Re: Wiki Usage

[John Belmonte <john@...>]

Man Kein Hong wrote:
> Yeah, I think we should avoid duplication of effort as far as possible.
> The best way of doing this will be to add a proper documentation license
> to the Lua wiki. The discussion can be done on this list, and by
> advertising it on the wiki.  During the transition period, anyone who
> disagrees with the license can pull out their material.
> 
> The most "compatible" license would be something equivalent to Lua 5's
> license, assuming "public domain" is too "free". Some contributors might
> want some kind of attribution, given the time and effort spent in
> creating the material. What does the list think?

Have you considered: 1) people who have already contributed material in
the past 5+ years may not see this after-the-fact agreement (e.g. they
are not active in Lua any longer), 2) there is no registration required
for write access to the wiki (by intention), so an anonymous person
could post another party's content conflicting with the agreed upon
license without being accountable.

Putting a license on the wiki now would give people wishing to reuse the
content a false sense of security with no legal grounding.  We are not
Wikipedia, and there are no funds to hire lawyers should someone be
facing a lawsuit (likely me or Pepperfish).

I really don't regret having no license and no sign-in mechanism on the
wiki from the start.  I view the wiki as graffiti on a public wall.  If
someone wants to sell photographs of the wall they can at their own
risk.  I like the freedom of public walls and free paint, and should the
community insist this change I may regretfully wash my hands of
lua-users.org.

As I've advised in the past [1], it's best to keep this can of worms shut.

--John


[1] http://lua-users.org/lists/lua-l/2004-08/msg00278.html