discuss: Proposal for revised license and license requirements.
Subject:
Re: Proposal for revised license and license requirements.
From:
Mysid ####@####.####
Date:
17 Jun 2005 06:02:47 -0000
Message-Id: <6eb799ab050616230232ee10a5@mail.gmail.com>
On 6/6/05, David Lawyer ####@####.#### wrote:
> There are some points in favor of making a document non-modifiable.
> Non-modifiable means that you can modify it, provided you have the author's
> permission. Thus the author can try to prevent modification that only
> degrades the document: adding advertising to it, intentionally adding
> untrue statements, etc. Such degradations have actually happened.
This assumes authors forever remain altruistic, that the only concern is
from others, and yes, that it really matters.
What happens when an author himself/herself decides they
would like to capitalize on the article and stick advertising in it?
Now suddenly the no-modification clause actually prevents removal
of the advertising, and TLDP has to either keep their popup ad or
chunk the article.
Or they could intentionally deny the community ability to update their
lengthy Howto while publicizing some book on the subject that they
have just finished / are trying to sell.
There is the possibility of some motive to want to 'take their work back'
after supposedly publishing it as a free document.
What best protects the community? The authors of an article are
not the only stakeholders.
Yeah, so they wrote an article: chances are others could have written
it too... but person Xyz got there first, so they've effectively gathered
exclusive control of the topic.
Whereas completely replacing an article takes enough time and resources
(that could have been used making other nice articles) to matter, which
would be extremely unfortunate if the article would not need to be rewritten
and if not for some license restriction, a few added sections and some
minor revisions would have sufficed.
--
-Mysid
