Re: Wiki Usage

[John Belmonte <john@...>]

Glenn Maynard wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 17, 2006 at 08:44:18AM -0400, John Belmonte wrote:
>> For anyone so concerned about reuse (and perhaps attribution) of their
>> work, especially for significant pieces of code, the wiki is not the
>> place to house the authoritative copy.  Publish your work and license
>> statement from a location which (ideally) only you have write access to.
> 
> I'm concerned as a user, not an author.  (I don't need a licensing
> policy on the wiki for my own code; if I upload code to a wiki, I'll
> either include a license or--more likely--explicitly release it into
> the public domain.)

My wording was poor.  I meant "for any authors truly concerned about
giving others the freedom to reuse their work".

So what will happen if you post code on the wiki and mark it as "(C)
Glenn Maynard" and licensed under the GPL.  A malicious user can 1)
insert proprietary or patented code into yours, 2) change the code to
delete the user's home directory, 3) replace your name with another's,
4) change the license.  The malicious user can do this in the middle of
a flurry of valid edits by some eager wiki contributor, so that his
change will go unnoticed.  After time the edit will fall off the page
history.  If you use the file area of lua-users.org instead of putting
your code inline on the wiki, there is even less chance of malicious
changes being noticed.  People have even put binaries in the file area,
which I think is a bit foolish.

> You seem to downplay the value of code reuse, but it seems like the
> fundamental purpose of many contributions.  The LuaPowerPatches page is
> the biggest concentration.  A couple other examples (skimming my browser
> history) are ObjectProperties and DebuggingAndTesting.

Not at all, I'm pretty serious about promoting nonproprietary works of
all kinds, including software.  I was one of the most vocal about Lua
switching to a standard license.  However, the wiki is a very informal
place by intention, and has its limitations when used as primary
distribution for a work.  Despite this (and because of it), the wiki has
been of high value to many Lua users.

> (By the way, is the "the resulting language cannot be called Lua" bit
> on LuaPowerPatches a leftover from a previous Lua license that can be
> removed?)

Yes, that's the case.  However, I'd suggest that the community respect
that original desire of the Lua authors, even if it isn't coded into the
license.

--John