Subject:
Re: Linuxquestions.org wiki: Reply to David
From:
Dan Marshall ####@####.####
Date:
8 Sep 2004 19:57:39 -0000
Message-Id: <413F641C.70809@charter.net>
David Lawyer wrote:
>On Fri, Sep 03, 2004 at 06:50:53PM +0000, ####@####.#### wrote:
>
>
>>Hi, I'm a moderator for the linuxquestions.org Wiki
>>(wiki.linuxquestions.org), a collaboratively-edited repository for all
>>things Linux. Our work is licensed under the Creative Commons
>>(attribution and share-alike variant) license. We'd like to
>>incorporate documents from the LDP, but most of the documents, as
>>licensed, can't be released under the Creative Commons without the
>>copyright holder's consent. I'm writing this email in attempt to get
>>that consent. I'm aware that the LDP is not the copyright holder of
>>the documents it hosts, but I thought that this mailing list would be
>>a good place to start.
>>
>>
>
>What you are doing, if it succeeds, is to make a fork in the LDP. Then
>there would be one version of a doc at the LDP and another on the wiki.
>This is just plain wrong. Someone looking up info at LDP should be able
>to also view the wiki doc from LDP. But even this has serious problems.
>If one goes to an LDP site and finds 2 different docs with the same
>title (one a wiki) which one do they look at? Thus there should only
>be one document.
>
>
>
Essentially, yes. I've personally been thinking of the LQwiki as a "cvs
daily" version, and the LDP as the "stable version". A user could look
at *both* versions - the TLDP version is more likely to be correct,
while the LQwiki version is more likely to be up-to-date (at least in
theory).
>So I think that a wiki system like you are doing should be a part of LDP
>and integrated into LDP. It takes about the same amount of time to edit
>a wiki as it does to propose the same changes to the document author.
>Thus in such as case there's not much need for a wiki. But there's
>another common case where the author is not adequately maintaining the
>doc, or where there is a needed doc, but no author. In such cases a
>wiki may be a good idea.
>
>
>
But it is faster to edit the article yourself instead of waiting for the
author to edit. Also it's less stressful for the author - he can tell
the critics to "put up or shut up".
>As to format, I think that LinuxDoc is about as easy to learn as the
>wiki markup. Can the wiki markup be converted into all the formats
>distributed by LDP? (I'm not asking this as a rhetorical question.)
>LinuxDoc can.
>
>
>
I'm afraid I'm not qualified to answer that question. Worst case
scenario, if a wiki-markup to LinuxDoc markup translator tool can't be
made, the LDP could roll its own wiki, using LinuxDoc instead of Wiki
markup. The MediaWiki engine *is* open-source.
>As for Wikipedia, it had incorrect info about a topic and I corrected
>it, only to have the original incorrect info restored. At least one can
>find a discussion on this. Still, Wikipedia has a great deal of useful
>info. But be warned that we had one person who took over maintaining
>LDP docs and made them worse, perhaps intentionally. It's likely to
>happen with the wiki stuff.
>
>
>
This is a problem with wikis, although it's not as bad as some people
think. This is where the wiki=cvs, LDP=stable idea could come in handy.
We're thinking about including a "Featured Page" section, like the
Wikipedia. We're still working out the details. I was thinking, if a
article gets voted a Featured Pages a certain number of times, say,
three, it would get a permanent link from our front page. We could also
submit the article to the LDP for a formal review process to get rid of
any remaining bugs. We could then submit a new version, say, every 6
months or 10 major changes.
>So if someone changes a doc, the author needs to be sent an easy-to-read
>diff of the changes. Can you do this?
>
>
>
We do have a "page history" function for every article, which can
perform a diff between any two versions of the article. It's readable
enough on the screen. It's just not good enough for copyright purposes,
so everything has to be under the same copyleft license, put in public
domain, or submitted under a "work under contract" deal.
>So in summary, this wiki system for Linux needs to be integrated into
>LDP. The database system that David Merrill was creating for LDP was
>going to include wiki but never was finished. It was also going to
>let people edit on-line in LinuxDoc.
>
>
>
Since I'm not really a member of the LDP, I'm not qualified to comment
on this. But you're welcome to our content and our experience in running
a wiki.
>Also needed is reform in LDP by making it easy for new (and old) authors
>by not referring them to a long "Author Guide" and pointing them to the
>complex DocBook format. I'm partly to blame for this by not following
>thru on my proposals for change.
>
>
>
Also not able to comment.
>Regarding the License situation, for example, if someone has a doc under
>GFDL at LDP and then lets you have a Creative Commons wiki, then
>whatever editing is done to the wiki is under Creative Commons and can't
>be put into the GFDL version at LDP. Possible solution: the
>author/maintainer can change the LDP one to Creative Commons. And if
>this can't be done due to a missing GFDL copyright owner (I'm using
>informal terminology but you should know what I mean) then LDP can
>always get the Creative Commons version and put it on the LDP sites.
>
>
>
That was my thought. With TLDP documents, there is generally just a few
authors of a given document, so contacting the authors of
license-incompatible documents is possible, if very time-consuming. If
an author of one version can't/won't give permission, we (the LQwiki)
can use the last version we have permission for as a starting point, or
roll our own. Contrast with the Wikipedia (which is GFDL, and a
storehouse of information that the LQwiki would *love* to use). Each
article generally has tens of versions done by different authors, about
a third of which are anonymous. The situation at the LQwiki is a bit
better, since you have to login to edit, and we're young enough that
there is generally that there usually only about 5 versions. But there
is still little chance of being able to contact every contributor for
permission to switch licenses.
So, once you agree to let the LQwiki use your work, you can either
switch the base document over to Creative Commons and incorporate the
new material. Or you could keep the old license and let the LQwiki
version fork. Or both. The Creative Commons (by-sa variant! not all the
variants are inter-compatible) has several advantages over the GFDL, and
it might be well to migrate on technical merit alone.
>But I still think that a wiki project like this needs to be integrated
>into LDP. One problem is that some people on the staff mailing list
>don't have time to read all the discuss posting (including me) and thus
>will miss this. That's another problem with LDP lists. I think that
>there should be one list for policy discussion (such as this email) and
>another list for discussing the various HOWTO proposals, etc.
>
>
>
Not able to discuss TLDP policy. But if you do decide to do a wiki, I
would advise you to maintain it as the unstable, cvs, version, and only
bring an article over to the stable section when it reaches a certain
maturity. This ought to cut down on the amount of work your submission
staff has to do. We might eventually bring the LQwiki into closer
partnership with the LDP, but I'm not qualified to make that decision
myself. Until then, your welcome to use us as a resource!
>>If you're the copyright holder of a LDP document (or any other
>>Linux-related document) that you would like to release under the
>>Creative Commons (by-sa), drop me a line at ####@####.####
>>and I'll take care of the scut work of incorporating it into our wiki.
>>
>>I'm also planning on contacting individual authors of articles that
>>are high on our want list, but I might need help tracking down authors
>>of some of the older articles.
>>
>>If you have the time, please come by the wiki and contribute. It would
>>be wonderful to have the input of experienced technical writers!
>>
>>
>
>Some of our writers are not all that great at what they do.
>
>
That's alright, neither are ours! In fact, I'll bet that your are
better, on average, then ours. One of the main reasons I like to
contribute to wikis is because it gives people who actually know what
they're doing a chance to improve my work.
