Doug wrote:
* My opinion: the OOo wiki is a public domain forum. I couldn't care
The major problems with claiming public domain are: * Several major countries do not recognize the concept; * For countries that do recognize "Public Domain", putting material in the public domain from the date of creation is non-trivial. A simple declaration does not suffice. * It is entirely possible that court rulings or Legislation will convert material in the public domain, to material that is copyright, with ARR status. [There are two US Court Cases that did this, in addition to when the US Congress did this. There is no reason to believe that other countries won't act in a similar manner.]
Why should it be the responsibility of a mostly volunteer project to protect the ignorati from themselves?
It is a case of the organization protecting itself from potential legal damage. It has nothing to do with protecting the ignorati from themselves.
* Anyone who feels their material is too sacred to place in the public domain is free to publish anywhere else they would like.
That legally requires the wiki to be forked. One wiki for people who are domiciled in countries that do not recognize "public domain", and one wiki for people whose domicile does recognize "public domain". And maybe a third if a country follows the route of the US, and retroactively places material that was in the Public Domain into ARR Copyright status. Louis wrote:
So, I'd be happy with posting something like, "Content posted after
[date] is licensed in accordance with OpenOffice.org's license policy, which can be found at http://www.openoffice.org/ license.html. Content posted prior to this date is copyrighted Sun Microsystems and the contributing authors." The problem with that, is trying to figure out when the content was added. Looking at history helps, but only if one looks at everything since the article was initially written. [Material that looks "original" on 1 June 2007, might have been deleted in March 2006, and originally written in January 2005.] ########## For Drew, Louis,etc: My suggestion would be: * Close down the wiki for a couple of weeks; * Add a script that requires a specific licence (or one of a set of licences) to be used for all material submitted; * Delete all existing content from the wiki; * Open the wiki; * Invite the FAQ writers to recreate the material from scratch; Initially, it will result in a significant decrease in the number of FAQs. However, it will clear up the licensing issue. It should also ensure that the information is applicable for current (2.0) versions of OOo. xan jonathon --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
