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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Wed, 14 Jul 2004 12:31:13 GMT
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Viewed:
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2863 times
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In lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw, Peter Howkins wrote:
> Tim Courtney wrote:
> 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 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 was
this hurtle we couldn't get over (again, due to inactivity), the community would
suffer.
If we come up with a fair process that balances concerns, I'm fine with that.
I'm not willing to paint us into a corner, though.
I believe Orion's draft, when he posts it, will be a big improvement.
> 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.
For the last time, I don't have any specific example of why the SA may need to
change. Had I one, the SteerCo probably wouldn't have proposed the SA as the
library license.
The point is not any flaw in the SA license, the point is the mess we're in.
We're in one now, and the responsible thing to do is to work ourselves out of
the mess in the future, were the issue ever to arise.
> 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.
You say 'different' terms, but it seems you're implying 'worse' terms here.
Don't forget that any future license, if a change was ever deemed needed, would
have to also comply with the goals of the organization to be legitimate.
> 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?
The principles are the goals, not the license. There may be a need in the
future; an improved SA license, an improved similar license, a change in the
legal environment, etc that would warrant a change. This license *is* 'a good
thing,' but again, we can't lock ourselves down hard and fast to anything, lest
we just put ourselves in the same situation we're in now.
> > 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).
Correction, a no response (ie. the author is not active, or not responsibly
maintaining a method for LDraw.org to contact them) does not affect a vote
presented to active participants. Inactive people can't weigh the process down.
> > 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.
Thanks for admitting that, as your posts do read to me like you actively
distrust the *current* SteerCo members who are proposing this.
> 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".
You should retain the rights to your work, and will retain your copyright. If
you decide to contribute to the community effort, the community needs to be
assured that your work will always be distributed through the joint resource,
the Parts Library. So, in that sense, you aren't losing any rights, you're just
guaranteeing your work to be accessible to the community through the common
channel without risk of it going away. I think that's only fair to the tens of
thousands (yes) of users out there.
From my POV, I'm trying to ensure that the joint work (the Parts
Library) stays intact in the future and is distributed in the best way. People
are contributing to a community effort here. It's not fair to the community for
someone to put their parts in the library at one point, and yank them out in the
future.
Consider the multiplied thousands of hours of invested into building, archiving,
and sharing 3D models which reference a part. Were the author to yank their
part, that creates more work for users to fix the glitch and authors to replace
it. Think about how that would not only inconvenience and frustrate them but how
it would devalue the LDraw system to all of the users who run into the obstacle.
> 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.
Again, this reads like you're equating all change to being bad, which I don't
think is fair. I also believe because of the strong participatory nature of this
community when it comes to joint decision making, the likelihood of a change for
the worse taking place is slim to none. It simply wouldn't be allowed through.
However, providing a mechanism for a good change to go through is not only good,
but the responsible thing to do, so we never again find ourselves in the
situation we're in now.
-Tim
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Message has 1 Reply:
Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Moving the License Forward
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| (...) 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. (...) What, at the risk of (...) (20 years ago, 13-Jul-04, to lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw)
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