discuss: August summary
Subject:
Re: [discuss] August summary
From:
David Lawyer ####@####.####
Date:
9 Oct 2005 05:56:51 -0000
Message-Id: <20051009055702.GC1966@lafn.org>
On Sat, Sep 03, 2005 at 03:35:00PM -0400, Randy Kramer wrote:
> Another proposal was to deal with abandoned HOWTOs (where the author can not
> be found).
>
> For such documents, the thought was to "publish" the exisitng HOWTO on read
> only (non-modifiable) pages, and allow for comments and a rewrite to be
> created on new pages ("near", in some sense, to the pages of the original
> HOWTO--maybe on a MediaWiki these would be the discussion pages corresponding
> to the pages of the original HOWTO).
>
> While I think in general an approach along these lines can be legal (more
> below), I was hoping to hear some confirmation or discussion on that
> point--how much "separation" would we need to remain legal.
>
> To elaborate a little, in the software world, when desired / needed code is
> encumbered by a copyright, one way forward is to rewrite that software. My
> understanding is that a similar possibility exists for written documents,
> but, I'm not sure to what extent it has to be a "clean room" rewrite.
>
> So, am I totally off base?
No. It depends on how it's done. The new doc can't just copy or
paraphrase parts of the old one. It needs to be a new doc in it's own
right and should incorporate a lot of new information. You can look
at the old one for facts while writing the new one, but you should be
checking for facts elsewhere as well.
David Lawyer
