Re: Voluntary Public Domain declarations now enabled on the wiki

Well, it's been two days since this thread began, and I
wanted to  
echo back what I've heard from the discussion. [Fair
warning, I've  
been flying quite a bit, and will be for the next week, so I
may fall  
a bit out-of-date...]

As soon as I first edited the wiki page to describe this
strategy,  
Andy reached out to me to inquire how the public-domain
release  
interacted with the original 2004 copyright statement. I
don't have  
any firm ideas at this point; Tantek replied to this thread
by taking  
the admirable step of clarifying that as much as possible
for all of  
the pages that he could, individually removing the 2004
statement  
from pages he'd edited.

However, as Ernie noted, the wiki medium arguably calls for
tracking  
the contributions of *all* the contributors who modify the
pages,  
above and beyond the stated "authors" of a
page/spec. We're hardly  
proposing any kind of automated checking at this point, but
it's an  
interesting direction for the future.

Andy's initial public reaction did take me aback, though:
while he  
may be correct the PD text currently states that
"unless otherwise  
stated" (because that's what was copied from
Wikipedia), the intent  
is different. Perhaps we should be discussing "unless
otherwise  
prohibited," for example.

More generally,though, I think volunteering in this case
makes for  
better game-theory than holding back until 'everyone else'
commits to  
a more open strategy first. Taking the incremental step of
marking  
your profile clearly states an individual's intent and also
sets the  
stage for finding out whether there *is* community consensus
that the  
public-domain approach is appropriate for microformats.org
-- a first  
among even remotely-standards-like efforts to my knowledge.

Migrating to  a new, clearer copyright regime will not
happen  
overnight and must be done clearly and cleanly -- but it
begins, I  
submit, by offering to cooperate in the construction of a
new regime.  
Please consider joining in by adding the release to you user
profiles  
today...

Thanks,
   Rohit Khare
_______________________________________________
microformats-discuss mailing list
microformats-discussmicroformats.org
http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microforma
ts-discuss

Rohit Khare wrote:
> Migrating to  a new, clearer copyright regime will not
happen overnight
> and must be done clearly and cleanly -- but it begins,
I submit, by
> offering to cooperate in the construction of a new
regime. Please
> consider joining in by adding the release to you user
profiles today...

Rohit, thank you for taking the time to put this together.
It is not
only a good start, but demonstrates that key individuals in
the
Microformats community are not attempting to do anything
nefarious or
shady with what the community produces (like what happened
in the case
of XMCD/CDDB).

If you would like to see who has signed up for voluntary
public domain
release of their contributions, here's the list:

http://microformats.org/wiki/Category:public_domain_l
icense

We are currently trying to put the hAudio draft into the
public domain.

>From a legal standpoint, we would need everybody that
made contributions
to that document to not only place the public domain
template onto their
user pages, but also explicitly release their past
contributions as
public domain works (since they still hold the copyright on
the material).

The wording of the current template isn't explicit about
past
contributions. The statement could be interpreted as
"all future
contributions" since most legal statements are not
retroactive unless
explicitly stated.  Please consider adding
"retroactively" or "all past,
present and future contributions" to the text. Here is
the public domain
agreement with the added changes:

I agree to release my past, present and future text and
image
contributions into the public domain
http://en.
wikipedia.org/wiki/public_domain). Please be aware that
other
contributors might not do the same, so if you want to use
pages with my
contributions under public domain terms, please check the
other
contributors' user pages. If I do not desire to release my
contributions
to the public domain, I will clearly note the copyright
policy that
should be used with my contribution.

If this change is not made, we will have to perform the
arduous task of
asking every author that contributed to a page to release
their
copyright on that page. I have started this process with
hAudio, where
we have asked every author of the draft page to release
their edits into
the public domain:

http://microformats.org/wiki/audio-info-pr
oposal#Public_Domain_Release

Thoughts and direction in converting old pages would be very
welcome.

-- manu

_______________________________________________
microformats-discuss mailing list
microformats-discussmicroformats.org
http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microforma
ts-discuss

In message <B8AEDAE6-9962-4531-9D21-3A21ED4FCCAEalumni.caltech.edu>,
Rohit Khare <kharealumni.caltech.edu> writes

>As soon as I first edited the wiki page to describe this
strategy,
>Andy reached out to me to inquire how the public-domain
release
>interacted with the original 2004 copyright statement.

I didn't "inquire" about anything; I wrote to you
(in the light of your
previous interdict on using this mailing list for such
discussions) and
said (verbatim quote):

  I note your recent edits:

    <http://microformats.org/wiki?title=Category:pu
blic_domain_license&curid=3627&diff=0&oldid=1844
0&rcid=29417>

  and:

    <http://microformats.org/wiki?title=User:Rohit&di
ff=0>

  While the "boilerplate" copyright notice:

    <http://microformats.org/wiki/Template
:MicroFormatCopyrightStatement2004>

  remains in use on individual specs, I find those comments
somewhat
  strange

>I don't have  any firm ideas at this point; Tantek
replied to this
>thread by taking  the admirable step of clarifying that
as much as
>possible for all of  the pages that he could,
individually removing the
>2004 statement  from pages he'd edited.

I applaud him for doing so; but, at the time of writing,
copyright in
both hCalendar and hCard is still claimed, in part, by
"Technorati,
Inc.", by virtue of their being one of the three listed
authors, and the
copyright statement that "This specification is (C)
2004-2007 by the
authors".

(Interestingly, Tantek says he's released the Geo and Adr
specs into the
public domain, but Technorati are credited as either
co-author or his
employer (the designation is not clear) - have they
relinquished their
rights?)

hResume is still copyrighted to Ryan King.

Are AOL, Yahoo and Microsoft about to release their apparent
rights over
hReview into the public domain?

I would also be very interested to know how the authors of
rel-nofollow
justify their claim of copyright over a technique apparently
conceived
by Google.

>Andy's initial public reaction did take me aback,
though: while he  may
>be correct the PD text currently states that
"unless otherwise  stated"
>(because that's what was copied from Wikipedia),

If such text was copied and used with out due consideration
for its
meaning, that would be very unfortunate.

>the intent  is different.

Alleged intent, in such matters, is worth diddly squat;
especially in
the light of the unambiguous statements to the contrary:
copyright of
several specs (and thereby the underlying microformats)
apparently rests
with a number of individuals and organisations, who have
not, as yet,
either waived it or given free licence to use it.

>More generally,though, I think volunteering in this case
makes for
>better game-theory than holding back until 'everyone
else' commits to
>a more open strategy first.

Who has said that they will wait for "everyone
else" to do so? What I
have said is that I will relinquish my rights, gladly, when
the
individual extant microformats are available freely. I look
forward to
that time.

-- 
Andy Mabbett
_______________________________________________
microformats-discuss mailing list
microformats-discussmicroformats.org
http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microforma
ts-discuss