I. Am 14/02/11 10:11, schrieb jdd:

Le 14/02/2011 09:51, pistazienfresser (see profile) a écrit :

...

There are several different versions of the Creative Commons licenses (CC) that are not only translated but adapted to different legal systems (hopefully with success).

is that possible? Do we have different rights with the same cc-XX-XX in different countries? that seems impossible (if the application country is not quoted in the document) Maybe you (pl.) take one and some more looks at:

http://creativecommons.org/affiliates and may-maybe also (I did not understand all [or tried to read the large third article] in France): http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licence_Creative_Commons http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licence_libre For some legislations are not all CC available in all the newest versions but see for example: by-nc-sa 2.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/fr/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/fr/legalcode http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/de/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/de/legalcode http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/jp/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/jp/legalcode II.

...

And also at least the de and en Wikipedia are using (at least first and foremost - e. g. once there was dual licensing in the de.Wikipedia).

looks even multilicencing in the de one (but I don't read german :-()

there can be only one text for any contract, how could you manage it elsewhere?

of course we can do dual licencing, but each time you add a licence you add weekness, as any people can choose the weeker licence for his use, what's the purpose of a licence, then?

I would be more for a real switch (after a open discussion and a decision of the board). If cautious you may ask after that the user if he or she is willing to accept the switch for his work (or just export his work and the according article will be freezed). But to keep the relations: a while ago nearly the hole old en.wiki was 'transferred' the the new wiki just with copy and past and not caring about any licenses and original authors - to my knowledge only few had protested at all and who had sued? III.

in our situation, choosing Xgpl or CC is more of a philosophy choice, copyleft versus copyright...

When you see "GPL" in any licence, you know it's free, whatever version you choose. When you see CC-, you don't and have to go to the CC site to know wich version is free and wich is not, this is not good

I would prefer a version that is at least probably valid for the most authors and users and so probably *able to protect the authors* from claims of stupid users that had misunderstood a how-to and claims to be aggrieved. And if the wiki should be also be for the work of the masses (not only the professionals like programmers)- what would you think is more probably be rated valid by a French judge it a French user would clam to be not able to understand or even read the text of the en:licence=>? contract by annex? // de: Lizenz=>Allgemeine Geschäftsbedingungen // fr: =>? contrat_d'adhésion or in any other legislation of a country in the/attached to the EU compare: Council Directive 93/13/EEC of 5 April 1993 on unfair terms in consumer contracts http://eur-lex.europa.eu/Notice.do?val=294482:cs&lang=de&list=294482:cs,&pos=1&page=1&nbl=1&pgs=10&checktexte=checkbox&visu=#texte / with a legislation alike that legal system ( fr:système juridique / de: Rechtssystem) => (in the same de:Rechtskreis -> )? Compare at least the graphic on: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syst%C3%A8me_juridique http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rechtsordnung http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rechtskreis http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sistema_jur%C3%ADdico http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9F%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B0%D1%8... IV. For other obvious problems compare: http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-wiki/2010-08/msg00042.html and following V. As I have already explained I am not really able to follow why the licenses issue would be pressing or even relevant for the openSUSE Weekly News - but if it comes to the wiki(s) it would make much sense in my opinion. /;) VI. What was the phrase that professionals on informatics sometimes say about reading manuals/texts ? /;-) Please do not forget to at least try to have a lot of fun! Regards pistazienfresser -- - openSUSE profile: https://users.opensuse.org/show/pistazienfresser -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Am 14/02/11 12:17, schrieb jdd:
> Le 14/02/2011 11:41, pistazienfresser (see profile) a écrit :
> 
>> authors and users and so probably *able to protect the authors* from
>> claims of stupid users that had misunderstood a how-to and claims to be
>> aggrieved.
> 
> AFAIK a provision of no responsability is included in GPL.
This clause is just not legal in my system of law. A clause that should
be valid my system has to be made for my system. According to German law
a valid clause for exclusion of liability has to make *explicit*
exceptions for vorsätzliches (en: intentional) and grob fahrlässiges
(en: grossly negligent) behavior. If there is no just the hole clause is
not valid and not legal (so called: 'Red-Pencil-Test' in my personal
opinion a bit of a punishment for trying to use to harsh terms in ).
But this is just an obvious example.

> 
>> probably be rated valid by a French judge it a French user would clam to
>> be not able to understand or even read the text of the
>> en:licence=>?
> 
> no, this nis not valid. there are translation everywhere, but in final
> only the original text is valid. judges have translators.
No. That most probably depends on the user. Why should you write a wiki
for a user in Fresh or German if you think she or he would even be able
to understand not only normal or technical English but also legal English.

I think literally in every paper for jurisprudence I read on CC-licenses
referred on this problem of the GFDL in difference to the adapted
versions of the CC-licences.[1]

> 
>> Compare at least the graphic on:
> 
> thid is not a thing we can solve here.
Why not just use licenses adapted to the different systems?
Do not know if this would be the perfect solution but at least avoiding
some obvious problems (and probably some more hidden, too.).

> 
>> For other obvious problems compare:
>> http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-wiki/2010-08/msg00042.html and following
> 
> I dont see it beeing a new problem. international relations are due
> for thousands of years :-) and everybody knows, like italian say
> "traduttore tradittore" (the translator is a traitor). translations
> are not a problem.
The Problem are more the differences of the systems of law.
Your are arguing like a openSUSE user who is telling a Microsoft user to
use a program only made for a linux based system on the Microsoft system
- and telling him also that I would be easy to translate it from French
to German.

> 
>> Please do not forget to at least try to
>> have a lot of fun!
> 
> sure. I'm perfectly fine with GFDL (in this context).
> 
> I repeat the problem is more of a philosophical one.

I rate it just as a very practical decision:
Change the probably valid license instead of just stay with the buggy one.
Transfer the (conditioned) right to use in a valid way to the
community/all people instead just leave it by the (amateurish) user.
Like staying in a obviously buggy system without at least trying to
patch it.
Or like surfing with root privileges cause your laptop is not so expensive.

> for such
> "amateur" text,
It is exactly the dealing with amateurs as authors and readers/consumers
I was writing about all the time.
I would - if anything - expect from professionals to understand legal
contracts in an other language and of an other legal system
- or at least to be be aware that they do not understand the text
and that there may be risks that a legal professional may be able to
understand better.

> copyleft is probably best.
As in German law there is not full equivalent to the Anglo-American
concept of "Copyright" but more something like a 'droit d’auteur'
(Urheberrecht). But this seems to me really a philosophical question of
not much practical use -> in all the decisions I have read about the
relations between professionals the courts just rate the "Copyleft" of
the (GPL) as a condition for the usage and left the right of the author
by the author.

And making the openSUSE wiki (legally and technical) comparable to the
big Wikipedias (in both ways) is in my opinion just also a very
practical issue.

Regards
pistazienfresser


[1] An easy but in my opinion not fully correct explanation in German is
just on this section of the GFDL article in the de.wikipedia:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/GFDL#Kritik

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reference document is probably: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/FAQ#What_are_the_international_.28.22unporte... (if the link don't fit, look in the faq, for international licences) jdd -- http://www.dodin.net http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xgxog7_clip-l-ombre-et-la-lumiere-3-bad-pig... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGgv_ZFtV14 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Le 15/02/2011 15:26, pistazienfresser (see profile) a écrit :

Thanks. that most probably is an interesting article. For me the wiki server of creativecommons.org seems to be not reachable now but the title of the URL looks promising.

http://creativecommons.org/ the wiki don't answer atm jdd -- http://www.dodin.net http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xgxog7_clip-l-ombre-et-la-lumiere-3-bad-pig... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGgv_ZFtV14 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On 2011-02-14 15:44:57 (+0100), pistazienfresser wrote:

Am 14/02/11 12:17, schrieb jdd:

...

Le 14/02/2011 11:41, pistazienfresser a écrit : [...] no, this nis not valid. there are translation everywhere, but in final only the original text is valid. judges have translators. No. That most probably depends on the user. Why should you write a wiki for a user in Fresh or German if you think she or he would even be able to understand not only normal or technical English but also legal English..

I think literally in every paper for jurisprudence I read on CC-licenses referred on this problem of the GFDL in difference to the adapted versions of the CC-licences.[1]

Right, but the fact that the licenses are adapted to each country's copyright laws is even more interesting. Not sure the language matters that much.

...

thid is not a thing we can solve here. Why not just use licenses adapted to the different systems?

Well, yes, I'm not sure what you're referring to with "different systems", but we definitely have different use cases, and the wiki content is one of them. For software, we typically go with one of the GPLs. For text content, we currently use GFDL on the wiki, as well as for the content on doc.opensuse.org For blog feeds (which was the initial trigger of the discussion, for inclusion into OWN, and potentially also applies to some extent to planet.opensuse.org), it is de-facto the license of each individual blog post which ... is usually not specified :\ For artwork, I don't know. There's the "official", branded, trademarked artwork in our "art" git repository [1], and I don't know which license that stuff is currently under. [1] http://gitirious.org/opensuse/art/ For the marketing and artwork teams (which is pretty much a single team anyway), we started a new git repository and decided to go for CC-BY-SA 3.0, at least for now: http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-marketing/2011-02/msg00387.html ), but that's still up for discussion as there isn't much content just yet. [...]

...

I repeat the problem is more of a philosophical one.

I personally don't see any philosophical (dude, don't be so French ;)) issue here. It's just a matter of deciding what we want people/organizations to do with our content (be it text or artwork): 1) may be used for commercial purposes? 2) must modifications remain under the same or a similar license? 3) attribution to the original authors (us, the openSUSE project)? 4) ownership remains with the original author? I'm sure we can all agree on points 2, 3 and 4 ("yes", "yes", "yes".) Point 1 is debatable (IMHO: "no" for text content, "yes" for artwork.) CC licenses make it indeed very easy to pick a variant from the two questions above, and are also a *lot* easier to understand. We actually *want* people to reuse what we do, at the very least as far as marketing and artwork material goes. A license that is easier to understand removes many hurdles.

I rate it just as a very practical decision: Change the probably valid license instead of just stay with the buggy one.. Transfer the (conditioned) right to use in a valid way to the community/all people instead just leave it by the (amateurish) user. Like staying in a obviously buggy system without at least trying to patch it.

Well, yes, but changing the license now, "after the fact", is very difficult, as you know. We would need to contact every single contributor to get their okay to change the license. I don't even think it's realistically feasible. Hence I'm not really sure how we could change the license from GFDL to CC-* on the wiki in the first place... Would dual-licensing be an option too ? (CC-* + GFDL) But to be honest, while the CC licenses are crystal clear, I never had a deep look at the GFDL, I don't know whether they're compatible in a way or another. cheers -- -o) Pascal Bleser /\\ http://opensuse.org -- I took the green pill _\_v FOSDEM XI: 5 + 6 Feb 2011, http://fosdem.org

Le 18/02/2011 01:59, Pascal Bleser a écrit :

Right, but the fact that the licenses are adapted to each country's copyright laws is even more interesting.

I don't see how this can work for an international project (that is world wide readable web site). What doeas "adaptation" mean? do any author have to read the variant for any country his text is used?, In such case, even cc recomends the unvariant one. and the language have little meaning, several countries using the same langage. things are différent, if, for example, you do photos in germany for a german news paper. all is done in only one country.

I personally don't see any philosophical (dude, don't be so French ;)) issue here.

no french at all (I'm not part of the "révolution des frites" :-). did you ever met RMS? the problem is also *the reputation* of openSUSE on the free sotware/opensourse world. I regret often some kind of thiking in this world (see the controversy Novell<->Microsoft), but we have to live with. For RMS and many free software user, the problem is *first* philosophical (and this makes it even more difficult). In LUG meetings I'm often asked "are you for the free software or for the open source software? I have to say I'm for both, but this leads to discussions :-)

Point 1 is debatable (IMHO: "no" for text content, "yes" for artwork.)

why? If anybody could sell a hardcopy of the openSUSE web site I would be very glad (not that this have any chance to happen anytime soon :-))

CC licenses make it indeed very easy to pick a variant from the two questions above, and are also a *lot* easier to understand.

* and it's very easy to pick a non free one (when there is no non free GPL :-) * the simplicity is simply a fake. The CC summary *have no value at all*, as have no value the preambule of the GPL. Only the full text have value and if you don't read it, you don't know what you sign for. And CC is evolving also. Alas the licence problem can't be easy! When one see "GPL" or "GFDL", he mostly know what it's about: copyleft, viral licence (derived work must have the same licence). When somebody see the CC licence he is obliged to go to the cc site to know what variant it is (who ever learn the meaning of several two letters logo?)

We actually *want* people to reuse what we do, at the very least as far as marketing and artwork material goes.

if so, makes the content completely free, without any limitation. wiki can't use attribution (who knows who is the author?), and SA (share alike) have also little meaning on an wiki. but please, don't think I like better GPL against CC, In fact I'm as confused as anybody here, I try simply to remove the idea that there is a simple solution :-(. We probably have to let this apart for some time (I don't see any emergency), build the foundation that could at least give us some entity to own the rights :-). Then have a large discussion and a vote, may be, to choose the licence to be used. In fact probably: * what licence we will have for any "official" openSUSE product; * what licences (notice the "s") are usable for work done in our name ("you can use the openSUSE name if your work uses one of the following licences...") * what licences make a product accepted in the OSS repo, in the non-OSS, completely refused... jdd NB: reading this is probably the first thing to do: http://www.rosenlaw.com/oslbook.htm, but not the last :-( -- http://www.dodin.net http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xgxog7_clip-l-ombre-et-la-lumiere-3-bad-pig... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGgv_ZFtV14 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

To me second to the issue if a license will probably rated valid if it comes before a court the question of be able to give and receive from others is the main question. The Debian Wiki projects is also currently discussing about their license. An overview from http://wiki.debian.org/DebianWiki/LicencingTerms/Proposals

Some documentation in other projects, and their licenses --------------------------------------------------------

Ubuntu: CC-BY-SA (>=2.5) https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DocumentationTeam/License [1] Wikipedia: CC-BY-SA (>=3.0) http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Licensing_update Opensuse: GFDL http://en.opensuse.org/Legal Fedora: CC-BY-SA (>=3.0) http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal/Licenses Gentoo: CC-BY-NC-SA (>=3.0) http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Creative_Commons TLDP: An aggregate of HowTos with various licenses. Default is GFDL 1.2 http://wiki.tldp.org/LdpWikiDefaultLicence [2]

My adding this URLs to my firefox gave that additional information: [1] With exception Ubuntu Packaging Guide [2] Accepted licences are: Creative Commons BY-SA, Creative Commons BY, GPL, MIT License, New BSD License, Open Publication License 1.0 with no options Maybe you could held a discussion about that issue (together with the Debian people and others) on the next Linux Tag or something like it? Martin (pistazienfresser) -- - Martin Seidler - openSUSE profile: https://users.opensuse.org/show/pistazienfresser -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

On 2011-02-18 12:16:32 (+0900), Satoru Matsumoto wrote:

Pascal Bleser wrote: [...]

...

It's just a matter of deciding what we want people/organizations to do with our content (be it text or artwork): 1) may be used for commercial purposes? 2) must modifications remain under the same or a similar license? 3) attribution to the original authors (us, the openSUSE project)? 4) ownership remains with the original author?

I'm sure we can all agree on points 2, 3 and 4 ("yes", "yes", "yes".)

Point 1 is debatable (IMHO: "no" for text content, "yes" for artwork.)

Indeed. The primary concern here might be whether those works can be included in SUSE Linux Enterprise distributions or not - in other words, whether that is considered 'commercial purpose' or not.

Didn't think of that, and SLE isn't my primary concern to be honest. But, sure, if we find an option that enables Novell to use our community work in SLE or similar products, why not, would obviously be a fair return. [...]

And one thing what I proposed in another post but hasn't be discussed yet is, whether we should adopt 'Contributor License Agreement' or not. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contributor_License_Agreement

If we can adopt CLA, I think the situations would be much clearer than ever, but there may be pros and cons for this. So, I want to hear your opinions.

It has pros and cons. But given the discussion we're having, and given the extreme difficulties of adapting a license after the fact without having a CLA, I would personally be in favour. But the CLA *must* be crystal clear about what sort of licenses we would consider in the future or, rather, give very clear guarantees, e.g.: * the content will always remain under an OSI compliant or CC license * the content will always remain usable and modifiable by FOSS projects * modifications of the content will always have to remain under the same license, or a similar licenses that guarantees the same as above Apart from that, I don't think any of us would mind giving the ownership of our contributions to the project. That might even be easier once we have a foundation, as the foundation could be the recipient of that ownership, rather than just saying "the project" (which does not have any legal form as of now.) cheers -- -o) Pascal Bleser /\\ http://opensuse.org -- I took the green pill _\_v FOSDEM XI: 5 + 6 Feb 2011, http://fosdem.org

On 2011-02-18 08:57:37 (+0100), jdd wrote:

Le 18/02/2011 01:59, Pascal Bleser a écrit :

...

Right, but the fact that the licenses are adapted to each country's copyright laws is even more interesting.

I don't see how this can work for an international project (that is world wide readable web site). What doeas "adaptation" mean? do any author have to read the variant for any country his text is used?, In such case, even cc recomends the unvariant one. and the language have little meaning, several countries using the same langage.

Well that's *precisely* the problem: as of today, and as far as I know (IANAL), there are no clear rules nor all that much jurisprudence on how such things are handled. Say that I, citizien of Belgium, acting under Belgian law, make some content. In that case the content I produced is protected de-facto by the copyright and intellectual property / ownership laws that apply to Belgium. Always. In any case. Never mind the license it is under, some of those laws always apply. Then there is the framework of the license that applies to my content, which gives permissions to people to use it. In case of abuse, AFAIK, no one knows what really happens. Jurisprudence in a few cases such as Google's newspaper case, seem to suggest that it would rather be the copyright law framework of the country where the *complaint* is filed in court. Or, rather, where the content was created. Another possibility is that you would have to file the complaint in the country of the person or organization that infringes your copyright. And, in that latter case, it is even more interesting that the CC license has been adapted to several countries. To the extent of my knowledge, there is no such thing as an "international law", or an "international copyright". The companies that actually do trademark stuff "internationally" must take care of doing so in every single country. Of course, except for a few rogue countries such as China, where the government just doesn't bother, or Russia to some extent, copyright laws have many things in common in all countries.

things are différent, if, for example, you do photos in germany for a german news paper. all is done in only one country.

...

I personally don't see any philosophical (dude, don't be so French ;)) issue here.

no french at all (I'm not part of the "révolution des frites" :-). did you ever met RMS? the problem is also *the reputation* of openSUSE on the free sotware/opensourse world. I regret often some kind of thiking in this world (see the controversy Novell<->Microsoft), but we have to live with.

Yes, that's what I meant with "being so French", please stop the mental masturbation process. Yes, I've met RMS on several occasions in person, in real life, and if you had you might have a different take on this as well. While I am as much for the GPL as anyone else on the project, let's not make this ideologic, but pragmatic. What do we *want*, and what is the best way to *achieve* that. In this case: which license is * best adapted to what we want to protect and what we want people to be able to do with it (commercially and non-commercially) * best suited for being enforced in a legal framework

For RMS and many free software user, the problem is *first* philosophical (and this makes it even more difficult). In LUG meetings I'm often asked "are you for the free software or for the open source software? I have to say I'm for both, but this leads to discussions :-)

You confuse philosophical with extremism. Well, then have the discussion and educate them. Oh, and tell them to *contribute* something first before going into the philosphical debates and making grand stands about what is right and what is wrong, especially when calling the thousands of actual contributors of opensource projects "bad" or "wrong". Yes, I know those people.

...

Point 1 is debatable (IMHO: "no" for text content, "yes" for artwork.)

why? If anybody could sell a hardcopy of the openSUSE web site I would be very glad (not that this have any chance to happen anytime soon :-))

True, but that's why I said "debatable". It's to discuss.

...

CC licenses make it indeed very easy to pick a variant from the two questions above, and are also a *lot* easier to understand.

* and it's very easy to pick a non free one (when there is no non free GPL :-)

There are no "non-free" CC licenses, except when you leave out "ShareAlike".

* the simplicity is simply a fake. The CC summary *have no value at all*, as have no value the preambule of the GPL. Only the full text have value and if you don't read it, you don't know what you sign for.

It's not a fake. There are two things in a license: * people who want to use your work must and want to *understand* it, and the GFDL is just as confusing and complex as the GPL * the complete license, if it needs to be enforced

And CC is evolving also.

Yes, which is why it has different versions, just like the GFDL.

Alas the licence problem can't be easy!

I don't think anyone said it's easy.

When one see "GPL" or "GFDL", he mostly know what it's about: copyleft, viral licence (derived work must have the same licence). When somebody see the CC licence he is obliged to go to the cc site to know what variant it is (who ever learn the meaning of several two letters logo?)

Sorry, but I highly disagree here, the CC licenses are much easier to understand. When you go to the CC website where each license variant is explained, it very clearly lists what may and what may not be done with it. Example: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ It really cannot be any simpler than that.

...

We actually *want* people to reuse what we do, at the very least as far as marketing and artwork material goes.

if so, makes the content completely free, without any limitation. wiki can't use attribution (who knows who is the author?), and SA (share alike) have also little meaning on an wiki.

There is no "completely free", you always have to pick a license. "Public Domain" is not applicable in every country: as an example, it doesn't have any real legal existance in Germany or Belgium. The history defines who the author is. SA doesn't have "little meaning", it's the same as the "viral" part of the GPL/GFDL. [...]

We probably have to let this apart for some time (I don't see any emergency), build the foundation that could at least give us some entity to own the rights :-). Then have a large discussion and a vote, may be, to choose the licence to be used. In fact probably:

I don't see why we couldn't at least have a discussion right now, and collect information already.

* what licence we will have for any "official" openSUSE product;

Define "official openSUSE product".

* what licences (notice the "s") are usable for work done in our name ("you can use the openSUSE name if your work uses one of the following licences...")

That's a different topic, because trademarks play a role here too.

* what licences make a product accepted in the OSS repo, in the non-OSS, completely refused...

That's already defined since a long time... (any OSI compliant license). And the topic, here, is the content on the wiki (and probably also on OWN and planet). -- -o) Pascal Bleser /\\ http://opensuse.org -- I took the green pill _\_v FOSDEM XI: 5 + 6 Feb 2011, http://fosdem.org

Hi, everyone, With the recent debate related to re-licensing of the wiki, news, and other o.o sites, I thought this might come in handy as an example case. I am not quoting anyone in particular, because I dont know whom to quote, and if this example has come up before, I'm really sorry, the discussion has broken up into too many threads in my inbox for me to keep complete track of. Cheers, ~kknundy _______________Forwarded message________________________________ From: Ubuntu Community Council Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 3:09 AM Subject: Ubuntu Wiki to be re-licensed to CC BY-SA To: Dear Contributor to the Ubuntu Wiki, We are contacting you because you have contributed content to the Ubuntu wiki at http://wiki.ubuntu.com. The license of content of the Ubuntu Wiki has always been publically listed as copyright Canonical Ltd. Working with the Ubuntu Community Council, Canonical has decided to transition the content in the Ubuntu Wiki to the the CC-BY-SA license[1]. This license is a free culture license[2] and is the same license used both by the Ubuntu Documentation wiki [3] since 2007 [4] and by Wikipedia. If you are happy with the idea of this transition for the content you have provided, you do not need to do anything. If you have problems or issues, please read the feedback section below and contact us. The rest of this message provides a rationale, details, and information on providing feedback. = Decision = After discussion among the Ubuntu Community Council, it has been decided that the material on the Ubuntu wiki should be licensed under a free license, CC-by-SA[1]. The Ubuntu wiki will be changed to make this clear to those creating or editing pages, and of course external links from the Wiki to material under other licences will continue to be welcome. This decision is not intended in any way to underestimate the value of contributions, but rather to ensure that the material on the wiki complies with the same standards of openness as the Ubuntu project as a whole. = Rationale = The Ubuntu wiki is a collaborative resource, and the product of the Ubuntu community as a whole. Its content, put together by many contributors with different knowledge and points of view, is immensely valuable to us all. Unfortunately, at the moment, there is no clear definition of what rights contributors to the content retain over the material that they post, or the extent to which other persons are entitled to copy or modify the material. For example, it would be very useful to ensure that community contributed content may be shared by many teams without complex licensing issues, ensuring that those working on content can concentrate on producing the best information possible rather than legal negotiations. Furthermore, consistent with Ubuntu's philosophy, it is important that material created for use on the Ubuntu wiki be available for other communities outside ours to benefit from. Using an open license on the Ubuntu wiki allows other communities to re-use material which may be useful to them under terms which are widely recognised in the free software community. = Feedback = We would again like to make a good-faith attempt to ensure that contributors of existing material are happy with this change. We invite any contributors who have any questions or concerns about this plan to contact us at . Given that the re-licensing of http://help.ubuntu.com/community was fairly uncontroversial and since the aim to re-license the Ubuntu wiki at some point later has not brought up any objections, we hope that contributors will welcome it. In the absence of a substantial number of objections, this change will be made to the Ubuntu wiki after approximately one month. More details can be found here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WikiLicensing Many thanks for your contributions to the Ubuntu Wiki, and we hope that you will continue to help! = Exceptions = If you want to license a code snippet on the wiki under another open source license [5], please specify the relevant license in the snippet itself. In the event that no license is specified, the license applicable to the code snippet would be the same as that applicable to any other material on the wiki. [1] See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ [2] http://freedomdefined.org/Definition [3] http://help.ubuntu.com [4] https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2007-April/000275.ht... [5] http://wiki.debian.org/DFSGLicenses __________________________________________________________________ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org

Am 18/02/11 13:29, schrieb pistazienfresser (see profile):

To me second to the issue if a license will probably rated valid if it comes before a court the question of be able to give and receive from others is the main question.

The Debian Wiki projects is also currently discussing about their license.

An overview from http://wiki.debian.org/DebianWiki/LicencingTerms/Proposals

...

Some documentation in other projects, and their licenses --------------------------------------------------------

Ubuntu: CC-BY-SA (>=2.5) https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DocumentationTeam/License [...] My adding this URLs to my firefox gave that additional information: [1] With exception Ubuntu Packaging Guide

Some other Ubuntu community documentation licenses: https://help.launchpad.net/Legal Help, Dev, and News Content License

The documentation contained in the Launchpad Help wiki, the Launchpad Development wiki, and on the Launchpad blog is owned by Canonical Ltd and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by/2.0/uk/88x31.png => CC-BY 2.0 UK http://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/Startseite Ubuntu Deutschland e. V. http://ubuntuusers.de/lizenz/ -> http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/de/deed.de [old licence (before the 2007-10-03)] -> http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ => CC-BY-NC-SA 2.0 DE (old: CC BY-NC 2.5 Unported ['US']) [in my view ins Non Commercial (NC) not acceptable for a community that is connected to a commercial organization/concern] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue219

Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License CCL.png Creative Commons License 3.0 BY SA => CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported ('US')

Regards Martin (pistazienfresser) -- - openSUSE profile: https://users.opensuse.org/show/pistazienfresser -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org