discuss: Thread: August summary

The traffic is very low since mid August. I think most of 
list members may be back at wotks on this September 1. I 
hope thay had nice hollidays.

I won't be long. Many of yours may probably delete all the 
August mail (too much :-), so I want to say that:

* Many HOWTO Authors where missing on an early Jully survey
* this lead some of us to discuss an other time on do the 
tldp needs a wiki discussion site,
* I was asked to setup a _test_ site and I did so on

http://dodin.org/~tldp/mw/index.php/Main_Page

* I can do the same for twiki if instructed to do so

details on the list archive.

anybody is invited to test the system, add anything he wants.

good works :-)
jdd
-- 
pour m'écrire, aller sur:
http://www.dodin.net
http://valerie.dodin.net
http://arvamip.free.fr

On Thursday 01 September 2005 02:15 am, jdd wrote:
> * I was asked to setup a _test_ site and I did so on
>
> http://dodin.org/~tldp/mw/index.php/Main_Page
>
> * I can do the same for twiki if instructed to do so

I should have responded to you sooner.  I have a TWiki on WikiLearn 
(twiki.org) (http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Wikilearn/WebHome) which I can use 
to "experiment" with if, for example, we have an interesting but abandoned 
HOWTO with paginated HTML we want to try there.  (I thought the Network HOWTO 
might be a prime candidate, but somebody took over maintenance of that 
recently, iirc.).

Also, on a TWiki (WikiLearn) we can experiment with a (metadata) database if 
there is a need for that.

regards,
Randy Kramer

To clarify: I have no objection to setting up a TWiki on your site, it just 
seems initially unnecessary.

> On Thursday 01 September 2005 02:15 am, jdd wrote:
>> * I was asked to setup a _test_ site and I did so on
>>
>> http://dodin.org/~tldp/mw/index.php/Main_Page
>>
>> * I can do the same for twiki if instructed to do so
>
> I should have responded to you sooner.  I have a TWiki on WikiLearn
> (twiki.org) (http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Wikilearn/WebHome)
>...

Was there any sort of outcome/resolution on the licensing issues?

Is using a wiki legally feasible with TLDP content?

Sorry, but I lost track of the thread (dropped out of the
discussion) due to my workload...
--
Greg

Randy Kramer wrote:

> To clarify: I have no objection to setting up a TWiki on your site, it just 
> seems initially unnecessary.

there is no problem for me. I tried only to use "fresh" 
install, that is a wiki used only for tldp.

on the mediawiki I propose, all can be configured for tldp, 
even front page.

jdd


-- 
pour m'écrire, aller sur:
http://www.dodin.net
http://valerie.dodin.net
http://arvamip.free.fr

####@####.#### wrote:

> Was there any sort of outcome/resolution on the licensing issues?
> 
> Is using a wiki legally feasible with TLDP content?

what I proposed was a voluntary athors system, in this case, 
the authors rules the licence. But there has been a hudge 
dicsussion, it's probably better to loook at the list archive.
jdd


-- 
pour m'écrire, aller sur:
http://www.dodin.net
http://valerie.dodin.net
http://arvamip.free.fr

On Friday 02 September 2005 02:32 am, jdd wrote:
> ####@####.#### wrote:
> > Was there any sort of outcome/resolution on the licensing issues?
> >
> > Is using a wiki legally feasible with TLDP content?
>
> what I proposed was a voluntary athors system, in this case,
> the authors rules the licence. But there has been a hudge
> dicsussion, it's probably better to loook at the list archive.
> jdd

Thanks for responding! (I was going to have to go back in the archives and 
refresh my memory on the discussion, this has, I think, triggered my memory 
sufficiently.)

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?

Randy Kramer

On Fri, Sep 02, 2005 at 08:32:17AM +0200, jdd wrote:
> ####@####.#### wrote:
> 
> >Was there any sort of outcome/resolution on the licensing issues?
> >
> >Is using a wiki legally feasible with TLDP content?

LDP doesn't own the copyright to any of the documentation it
distributes.  It might own copyright to it's webpages which have no
authors listed.  I would think it also owns the copyright to it's
manifesto which defines the organizations purposes, etc.  LDP is of
course an informal organization, but even such organizations have some
legal standing.  For example, I thought we owned the domain
linuxdoc.org.

Since each document has it's own license, then using it on a Wiki
without the author's permission is governed by that license.  It's
also governed by copyright law.  This means that if the license
permits modification and you put this doc on the Internet as a Wiki,
there needs to be notice that the author shown in the document title
page is not the sole author.  Otherwise, it would imply that the
author wrote something that was actually added by an anonymous writer.
Copyright law doesn't allow incorrect attribution. 

If it's licensed under GFDL, then any modifications must list the
author making the modifications.  So such a license doesn't allow for
a wiki unless the people modifying it list their names.

> what I proposed was a voluntary athors system, in this case, 
> the authors rules the licence. But there has been a huge 
> dicsussion, it's probably better to loook at the list archive.
> jdd
			David Lawyer

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

Hello,

there where no entry at all in my "tldp wiki" since 
september 14. and very few before.

I don't mind to monitor (against vandalism) an unused wiki 
and think the wiki for tldp is not a so good idea if nobody 
cares (except the few already known)

so, for then end of the present month I will disable the 
wiki and replace it by a small explanation page.

sincerely yours
jdd

-- 
pour m'écrire, aller sur:
http://www.dodin.net
http://valerie.dodin.net
http://arvamip.free.fr

> Hello,
>
> there where no entry at all in my "tldp wiki" since
> september 14. and very few before.
>
> I don't mind to monitor (against vandalism) an unused wiki
> and think the wiki for tldp is not a so good idea if nobody
> cares (except the few already known)
>
> so, for then end of the present month I will disable the
> wiki and replace it by a small explanation page.

The efforts are appreciated.

Personally, for TLDP, given the various copyright, etc. issues,
a comment-driven feedback system (a la php.net, which I think
is excellent) might prove to be a better implementation (just
my opinion, of course).

Greg