[Nix-dev] What license does the content of the nixos wiki and the manuals have?

Eric Sagnes eric.sagnes at gmail.com
Wed Sep 30 14:28:11 CEST 2015


Hi,

While editing a page in the current wiki I found a page mentioning 
the copyright used:
https://nixos.org/wiki/Nix_Wiki:Copyrights
(The page is linked from the edition interface of the wiki)

Quoting below:

---
Right now we don't have a final choice about the license.

For now when contributing to the wiki you agree that your content may be
relicensed to whatever license is choosen by the nix community.
Subscribe to the mailinglist to stay up to date. 
---

I am not a lawyer but this sounds legit enough to avoid deleting pages and
anonymous contributions.


On Fri, Sep 25, 2015 at 01:50:54PM +0300, Kirill Elagin wrote:
> I’d like to also point out another problem.
> In case some of contributors do not agree to the new terms, how are we
> going to delete their contributions? My understanding is that simply
> deleting the content in question from the page is not enough, it’s wiki
> actually. We’ll have to see how, for example, Wikipedia deals with this
> kind of issues, I’m sure they often have to remove copyrighted content.
> 
> That said, I’m pretty sure other projects also had to deal with changing
> the licence of their docs, so we can learn from their experience instead of
> inventing something new.
> 
> On Fri, Sep 25, 2015 at 10:28 AM, Joachim Schiele <js at lastlog.de> wrote:
> 
> > two problems i see here:
> > - text can't be covered by GPL thus they created CC
> > - some edits in the wiki are anonymous (whom to ask?)
> >
> > i like that we are adressing this issue now. it is very important.
> >
> > i'd go for CC BY SA 3.0
> > https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
> > as IMHO this fits the other licenses pretty well
> >
> > On 25.09.2015 03:48, stewart mackenzie wrote:
> > > According to my understanding:
> > >
> > > * 1st agree on a license for the wiki.
> > > * we need to get all wiki contributors to agree on said license.
> > > * we'll need a written statement from all wiki contributors, could be
> > > something simple like "I agree to publish my contributions to the nixos
> > > wiki under the X license" these statements could be on a new mailing
> > > list thread. It'll be mundane receiving these mails but it's needed..
> > >
> > > (longerterm strategy)
> > > * The Nixos Foundation could use selected parts of the C4.1(
> > > http://rfc.zeromq.org/spec:22) particularly the licensing bits to create
> > > a nixos contributors 'contract'. It /should/ be difficult but not
> > > impossible to change the license of wiki, nix{pkgs,os,} as this prevents
> > > vendor lockins / foundation / consortium clusterfuck takeovers where
> > > dishonest agents could for example purchase the copyright to a codebase.
> > > i.e. what happened to Berkeleydb and oracle.
> > > * so far all the contribution copyrights to nix{os,pkgs} belong to the
> > > contributors and not the nixos foundation. It is preferable (IMHO) that
> > > copyright remain in the contributors hands and not the nixos foundation.
> > > Foundations can be corrupted, this prevents sillybuggers happening in
> > > foundations.
> > >
> > > Personally, i'd prefer the whole nix{os,pkgs} to be a license like gpl3
> > > or mpl2. These licenses create prevent an org like redhat form forking
> > > and sublicensing.
> > >
> > > I am not a lawyer.
> > >
> > > There are treasures of untold wealth in nixos let's at least properly
> > > protect them.
> > >
> > > On 25 Sep 2015 01:52, "Vladimír Čunát" <vcunat at gmail.com
> > > <mailto:vcunat at gmail.com>> wrote:
> > >
> > >     On 09/24/2015 05:24 PM, Domen Kožar wrote:
> > >     > I'm all for permissive creative commons license.
> > >
> > >     It might be good to have the same license for wiki and nix{pkgs,os,}
> > >     docs, allowing us to move content around freely.
> > >
> > >     I'm no lawyer, too, but I think there's also the issue of the
> > copyright
> > >     holder, which might be the foundation, for example. And the question
> > of
> > >     "asking everyone" seems rather difficult; moreover, I'm not sure what
> > >     kind of approval is needed (I'm afraid a paper-written one in some
> > >     jurisdictions).
> > >
> > >
> > >     Vladimir
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >     _______________________________________________
> > >     nix-dev mailing list
> > >     nix-dev at lists.science.uu.nl <mailto:nix-dev at lists.science.uu.nl>
> > >     http://lists.science.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/nix-dev
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
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> > > nix-dev at lists.science.uu.nl
> > > http://lists.science.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/nix-dev
> > >
> >
> >
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> > nix-dev at lists.science.uu.nl
> > http://lists.science.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/nix-dev
> >

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-- 
Eric Sagnes
サニエ エリック


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