On Thu, 2007-01-25 at 16:21 +0100, Harald Welte wrote: > On Thu, Jan 25, 2007 at 07:29:47AM -0500, Richard Franks wrote: > > then there is no copyright issue as the contributors have implicitly > > put their words into the public domain?
This is not true and for sure in the US, where the instant someone contributes, their contribution is governed under copyright. > Public domain only exists in the UK/US common law countries. > > I for example, as a German citizan, cannot put something into the public > domain - unless my copyrigt expires some decades after my death. Yes, this is a murky area. I agree with Harold. However, public domain does not apply to this. > So, yes, I firmly believe it is problematic to copy that old content > into the new official wiki. Yes, this is true. And, we need to correct this somehow. I will outline below. Basically, the problem with the current temp wiki is that there is no license declaration, which means the content is controlled by copyright of each author. To make it more problematic, there is no required login, so it is very difficult to track these authors down. Thus, there are a few possibilities, that we can weigh in on. 1.) restart the wiki using GFDL 1.2 license and delete the current content. Then, the authors who created the previous content can login and add this content that they created to the wiki (which can be compared via diffs). And, all content from that point forward would be licensed under GFDL 1.2, as long as that statement is on every single page. 2.) Make a relicense agreement which would require every single person who has contributed to sign (which is also very unlikely because we don't have the full capability to match nonlogins (only IPs are recorded) with names. Thus, this type of agreement would be nearly impossible. I think the best step is #1, with a complete deletion of the old content on the wiki and the authors who have contributed can go back through the wiki and re-add the content that they added that is an original contribution and not a derivative of an old work. The most important part is that there needs to be a license declaration for the GNU FDL 1.2 license on every page. What do you all think about this? Yes, this sucks, but it is better to set a time to do this and just do it. There is another option suggested of authors, when the time to move over content to the official wiki comes, then authors move their own contributions over. This is problematic because authors have made derivatives of others works and certain contributions are dependent on others. However, there haven't been than many additive contributions, so I still think #1 above is the best option. Harold and others, what do you think? At least that way, not all is lost ;( If you all agree, lets set a time, say SAT 27th, 11:59 PM PST to delete and note the license on the wiki pages to restart this. I can do the honors. Jon > The official wiki will, in the spirit of Wikipedia (and for > compatibility) be using GFDL 1.2. Yes, then I think the temp wiki should use GFDL 1.2 license as well so content can move over to the new one. Jon > Cheers, -- Jon Phillips San Francisco, CA USA PH 510.499.0894 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.rejon.org MSN, AIM, Yahoo Chat: kidproto Jabber Chat: [EMAIL PROTECTED] IRC: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ OpenMoko community mailing list [email protected] https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
