0: To be clear, I fully support the current rules for the repo. 1: The purpose of -extras is to facilitate community development which could eventually make its way into core. There are two components to that: 1.1— Development of contributors who might become core contributors. By requiring ASL (and encouraging the use of code standards), these contributors get used to the core project, making the transition to core developers easier. 1.2— Development of extensions which might some day be included in core. By requiring ASL, we are sure that any extension in -extras can someday be included in core without issue.
2: However, the current rules do allow the acknowledgement of developers within the pluggable.xml file. This is beneficial because it: 2.1— Increases their brand and provides credit for their work. This serves the aim of increasing willingness to work within the repo. 2.2— Allows other community members to easily become aware of valuable contributors. This serves the aim of increasing PMC-recruitment/ meritocracy. (See 1.1) 3: From my understanding, there is one difference between the requirements for core and repos: core extensions cannot include individual attribution. 4: I believe we should change that, for three reasons: 4.1— Maintain consistent standards across -extras and core. As mentioned in 1.2, the transition from -extras to core is supposed to be simple. Presently, the requirement of anonymity serves as a potential obstacle in that transition. 4.2— Acknowledge the significant contributions of those responsible for work we deem appropriate for core. (See 2) 4.3— Recent changes to the schema(s) allow plugins/themes to credit multiple authors. This would allow credit to go to all associated parties, including the general Habari community. 5: In light of these reasons, I propose that we change the requirements for core extensions. Please vote on the following proposal: 5.1— Always include "Habari Community" as one author of the extension. 5.2— At the discretion of the community, credit additional significant contributors, at their consent, by name and url. On Jul 16, 2009, at 4:33 PM, Owen Winkler wrote: > > luke wrote: >> I can appreciate the sentiment around attribution. I think that it is >> a very true fact that if you allowed attribution public facing, it >> would encourage the creation and sharing of more themes. I feel that >> the inclusion of rel="nofollow" would mitigate that slightly. > > Where I get lost in this argument is in the idea that the creation and > sharing of a theme be contingent on attribution. You can already do > this, but not in the repo. The only reason a person would want to > commit such a theme to the repo is for visibility's sake. > > It is imperative that contributors not misunderstand the repo as a > distribution venue. Its current value as a distribution venue is > incidental. > > Being that the repo was explicitly created with the intent (among > other > significant intents) to cultivate materials (and developers) that are > appropriate for inclusion in core, and given that no core contribution > may include personal attribution, it is therefore not appropriate to > encourage/allow themes with public-facing attribution in the extras > repo. > > A theme directory on the HabariProject.org site itself, which would > certainly allow and encourage inclusion of external themes with any > attribution or even commercial tendencies, is a sorely lacking > component > of our current offerings. In that venue, any attribution is > appropriate. In the repo, only the specified attribution is > appropriate. They are different components with different intents. > > We should take greater care to keep Habari free and open, which to > me is > an acceptable gain against trading off a bit of early publicity for > some > theme authors who need attribution capabilities before considering > contribution, something they'll eventually get with a theme directory > anyway. > > The alternative suggested use of the repo, to my ears, is a chaotic > free-for-all of mixed licenses and attribution, and is potentially one > of the greatest opportunities for the project to be forced into that > legal action that we're always fearful of. If we're concerned about > project longevity, this is something we should consider more carefully > before simply throwing open the gates to any contribution, > attribution, > license, or outright plagiarism. It's a slippery slope. > > I think these rules are easier to implement than making attribution > acceptable only under certain conditions or only when doing it a > certain > way. What is written about attribution here and on the extras repo > wiki > page is the minimal set of inclusion requirements that everyone seems > able to agree on. That is to say, if the requirements for inclusion > in > the repo were more lax or strict, more people would take issue with > them > than what do now. We can mostly all agree that what the current rules > say should be included, we should include. > > There will always be opinion on what we should include, and it's > good to > revisit it, but I think we have not yet tried to work within the rules > already defined, nor is there a firm understanding of what the > components at issue are about. If we burn the fields of our repo with > attributed content, we'll not be able to easily recover that land. > Likewise, consider that any useful theme directory that would help > solve > our problems would likely grow in that otherwise fertile soil. > > If we were to direct the energy spent on changing or disagreeing with > the rules instead at erecting the solution that works with the > existing > rules (creating a theme and plugin directory) to address the true > issue > (top-tier exposure for contributions, whether free or commercial) > then I > think we would be better served in the end, even if the result is to > determine that we need some other solution. I can't imagine it, but > if > this proposal fails and we then decide that throwing open the repo > doors > to any contribution, attributed or not, will yield better results, > then > so be it. > > Owen > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/habari-dev -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
