels ownership or responsibility for XDG. When GNOME or KDE developers chime in, they tend to drive the discussion, but I don't know who, if anyone, focuses on improving the Freedesktop wiki and specifications. I think this is a pity, and I hope someone can tell me that I'm wrong. :-) > It would be great if anyone could help me get into contact with the > original > author of > https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/file-manager-interface Looking through the mailing list thread linked from that spec, it looks like Federico Mena Quintero was one of the main people involved in writing it. His GitHub profile lists an email address: https://github.com/federicomenaquintero . Thomas ___ xdg mailing list xdg@lists.freedesktop.org https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
Re: Consider adding license information to freedesktop.org wiki contents?
Hello all, Several weeks have passed and seems that there's no progress here; the mail copy sent to original discussion participants got no replies and one of the email address also bounces. It would be great if anyone could help me get into contact with the original author of https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/file-manager-interface . Besides, I believe setting up a default license for freedesktop.org contents should be of higher priority given freedesktop.org's fame and importance in FLOSS world. -- Regards, Boyuan Yang 在 2018年3月22日星期四 CST 下午7:53:22,Thomas Kluyver 写道: > +1 to having a default license for the wiki contents. > > Code samples in a wiki are often meant to be copied and pasted, so it seems > appropriate to license them permissively, like an MIT license, or even > public domain. I don't feel strongly about the non-code content, but CC-BY > would be an easy default. > > Thomas > > On Wed, Mar 21, 2018, at 9:27 AM, Boyuan Yang wrote: > > Dear xdg list members, > > > > I think it might be a great idea if we could explicitly add license > > information for freedesktop.org wiki contents. > > > > I raised this question on #freedesktop@freenode before and heard from > > that current license is "undefined". > > > > To be more concrete, I would like to know the license and author for > > page [1]. Some downstream projects are including the XML file into > > their projects yet the uncertain license of code snippet caused some > > copyright troubles. Looking through git history is not helpful since > > the original page was converted from moinmoin wiki and the original > > author information is lost. > > > > Daniels also suggested that any new content on wiki can (and should) > > have licensing information added. I think that the wiki should also > > choose a fallback license. When the author didn't point out the > > copyright information for page contents explicitly, the default > > license should apply. That could eliminate any licensing problem in > > the future. > > > > > > Also sending mail copy to those involved in the discussion for > > creating file-manager interface. Hope that the original author could > > read the mail and explicitly state the license for page [1]. > > > > > > [1] > > https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/file-manager-interface/ > > > > -- > > Regards, > > Boyuan Yang signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ xdg mailing list xdg@lists.freedesktop.org https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
Re: Consider adding license information to freedesktop.org wiki contents?
+1 to having a default license for the wiki contents. Code samples in a wiki are often meant to be copied and pasted, so it seems appropriate to license them permissively, like an MIT license, or even public domain. I don't feel strongly about the non-code content, but CC-BY would be an easy default. Thomas On Wed, Mar 21, 2018, at 9:27 AM, Boyuan Yang wrote: > Dear xdg list members, > > I think it might be a great idea if we could explicitly add license > information for freedesktop.org wiki contents. > > I raised this question on #freedesktop@freenode before and heard from > that current license is "undefined". > > To be more concrete, I would like to know the license and author for > page [1]. Some downstream projects are including the XML file into > their projects yet the uncertain license of code snippet caused some > copyright troubles. Looking through git history is not helpful since > the original page was converted from moinmoin wiki and the original > author information is lost. > > Daniels also suggested that any new content on wiki can (and should) > have licensing information added. I think that the wiki should also > choose a fallback license. When the author didn't point out the > copyright information for page contents explicitly, the default > license should apply. That could eliminate any licensing problem in > the future. > > > Also sending mail copy to those involved in the discussion for > creating file-manager interface. Hope that the original author could > read the mail and explicitly state the license for page [1]. > > > [1] https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/file-manager-interface/ > > -- > Regards, > Boyuan Yang > ___ > xdg mailing list > xdg@lists.freedesktop.org > https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg ___ xdg mailing list xdg@lists.freedesktop.org https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg