relicensing of Fedora wiki/docs (OPL => CC BY SA)

[Karsten Wade]

This is a policy and licensing change that affects anyone who edits
the wiki or otherwise contributes to Fedora documentation.

The consensus of the Docs Team, with full Legal support, is to  
relicense wiki and documentation from the deprecated OPL 1.0 to the CC
BY SA 3.0 license.  This move brings Fedora on to the mainland of free
and open content; tens of millions of pieces of content and media are
licensed under the CC BY SA.

Our goal is to do the switchover in about 2 weeks (22 July).

Because of the larger number of contributors involved (thousands), it
is too much effort to contact each contributor (copyright holder) to
gain permission to relicense.  Instead, we are enacting a clause of
the contributors license agreement that grants the Fedora Project
permission to relicense (sublicense.)

Questions?  Discussion?  First read this:

http://iquaid.org/2009/07/06/why-relicense-fedora-documentation-and-wiki-...

... then bring your discussion to fedora-wiki or
fedora-advisory-board.

Cheers - Karsten
-- 
Karsten 'quaid' Wade, Community Gardener
http://quaid.fedorapeople.org
AD0E0C41

[Ian Weller]

On Tue, Jul 07, 2009 at 01:02:11AM -0700, Karsten Wade wrote:
>  This is a policy and licensing change that affects anyone who edits
>  the wiki or otherwise contributes to Fedora documentation.
>  
>  The consensus of the Docs Team, with full Legal support, is to  
>  relicense wiki and documentation from the deprecated OPL 1.0 to the CC
>  BY SA 3.0 license.  This move brings Fedora on to the mainland of free
>  and open content; tens of millions of pieces of content and media are
>  licensed under the CC BY SA.
>  
>  Our goal is to do the switchover in about 2 weeks (22 July).
>  
>  Because of the larger number of contributors involved (thousands), it
>  is too much effort to contact each contributor (copyright holder) to
>  gain permission to relicense.  Instead, we are enacting a clause of
>  the contributors license agreement that grants the Fedora Project
>  permission to relicense (sublicense.)
>   
There is likely quite a bit of content that is not CC BY-SA compatible.
What do we do about that?

-- 
Ian Weller <ian(a)ianweller.org&gt;
GnuPG fingerprint:  E51E 0517 7A92 70A2 4226  B050 87ED 7C97 EFA8 4A36

[Eric Christensen]

On Tue, 2009-07-07 at 09:20 -0500, Ian Weller wrote: 
>  There is likely quite a bit of content that is not CC BY-SA
> compatible.
>  What do we do about that? 
What content is not compatible?


-- 
Thanks,
Eric Christensen
Fedora Docs Project Lead

Fedora Talk: 5102043                  Phone: [phone] x 5102043
E-Mail: sparks(a)fedoraproject.org      SIP: sparks(a)talk.fedoraproject.org
IRC: Sparks on freenode.net

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[Ian Weller]

On Tue, Jul 07, 2009 at 10:22:49AM -0400, Eric Christensen wrote:
>  On Tue, 2009-07-07 at 09:20 -0500, Ian Weller wrote: 
>  > There is likely quite a bit of content that is not CC BY-SA compatible.
>  > What do we do about that?
>  
>  What content is not compatible?
>   
You're all gonna kill me for stirring up a storm with no data :)

Every now and then I run across something that is obviously not
compatible. I don't touch it because there's no obvious licensing
whatsoever -- I didn't know we were specifically using the OPL until
Karsten's message ;)  Somebody tell me what policy we need to enact.

-- 
Ian Weller <ian(a)ianweller.org&gt;
GnuPG fingerprint:  E51E 0517 7A92 70A2 4226  B050 87ED 7C97 EFA8 4A36

[Jon Stanley]

On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 10:32 AM, Ian Weller<ian(a)ianweller.org> wrote:

>  Every now and then I run across something that is obviously not
>  compatible. I don't touch it because there's no obvious licensing 
Huh? This doesn't make any sense - the wiki and docs.fp.o are licensed
OPL, and always has been (for the last three years - always in my book
:) ). AFAIK, we're talking about relicensing the wiki, the  docs on
docs.fp.o, and contemporaneously, RHT relicensing their upstream docs
to CC-BY-SA (which seems perfectly reasonable to me).

Correct me if I'm wrong

[Ian Weller]

On Tue, Jul 07, 2009 at 10:56:01AM -0400, Jon Stanley wrote:
>  On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 10:32 AM, Ian Weller<ian(a)ianweller.org>
> wrote:
>  
>  > Every now and then I run across something that is obviously not
>  > compatible. I don't touch it because there's no obvious licensing
>  
>  Huh? This doesn't make any sense - the wiki and docs.fp.o are licensed
>  OPL, and always has been (for the last three years - always in my book
>  :) ). AFAIK, we're talking about relicensing the wiki, the  docs on
>  docs.fp.o, and contemporaneously, RHT relicensing their upstream docs
>  to CC-BY-SA (which seems perfectly reasonable to me).
>   
If you put something in the wiki that *isn't yours* it doesn't magically
follow our licensing rules. People do that, either because they don't
understand the licensing or because they don't read the guidelines.

-- 
Ian Weller <ian(a)ianweller.org&gt;
GnuPG fingerprint:  E51E 0517 7A92 70A2 4226  B050 87ED 7C97 EFA8 4A36

[Karsten Wade]

On Tue, Jul 07, 2009 at 10:12:15AM -0500, Ian Weller wrote:
>  On Tue, Jul 07, 2009 at 10:56:01AM -0400, Jon Stanley wrote:
>  > On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 10:32 AM, Ian Weller<ian(a)ianweller.org> wrote:
>  > 
>  > > Every now and then I run across something that is obviously not
>  > > compatible. I don't touch it because there's no obvious licensing
>  > 
>  > Huh? This doesn't make any sense - the wiki and docs.fp.o are licensed
>  > OPL, and always has been (for the last three years - always in my book
>  > :) ). AFAIK, we're talking about relicensing the wiki, the  docs on
>  > docs.fp.o, and contemporaneously, RHT relicensing their upstream docs
>  > to CC-BY-SA (which seems perfectly reasonable to me).
>  > 
>  If you put something in the wiki that *isn't yours* it doesn't magically
>  follow our licensing rules. People do that, either because they don't
>  understand the licensing or because they don't read the guidelines. 
Yeah, or don't read the CLA, which specifically states in several
cases the work must be original to the contributor, or that they
otherwise have the right to give out a copyright license to it.

So let's just make it a policy.  If you see something suspicious on
the wiki, contact the person who put it there immediately and ask them
to confirm they have the right to contribute it to Fedora.  If they
don't, it must be taken down immediately.

- Karsten
-- 
Karsten 'quaid' Wade, Community Gardener
http://quaid.fedorapeople.org
AD0E0C41

[Eric Christensen]

On Tue, 2009-07-07 at 10:12 -0500, Ian Weller wrote:
>  On Tue, Jul 07, 2009 at 10:56:01AM -0400, Jon Stanley wrote:
>  > On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 10:32 AM, Ian Weller<ian(a)ianweller.org> wrote:
>  > 
>  > > Every now and then I run across something that is obviously not
>  > > compatible. I don't touch it because there's no obvious licensing
>  > 
>  > Huh? This doesn't make any sense - the wiki and docs.fp.o are licensed
>  > OPL, and always has been (for the last three years - always in my book
>  > :) ). AFAIK, we're talking about relicensing the wiki, the  docs on
>  > docs.fp.o, and contemporaneously, RHT relicensing their upstream docs
>  > to CC-BY-SA (which seems perfectly reasonable to me).
>  > 
>  If you put something in the wiki that *isn't yours* it doesn't magically
>  follow our licensing rules. People do that, either because they don't
>  understand the licensing or because they don't read the guidelines. 
That information, when found, should be removed, IMO.

Eric

[Karsten Wade]

On Tue, Jul 07, 2009 at 09:32:39AM -0500, Ian Weller wrote:
>  On Tue, Jul 07, 2009 at 10:22:49AM -0400, Eric Christensen wrote:
>  > On Tue, 2009-07-07 at 09:20 -0500, Ian Weller wrote: 
>  > > There is likely quite a bit of content that is not CC BY-SA compatible.
>  > > What do we do about that?
>  > 
>  > What content is not compatible?
>  > 
>  You're all gonna kill me for stirring up a storm with no data :)
>  
>  Every now and then I run across something that is obviously not
>  compatible. I don't touch it because there's no obvious licensing
>  whatsoever -- I didn't know we were specifically using the OPL until
>  Karsten's message ;)  Somebody tell me what policy we need to enact. 
If it's on the wiki, it's under the OPL.  While I cannot imagine what
you've seen that isn't compatible, here's the basic rule of thumb --
if it can be covered by the OPL, it can be covered by the CC BY SA
3.0.

So I guess that means, please excise at-will any non-compliant
content.  Ask here or fedora-legal-list if you've any questions.

- Karsten
-- 
Karsten 'quaid' Wade, Community Gardener
http://quaid.fedorapeople.org
AD0E0C41