Rosetta Code talk:Copyrights

Perhaps you should consider a license for this project such as Creative Commons or GPL3.

Yeah. That'll be one of the things to do before we get out of beta. --Short Circuit 00:22, 9 January 2007 (PST)

Don't you think this page should be protected too? --Mwn3d 10:48, 19 December 2007 (MST)

It is...This talk page isn't, though.

Should there be a "not suitable for any purpose; use at own risk" clause, considering the wide range of programming abilities represented here? There is not even any guarantee that examples here been compiled, run or tested. --IanOsgood 14:59, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Lincenses more permissive...?

In the section Contributors it is stated You own license to your changes; then it is said If you wish to license your contributions under terms more permissive than the GNU FDL... at FSF they suggest not to use the GNU FDL for code (as noted also here, GNU FDL and GPL are not really compatible); then in the Citations it is written to cite the source in case the original is licensed even under any copyleft license, e.g. GPLv2/3. I interpret this with the fact that RosettaCode can contain e.g. GNU GPLed code, taken from "outside", if cited... But... can RC contains GNU GPLed code "from inside" without citation?!

In other words, can I state in my user page that all my contributions can be considered (for the code part) released under e.g. GPLv3, or to be able to do so, I must before upload the code on my site, and then cite myself from the page where I used that code? --ShinTakezou 17:25, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that GPL v3 qualifies as "more permissive" than the GFDL, in part due to the patent-related clauses, but I suppose I can re-word it as "dual-license", and strike the "less permissive" mention.

And, yes, GFDL is inappropriate for source code. I very much wish I'd used a Creative Commons license for Rosetta Code when I created it, rather than GFDL, but I wasn't familiar with the incompatibilities of the GFDL and most uses of source code. I don't think I can switch the license now, unless I take advantage of the convert-to-CC window GNU added recently. --Short Circuit 22:11, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

You can't, because the licensing condition is explicitly GFDL 1.2 (without the "or, at your option, a later version" clause). Since the relicensing window only applies to 1.3, AFAIU relicensing the site is not possible (unless each and every author explicitly agrees to the relicensing, of course).

Also note that the GFDL link at the end of the page is now wrong (it points to the current 1.3 license instead of the older 1.2 one). GFDL 1.2 is now at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html --Ce 14:55, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

How to switch

Why not switch over to a better license incrementally? Create categories for 'GFDL 1.2' and 'whatever new license', dump everything current into the old-license category, encourage new pages to go into the new license, then review old pages to contact the authors. --Kevin Reid 18:15, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

The question then becomes, to which license? I dislike GPL 3, as I find its stance on patents to be counterproductive. GPL2 is fine, but I tend to prefer attribution licenses (i.e. CC-Attrib, without the SA or NC sections) or even public-domain. (Though I believe not all countries have a concept of PD.) And, ultimately, I don't have the resources to enforce the licenses, and I don't like the idea of handing over that responsibility to the FSF or similar, as then it becomes limited by what suits their aims.

But then, while this is my site, and I have the ultimate say, if I screw up here, I'll drive off many of my most valuable users--the people who actually edit, review and contribute tasks and code. So if we do any sort of sitewide license switch, I'll need the involvement of as many of Rosetta Code's active contributers as I can get in the discussion. And judging by the history of source code and license philosophy, it's likely to be a messy, convoluted one. I don't think wikitalk will be a good format for it. (I wonder if a NNTP hierarchy could be built out of the MediaWiki categories, and the Talk namespace pages be replaced with an interface to it. I'd be most comfortable in an environment like that. But that risks getting expensive in bandwidth and disk space.) --Short Circuit 06:01, 11 May 2009 (UTC)