Subject:
Re: small demo page
From:
Randy Kramer ####@####.####
Date:
21 Aug 2005 10:51:20 -0000
Message-Id: <200508210702.21050.rhkramer@gmail.com>
On Sunday 21 August 2005 04:44 am, jdd wrote:
> Randy Kramer wrote:
> > Sounds like a good idea to me! jdd are you still interested?
>
> of course, I am.
Good!
I also saw your post on copyright. I recall the discussion (or rather, I
recall what I decided to carry around in my head after reading the discussion
(and other discussions on copyright on other lists)--but note that there is a
hole in what I'm carrying around in my head (and maybe in my head, also ;-).
Based on my recollection, if we (the tldp, or even me as an author or editor
not affiliated with tldp) can't contact the copyright holder, we cannot
modify his document (unless by chance, before disappearing, his licensing
already gave us that right).
So, iiuc, one solution is to create a new document, perhaps in some sense
based on his previous document (not sure how far we can go--in some of my
personal notes, I've copied and pasted portions of a previous author's work
(with proper attribution), and later, if the occasion arose, may have
rewritten / paraphrased his writing. (That's one of my learning tools, if I
can put his thoughts into my own words, I feel I've achieved a certain level
of learning of that material.)
So, it may be appropriate in such cases to to something like what you've done
already--create a set of non-editable wiki pages containing his original
text.
(Does the tldp (or anyone else) have the right to do that? my guess is they
do, as the tldp seems to have the right to publish those documents (HOWTOs,
etc.) in various formats already. A read-only copy in a wiki would seem to
be just another publication variant.)
Then create a second set of editable pages (one for each page of the
original), but totally (or almost totally-keep reading) blank. (By almost
totally we might put a note on each blank page explaining the situation and
"soliciting" people to begin a rewrite.
So, I'm asking for opinions of the people knowledgable of copyright on this
list--would the above be permissable/legal?
Now, to the subject of a site. I have a site called WikiLearn (well,
actually, it's hosted on twiki.org, and one web of the main TWiki on that
site, so maybe "I have a site" isn't exactly the correct terminology). The
main point of this digression is that I don't want to presume too much on
their hospitality.
But I am certain that we could put at least one or a few HOWTOs on WikiLearn
without incurring their displeasure. (The stated purpose of WikiLearn is to
record my and other's learning experiences in Linux to help others
(especially those making a transition from Windows).)
Now, recognize that it is a TWiki, not WikiMedia, so I'm sure the markup is
somewhat different. Still, if we pick a small HOWTO to start with, I'm sure
between the two of us (or others who may be interested), we can put a HOWTO
on TWiki. Hmm, TWiki can handle (almost?) all HTML markup, so if the
read-only version of the HOWTO is available as HTML things should be fairly
easy (and using HTML will not be an impediment to future editing on those
read only pages). The toughest part might be deciding on how to break the
HOWTO into pages, but maybe we just do that the same way the HOWTO is
paginated for reading on the web.
Anyway, if the consensus is we can (legally) proceed as above, and someone
wants to propose a small HOWTO without an author/maintainer, and jdd (or
someone else) wants to help, we can setup at least one HOWTO on WikiLearn.
(If it happens to be a HOWTO in which I still have a personal interest, I
might even help with a rewrite--well, I'll probably help to some extent
anyway, but if I have a personal interest in the content, I'm sure I'll help
that much more.)
Randy Kramer
Randy Kramer
> > What's my point? I think the first time reader of a document is a
> > valuable resource--we should make it easy for him to provide feedback as
> > she reads.
>
> true
>
> but again, will tldp do? what is the procedure?
>
> my personal dsl server is an old one, I already have chaged
> it twice for hardware failure, each time with months stops,
> I use is as a learning platform for students, so it's not at
> all designed to hold permanent worldwide data.
>
> of course I can open an account on source forge. But ibiblio
> should be much better.
>
> What we need, after the first experiments, is an official
> (that is tldp accepted, home page advertised, stable enough
> to be advertised in howtos) site.
>
> do we start a step further? on this thread there where 4-5
> answers for yes and 2-3 for no, this is a very small feedback.
>
> and for rick and the others that don't like this. say so,
> the group will see you and don't forget, then setup your
> procmail filter and my mail will never more bother you...
>
> jdd
