[Bioperl-l] HOWTO copyright policy vs FDL on wiki

Mark A. Jensen maj at fortinbras.us
Mon Nov 30 14:31:27 UTC 2009


Well, it has a history, Jason's point. So the question could
be: "is this still a valid issue"? A while back, a user on the wiki,
with natural and good intentions, removed the authorship and revision
info from a couple of the HOWTOs; it is more wiki-like,
after all. But Chris had some objections to that, which I
seconded, mainly on the basis of the special status that
seems implied by the copyright note on the HOWTO
page. I also think that the nature of the howto is somewhat
different from other info on the site -- that developers themselves
put a lot of time in to explaining how to use their modules, and
that in this world where devs get paid by recognition, it is a reasonable
thing to allow this extra horn-tooting. Now, that is a policy
that could be completely separable from the issue of copyright.
However, devs may also get paid by using their materials in teaching
seminars. The dilemma would be that people who like to use the
wiki are people who like to share, and so it feels unnatural to
withhold from the community the materials they develop,  but
people who like to share also like to eat and wear shoes...
so I'm interested in everyone's thoughts about it.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brian Osborne" <bosborne11 at verizon.net>
To: "Mark A. Jensen" <maj at fortinbras.us>
Cc: "Chris Fields" <cjfields at illinois.edu>; "Jason Stajich" 
<jason.stajich at ucr.edu>; "bioperl List" <bioperl-l at bioperl.org>
Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 9:16 AM
Subject: Re: [Bioperl-l] HOWTO copyright policy vs FDL on wiki


> Mark,
>
> Let me ask you a question, and don't take this question as an implicit 
> criticism of your suggestion, it is not. Why would you want this more 
> restrictive copyright?
>
> Brian O.
>
> On Nov 28, 2009, at 10:32 PM, Mark A. Jensen wrote:
>
>> The HOWTOs appear to have a more restrictive copyright
>> than FDL-- in particular, the blurb at the bottom of the
>> HOWTO page asks users to use the documents for personal
>> use only. I'm for this; I think we should therefore have some
>> explicit license for these that specifies this kind of restriction,
>> and then express that on each howto and in BioPerl:Copyright.
>> Any thoughts on the right license and whether this is a good plan?
>> MAJ
>> _______________________________________________
>> Bioperl-l mailing list
>> Bioperl-l at lists.open-bio.org
>> http://lists.open-bio.org/mailman/listinfo/bioperl-l
>
>
> 




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