On Tue, Aug 2, 2011 at 9:35 AM, C <[email protected]> wrote: > On Tue, Aug 2, 2011 at 14:56, Rob Weir <[email protected]> wrote: > > Against my better judgement, one last reply... > >> iCLA is not the same as the JCA. You should read it: > > You miss the point entirely Rob. The issue is not the fine print of > the iCLA or the JCA (I know what the iCLA says.. I read it)... it is > the very fact that requiring it for OOo user documentation raises the > bar for contribution to the documentation. If you demand that doc > contributors sign an iCLA, they simply won't bother... they just go > away - I've seen this happen over and over, and the people walked.. > not because of the fine print in the JCA... it was because they had to > sign something, and it was over their head or they can't be bothered > trying to figure it out. >
And if these same non-developer, normal user retirees wanted to write an article for a magazine, on an OpenOffice feature, they would need to sign a copyright assignment for it to be published by the magazine. The point is not the user's background. Giving license to content is not a special concern of developers. It applies to anyone that creates creative works that they want others to be able to use. Remember, the mess we're in now, as we're pondering exactly what parts of the wiki we can actually migrate, was caused by lax attention to this issue given by the OOo project previously. That is reducing our flexibility now. I'd like to avoid these kinds of problems in the future. > Doc contributors are NOT developers. They are mostly "normal" people > who have no clue about software development processes. They are end > users who enjoy writing a little... editing an FAQ... writing a HowTO. > They are often retirees with some spare time on their hands. > And their contributions are greatly appreciated. I don't want to force them to learn software development process. But I do what to ensure that their contributions are made in a way that allows others to max greatest use of their contributions. That's why we're an open source project. > >> All documentation in an Apache project is community-developed. > > And Apache projects are all very technical. They are databases, web > servers, XML framework tools, development toolkits, network > application frameworks, message brokers, Java development toolsets, > XML parsers and so on.. none which are Consumer Level products (at > least that I am aware of or could find). Documentation for these > products is written by developers for developers.... OOo > documentation it is user oriented not developer oriented. It is a very > different animal. > Again, that is a red herring. How the documentation is written and how it is licensed are two entirely different things. Ditto for how content is written and how it is reviewed and approved. I have no wish to complicate things for the documentation writer-contributor. We should make it so they can use familiar tools and techniques. -Rob > > C. >
