discuss: RTC Quickstart Guide into TLDP?
Subject:
Re: RTC Quickstart Guide into TLDP?
From:
Daniel Pocock ####@####.####
Date:
24 Sep 2015 09:12:09 +0100
Message-Id: <5603B089.9000401@pocock.pro>
On 24/09/15 09:41, Rick Moen wrote:
> Quoting Daniel Pocock ####@####.####
>
>> I'm just wondering if the Real-Time Communications Quickstart Guide
>> would be welcome in the Linux Documentation Project?
>>
>> http://rtcquickstart.org
>>
>> The aim of the guide is to help people install RTC (SIP, XMPP, TURN) on
>> Linux distributions like Debian, Ubuntu and Fedora.
>
> Have you given a thought to licensing of your document? As presently
> posted, you state your copyright title aka ownership (which is of course
> always appropriate), but by omission reserve to yourself all rights to
> redistribute, create derivative works, or maintain the work if/when you
> cease to do so. Which is of course absolutely your right, as it is for
> any author.
>
> Last I heard, LDP as part of the LDP Manifesto
> (http://wiki.tldp.org/LDP%20Manifesto) was willing to accept Linux
> documentation that is under a variety of free documentation licences, as
> detailed here: http://wiki.tldp.org/LdpWikiDefaultLicence
>
> In no way am I being critical of the current state of your Guide in
> mentioning the above. It's very common for people to write
> documentation without providing for other persons having the licensing
> right to assume maintenance of a work and prevent it from being
> permanently unmaintained and unmaintainable (the main reason for LDP's
> licence policy, I believe), and it's equally common - and understandable
> - for authors to have qualms about granting such rights over their
> creations.
>
> I certainly like your work on the Real-Time Communications Quick Start
> Guide, though I've just now started reading it.
>
Thanks for the feedback
The license was not an oversight, I am still contemplating the best way
to deal with this. It is an important decision and I didn't want to
just pick something at random.
I'm definitely contemplating how to ensure the guide is kept up to date
and encourages other contributors. That is one reason I put it on Github.
Metcalfe's law[1] tells us that the value of a communications network or
protocol (in this case, open protocols like SIP and XMPP) grows in
proportion to the square of the number of users. One practical
interpretation of this: if the guide is freely available online and if
that means 10 times more people read it and deploy these protocols, the
Metcalfe value of the network increases by a value of 100.
Based on that logic, whatever license I choose, it will permit free use
of the guide.
I'm not overly possessive of the document, I don't mind having other
authors contributing and sharing copyright and being credited for their
work as long as the quality of the document remains high so I need to
choose a license and maintenance strategy that facilitates this.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe's_law
