Hurd wiki: copyright

[Thomas Schwinge]

Hallo!

As anounced already, I'm currently working on converting the old and
scruffy Hurd wiki (<http://hurd.gnufans.org/>) to a more modern system
(which I'm not going to describe in this email, but please ask if you are
curious).

Additonally I had already some months ago briefly announced the wiki
system I intend to use on the <address@hidden> mailing list,
with the goal in the back of my head that this system may very well
evolve into becoming a general GNU-wide wiki, which we don't have so far.
I didn't get too many responses (obviously and as expected -- as usually
when one posts a dim proposal instead of a concrete thing), but the
responses I got throughout were positive ones.

My plan then was to first use this wiki system for the Hurd wiki for a
test-bed, and then eventually get back to advertising my idea to use it
as a GNU-wide wiki, as soon as it proved usable and accepted by the
people using it.


From the others I know that they are, but Richard, are you aware of how a
wiki principally works or shall I give a quick introduction?


The technical problems which I was having are being eliminated one after
the other: the end of the technical conversion process is foreseeable.


So I now want to get to another topic: the copyright of the user-provided
content.  We could just do as most of the other wikis are doing (I think)
and simply say: ``The wiki's content is available under this and that
license.''  (The current Hurd wiki actually does this and the license
used is the GNU FDL.)  Contributing users then know about this fact and
either decide to contribute under these conditions or not.  Still
possible is -- and this is said to be important for the wiki culture! --
that anonymous contributions to the wiki pages are being accepted.  So,
if we wanted to, we could just do the same.

However, this may not be what we want, as the wiki's content may very
well evolve into something that is worth integrating into the official
GNU manuals.  And for that, we'd need copyright assignment papers --
which we can't get for anonymous contributions to the wiki pages and
which may as well also prove difficult to get for already-happened
contributions.

Requiring FSF copyright assignments to be filed before editing the wiki
pages is allowed is absolutely contrary to the wiki culture, contrary to
how wikis work, so this is a no-no.

Just now I found -- inside the old wiki -- this page
<http://hurd.gnufans.org/bin/view/TWiki/HurdWikiCopyrightDiscuss>, from
which I quote (dated January 2003):

#v+
After an email discussion a while ago now between myself [Joachim
Nilsson], Grant Bowman, RMS and Marcus Brinkmann the following results
where achieved:

    * Copyright assignment can indeed be done without the extensive
      paperwork.

    * To implement this on a Wiki some provisions must be fulfilled:
          o The user must actively select a checkbox or similar.
          o The text to the checkbox can be "I approve to also assign the
            copyrights of my work to the FSF"

    * This practise can be implemented today in the U.S., but in the EU
      there are still some things that need to be ironed out. Different
      countries still have differences in copyright law. However, the
      Swedish laws, where the Hurd wiki is located, do allow such a
      practise.
#v-

However, this has never been implemented for the old Hurd wiki.

The new Hurd wiki's servers will (most probably) be located in the
U.S.A., so would this indeed be the only thing that is to be done, to
have the user ``actively select a checkbox or similar'' and then his
copyright will legally be transferred to the FSF?  This would be possible
to implement and we then would be free to use the wiki-evolved content
inside GNU manuals.


Joachim, Grant, Richard, Marcus: would it be possible that I could get
copies of your discussion emails so that I could get a better picture of
the possibilities you have been discussing and evaluating in late 2002?


Regards,
 Thomas

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