Re: [docbook] Re: Free Shared Glossart Database of Computing Terms

[Sean Wheller <sean at enbaya dot co dot za>]

On Thursday 20 January 2005 12:33, Binh Nguyen wrote:
> I think the linuxquestions.org people
> (http://lists.tldp.org/index.cgi?1:msp:7877:200409:knhpjbfdeilplpebhfad)
> wanted to do something similar to this. Anyhow, I
> released a version to them under CC license but I'm
> not really sure how far they've gotten' or if they've
> gotten anywhere at all! 

Thanks for your response. I am glad that you brought this to our attention. In 
the message referenced above, you provided license under CC-BY-NC-SA 2.0 [1]. 
If such a project is to be undertaken and improved by a community, then I do 
not think it will work under this license. Reason is simple, there can be no 
guarantee that all or part of your work will not end up in some distro or 
desktop or even a closed source program. In which case selling the distro or 
desktop or closed source technology in any form or circumstance would be a 
contravention of CC-BY-NC-SA.   I therefore think the license should be 
CC-BY-SA 2.0 [2].

> In any case, I think you 
> should probably think very carefully before attempting
> a project of this magnitude. Its an extroadinarily
> long task searching the world to find anything
> relevant to Linux and is actually quality content. The
> reason why there has been so little editing is
> basically due to my worries about current copyright
> laws; I've tried to adhere as closely as possible to
> the original authors' intentions. The only real
> editing has been correcting a zillion spelling errors
> (mostly solved now).

Yes, I am aware of this hence my posting of this question on the docbook list. 
My feeling is that it should be possible to develop and grow such a glossary 
using open source methodologies more efficiently than trying to do it alone. 
As a community project I don't expect to see great leaps and bounds, I have 
no expectations on that front. However, I have a gut feel that there will be 
some progress. Even if it is one or two entries a year. Luckily with this 
type of thing the definitions of terms do not go out-of-date that quickly.

Some of the Docbook community already have their own databases and have 
offered to contribute them, I am sure more will do the same. I have no 
insight into the quality of these works or their integrity in terms of 
copyright. 

My thinking in contacting yourself was that your most excellent work would 
save us much fork-lifting and put a resource into the community that can be 
of immediate value. With your help and continued involvement/guidance I think 
the overhead you mentioned will be reduced for all, including yourself.

Regarding copyright laws, I expect that we would have to place some disclaimer 
of liability to third parties and advertise a code of ethics to contributors. 
On the other hand, as a community project I am not sure that there would be 
anyone to take legal action against if somebody were to verbatim copy and 
paste. However, in general you are right, this is a problem to be managed.

> Anyhow, if you still want to go 
> ahead with this, hell yeah go for it! :) I'll release
> it under CC terms,

Under CC-BY-SA 2.0 [2] ? If so, I would be willing to publish, package and 
market it myself and return proceeds to the community. Not saying there would 
be millions, but we may be able to raise enough for a few bounties to do 
specific house keeping things like QA. This said, I would however have to 
check this with legal council, for publishing in print or package could make 
me directly responsible for copyright issues, eventhough they were not 
directly induced by me. 

> I'll even show you my tools to give 
> you the roar defintions, the way in which they can
> convert it to cutomised docbook and 'dict' formats.

Sounds great. Perhaps you can comment on the above response and if we move 
forward, I will most certainly take you up on that offer.


[1] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/
[2] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/  
-- 
Sean Wheller
sean@enbaya.co.za
http://www.enbaya.co.za