[Toolserver-l] Changes to expired accounts web hosting

[James Alexander]

Well I would think that we would be able to have them "opt-in" to the
free licence in the same way that wikimedia does (you agree to it when
you signup/submit something). We would just be giving them the
opportunity to opt-out of that and still use the service. I would tend
to agree with having an opt-out function, mostly for legitimate
concerns like Pathoschilds.

James

James Alexander
james.alexander at rochester.edu
jamesofur at gmail.com
100 gmail invites and no one to give them to :( let me know if you want one :)




On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 9:53 PM, Martin Peeks <martinp23 at googlemail.com> wrote:
> On 5 February 2010 02:45, Aryeh Gregor <Simetrical+wikilist at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 9:38 PM, Martin Peeks <martinp23 at googlemail.com> wrote:
>>> However, I feel that toolserver users should retain the *freedom* to
>>> choose how to license projects. Perhaps the docs and so on ought to be
>>> adjusted to emphasise the importance and value of free licensing, but
>>> there should be no automatic compulsion by dint of ToS to give certain
>>> freedoms to one's work. While I, certainly, would open source any
>>> further Wikimedia related tools I were to write, I strongly feel this
>>> should be a matter of personal preference.
>>
>> At a minimum, though, this should be opt-out, just for pragmatic
>> reasons.  The problem isn't that TS users don't want to freely license
>> their tools, it's that they vanish and we don't have the opportunity
>> to ask them.  If we said "All your tools are GPLv3 or later, unless
>> you specifically say otherwise", then most tools would end up being
>> freely-licensed, and when someone disappears, someone else could take
>> over the tool.
>
> The default copyright stance, unless a licence specifies otherwise, is
> "All Rights Reserved". I don't think we have the right to enforce a
> licence that is all about freedom unless a user opts-in.
>
>> I wouldn't have any problem at all with saying that if you want to
>> write closed-source software related to Wikimedia, you can do it on
>> your own dime and not using Wikimedia-DE's hardware, software, or
>> administration budget.  But it's not my decision to make, of course.
>
> Closed source software can be as good as open source software - do
> remember that. And closed source software doesn't have to be
> commercial. While (imo) WM-DE should support free and open source
> software, this can be done in other ways. For example, by using a free
> and open source webserver rather than the current Zeus (which is to my
> knowledge closed-source - at least I cannot find source on their
> site).
>
> To me, this is all about freedoms - that's all.
>
> Martin
>
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