[gentoo-doc] Re: Supporting CC-BY-SA 3.0 and later versions

[Duncan]

wireless posted on Tue, 29 Nov 2011 10:19:58 -0500 as excerpted:

> On 11/29/11 08:01, Sven Vermeulen wrote:
>
>> I don't consider this as a "problem" per se, so I don't think we need
>> to put much effort in these things. Licenses evolve; documents too.
>> Eventually, old(er) documents will be replaced with newer ones anyhow.
>> And it is not that the 2.5 license has a major issue for us - it's just
>> that 3.0 is somewhat newer and used on the wiki.
>
> This issue is even simpler than that. Just assume the authors (owners?)
> are not going to say anything. If one or 2 do, resolve the issue
> individually, or pull the doc. After all, when was the last time there
> was an issue of this sort?

Adding to swift/SV's reply, as he said, the laws don't work like that,  
and we /really/ don't want to go there, even if we /might/ /arguably/ be 
able to get away with it for some or all of the docs.

And addressing the "last time there was an issue of this sort" question, 
there was a bit (well, potentially more than a bit, but it was resolved 
before it went nuclear) of a hubbub around a document with some major 
work by a former dev, some years ago.  In that case, it was simply that 
he had been taken out of the "authors" list at the top/side, while still 
credited in a footnote along with all the other contributors, the 
reasoning behind the action being that for layout reasons, it made more 
sense to put the current primary contact up at the top, with the rest of 
the contributors still acknowledged but that acknowledgment moved 
elsewhere.

I believe the issue was resolved by essentially reverting the change.

But given the hubbub that caused when it was simply moving a name 
around... no, we don't want to TOUCH the whole license change without 
explicit permission thing, and I'd argue, rightly so.  As ESR pointed out 
quite effectively in his cathedral and the bazaar series of essays and 
book, the FLOSS community functions as a meritocratic gifting society, 
with the primary currency being respect based on acknowledge 
contributions to the community, and anything that messes with that 
acknowledgment and respect is, in effect, either robbery or community 
currency manipulation.  For some people, therefore, changing such things 
without direct permission is akin to robbing them at gunpoint, not a 
small matter, indeed, and even if you believe the ESR stuff is all a 
bunch of hooey, recognizing the value some others in the community place 
on it can in practice save quite some community controversy at best, or 
ultimately, legal trouble if it goes nuclear!

(I deliberately avoided names and explicit detail as it's long settled 
now tho the issue remains a sensitive one for some, so no need to drag 
out the details, but they're available in the gentoo list archives.  
Additionally, the historic details aren't apropos for current list 
discussion, so please take anything further on that line offlist.)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman