Truly public namespaces on Fedora wiki

[Paul W. Frields]

This question came up at a FUDCon discussion about the wiki.

The wiki globally asserts that pages are licensed under the OPL, and
we license in that fashion pursuant to contributors having signed the
CLA.  However, in the FUDCon: namespace, we allow the public to edit
pages, because that's the nature of FUDCon.  We do not require people
to become Fedora account holders or CLA signers to attend FUDCon, but
those people must be free to pre-register, thus these pages must be
editable by non-authenticated persons.  These edits by
non-authenticated persons will be labeled with an IP address.

Notably, it's possible that a Fedora account holder (who could
authenticate) might accidentally edit these pages in a
non-authenticated way.  The effect would be that the edit would look
like any other non-authenticated edit even though presumably the
Fedora account holder fully intended it to be an authenticated edit
and thus covered by the CLA, and so forth.

The wiki does not provide the means for a non-authenticated person to
confirm OPL licensing.  It does warn anyone who saves an edit that
their work may be edited and that material must not be copied onto the
wiki without proper permission, and links to the Legal:Licenses page
where the OPL licensing statement lives.  But there is no statement to
the effect that "By clicking the Save Page button, you agree that your
submission will be licensed under the terms found at _____".

Since we switched to MediaWiki it's possible that we've simply failed
to provide an equivalent language transfer in this case.  So my
questions are as follows:

1.  Can a non-authenticated person agree to the OPL license when
    making a submission, such that the agreement is meaningful and
    enforceable (or at least free of risk for the Fedora Project)
    without personally identifying information?

2.  If the answer to #1 is "yes," should we attach a statement of
    affirmative licensing prominently near the "Save Page" button?

3.  If the answer to #1 is "no," should we alter FUDCon:, and any
    other namespace on the wiki designed to be publicly editable, to
    provide their contents under public domain or no license, and
    notate that on the Legal:Licenses page?

My hope is that the answers to #1 and #2 are "yes," but I wanted those
answers to emerge here on fedora-legal-list if possible.

-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
  gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233  5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717
  http://redhat.com/   -  -  -  -   http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/
  irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug

[Tom Callaway]

On Fri, 2009-01-16 at 08:49 -0500, Paul W. Frields wrote:
>  1.  Can a non-authenticated person agree to the OPL license when
>      making a submission, such that the agreement is meaningful and
>      enforceable (or at least free of risk for the Fedora Project)
>      without personally identifying information? 
In the limited boundary set of people signing their name to attend
FUDCon, yes. In a larger set of data, possibly not.

>  2.  If the answer to #1 is "yes," should we attach a
> statement of
>      affirmative licensing prominently near the "Save Page" button? 
It could not hurt.

>  3.  If the answer to #1 is "no," should we alter FUDCon:,
> and any
>      other namespace on the wiki designed to be publicly editable, to
>      provide their contents under public domain or no license, and
>      notate that on the Legal:Licenses page? 
I would rather have any publicly editable pages include prominent notice
near the "Save Page" button that by hitting the "Save Page" button,
you're indicating that all changes made are done under the OPL license,
and if you do not agree with these terms, you should not make changes.

I'd also like to minimize the amount of namespaces which are designed to
be publicly editable without signing the CLA.

~spot

[Paul W. Frields]

On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 09:47:43AM -0500, Tom spot Callaway wrote:
>  On Fri, 2009-01-16 at 08:49 -0500, Paul W. Frields wrote:
>  > 1.  Can a non-authenticated person agree to the OPL license when
>  >     making a submission, such that the agreement is meaningful and
>  >     enforceable (or at least free of risk for the Fedora Project)
>  >     without personally identifying information?
>  
>  In the limited boundary set of people signing their name to attend
>  FUDCon, yes. In a larger set of data, possibly not.
>  
>  > 2.  If the answer to #1 is "yes," should we attach a statement of
>  >     affirmative licensing prominently near the "Save Page" button?
>  
>  It could not hurt.
>  
>  > 3.  If the answer to #1 is "no," should we alter FUDCon:, and any
>  >     other namespace on the wiki designed to be publicly editable, to
>  >     provide their contents under public domain or no license, and
>  >     notate that on the Legal:Licenses page?
>  
>  I would rather have any publicly editable pages include prominent notice
>  near the "Save Page" button that by hitting the "Save Page" button,
>  you're indicating that all changes made are done under the OPL license,
>  and if you do not agree with these terms, you should not make changes.
>  
>  I'd also like to minimize the amount of namespaces which are designed to
>  be publicly editable without signing the CLA. 
I agree with this too.  Maybe we can get Ian "WikiNinja" Weller or
Nigel "G-Man" Jones to get a proper and prominent notice attached to
the wiki, above or next to the Save controls.

Since it's been made immutable, I can't access the notice we used on
the Moin wiki, but I'm almost certain we had one there.  Shall we just
use that text, if someone can retrieve it?

-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
  gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233  5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717
  http://redhat.com/   -  -  -  -   http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/
  irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug

[Ian Weller]

On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 09:58:26AM -0500, Paul W. Frields wrote:
>  On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 09:47:43AM -0500, Tom spot Callaway wrote:
>  > I would rather have any publicly editable pages include prominent notice
>  > near the "Save Page" button that by hitting the "Save Page"
> button,
>  > you're indicating that all changes made are done under the OPL license,
>  > and if you do not agree with these terms, you should not make changes.
>  > 
>  > I'd also like to minimize the amount of namespaces which are designed to
>  > be publicly editable without signing the CLA.
>  
>  I agree with this too.  Maybe we can get Ian "WikiNinja" Weller or
>  Nigel "G-Man" Jones to get a proper and prominent notice attached to
>  the wiki, above or next to the Save controls.
>  
>  Since it's been made immutable, I can't access the notice we used on
>  the Moin wiki, but I'm almost certain we had one there.  Shall we just
>  use that text, if someone can retrieve it?
>   
Well wouldn't ya know it, a WikiMedia website -- the MediaWiki help
pages -- are a precedent for this sort of thing. Their entire Help:
namespace is public domain so that other wikis can import it without
problem.

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Contents
http://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Help:Signatures&action=edit

Now, how does this work?

http://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning&...

-- 
Ian Weller <ianweller(a)gmail.com&gt;                  http://ianweller.org
GnuPG fingerprint:  E51E 0517 7A92 70A2 4226  B050 87ED 7C97 EFA8 4A36
"Technology is a word that describes something that doesn't work yet."
  ~ Douglas Adams