Subject:
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Re: Moving the License Forward
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw
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Date:
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Tue, 13 Jul 2004 14:11:53 GMT
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Viewed:
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2835 times
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Tim Courtney wrote:
>
> In lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw, Peter Howkins wrote:
> >
> > This wouldn't exactly be a ringing endorsment of a policy change.
> > I would like to see the enduser license being a difficult thing to
> > change. Something like 75% approval on a turnout of 33% (active voters
> > rather no response abstains) would at least confirm that those active
> > members believed it to be a good thing. Given how no one on the SteerCo
> > has yet come up with a reason for changing the EndUser license, making
> > it easy shouldn't be on the agenda.
>
> Whilte you make a good argument, I think you're leaving out something. It's the
> author's responsibility to maintain an address where LDraw.org can contact them
> on organizational business. Plus, LDraw.org announces important things like this
> through the 'proper channels' like LUGNET News (or whatever primary discussion
> medium in the future, which will be well known), and the LDraw.org site itself.
> Again, if the author is so concerned with the license on their parts, its their
> responsibility to be 1) reachable by the notices, and 2) vote if they're against
> the change.
I admit my turnout values may have been optimistic :)
But I still feel that a greater than 50.00000something percent positive
vote ought to be needed to move away from something as good as the
ShareAlike license.
> And no, I don't have any *specific* reasons for making a change in the future.
> What I *do* have is an intense desire to not put the community in the situation
> we're in today again. That means, we need some mechanism to allow the
> distribution of the library to change (if it ever becomes necessary) while
> protecting it from 'no response.'
>
> Right now, as we move towards adopting a license for the library, technically
> speaking we must contact each and every author who has a part in the library and
> get an affirmative response from them. No doubt in my mind, we'll be dropping
> parts from the library because of this - some have disappeared and won't return,
> or won't return for a while. Users (thousands more of them than there are parts
> authors) have invested much of their time into creating, archiving, and sharing
> models that reference parts that _might go away_. That's hard for me to stomach
> -- difficult now, and unthinkable to allow to happen again.
What, at the risk of banging on forever, in the ShareAlike license
do you feel is against the stated goals of ldraw.org and the
sharing attitude of it's contributors? Is there a flaw in the
ShareAlike license that would force people to stop distributing
work under it? I personally can't see anything in the ShareAlike license
that would ever put us in a similar mess to the one currently.
I'm more afraid for the future with a situation where peoples work
can be relicensed under different terms than I am with a future
where we are stuck with the ShareAlike license forever.
If we could accept the ShareAlike license as "a good thing", it would
save a lot of work writing rules to allow people to change it.
Why don't we get it right now, and stand by those principles in future?
> To reiterate, if the author wants a say, he/she is responsible for maintaining
> an address where they can be contacted and checking it for notices, or keeping
> up on publicly posted news which could affect their contributions. The time
> period for making a response one way or another will be significant (60 days, I
> believe, is in the current draft); which is plenty of time for someone who is
> genuinely concerned to reply.
> > > Authors may pre-approve LDraw.org to make license changes through a checkbox at
> > > the bottom of this agreement.
> >
> > Once again I disagree with this. There should be no automatic approval of
> > all future decissions. This also seems a fairly cynical method of
> > increasing the 'Approval' votes. Would you also add a box on the CA
> > that says "I'll vote against changing from the ShareAlike license in
> > any future votes", it would even things out :)
>
> Now that I think about it, I suppose the box is unnecessary, as a 'no response'
> is also a yes.
Erm, are you sure that's what you mean. In the previous
post you said ...
"if no response is received from the author, it will count as an
abstaining vote"
and
"Abstaining votes will not count towards the total for which a majority
will be measured"
That doesn't sound like a 'yes' from a voting point of view. Wheras
the tick box language does sound like a 'yes' (to whatever terms are
presented).
> I disagree that it's a 'cynical method,' though.
Well yeah :)
I sort of coming at this from a paranoid, anti bureaucracy, anti
political point of view. This means I perhaps unfairly place
motivations on people, in my mind, that they don't actually have.
My apologies to anyone (particulaly on the SteerCo) that is
taking this personally.
I keep on seeing holes in licenses and thinking "Arrrgh, why do
they need all this power, are they trying to take my rights away".
I hate the idea that after all the work the SteerCo is doing now,
it would take very little for say five or ten years down the line a
different SteerCo being able to undo the good work.
Maybe if I posted some of my 'Doooom' scenarios, it would help
others see why I'm a tad worried about this? And fill in
various holes to prevent them.
Peter
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Moving the License Forward
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| (...) positive (...) And I maintain, if there are not enough authors still active at a time this potential situation were to come up, It could be near impossible to make the change. If there were a situation where the change was needed, and there (...) (20 years ago, 14-Jul-04, to lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw)
| | | Re: Moving the License Forward
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| (...) <snip> (...) Quoting Yoda, "Hard to see, the future is". The ability to change the ShareAlike license is to hedge our bets against unforseen issues. If you are omnipotent (should I call you Q?), then you can see all forseeable issues and can (...) (20 years ago, 14-Jul-04, to lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Moving the License Forward
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| (...) Whilte you make a good argument, I think you're leaving out something. It's the author's responsibility to maintain an address where LDraw.org can contact them on organizational business. Plus, LDraw.org announces important things like this (...) (20 years ago, 13-Jul-04, to lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw)
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