[flashrom] Flashrom wiki: what license is the content under?

[Sam Kuper]

On 20/03/2017, Carl-Daniel Hailfinger <c-d.hailfinger.devel.2006 at gmx.net> wrote:
> welcome to the flashrom mailing list.

Thanks!

> Starting almost identical discussions on two different mailing lists is
> not productive. It _might_ make sense to revisit this after the
> discussion on the coreboot mailing list has come to a conclusion.

Fair enough. I was under the impression that the Flashrom and Coreboot
communities might have different approaches/policies/etc, so it made
sense to discuss the issue with each community separately, rather than
assuming that one community's conclusion would apply to the other.

> On 18.03.2017 17:50, Sam Kuper wrote:
>> Ideally, Flashrom would license the content under the GFDL and CC
>> BY-SA 3.0, making the content entirely license-compatible with content
>> from Wikipedia and from the Stack Exchange network of websites.
>
> Why would we want to do that?
> The GFDL is pretty much the worst licensing choice: it is GPL
> incompatible, so we would hurt ourselves by using it.

Dual-licensing under the GFDL won't hurt anyone, as long as the other
license suits them. But sure, the GFDL probably isn't needed in this
case.

> CC licensing might make sense, but I don't see the benefit from making
> the content license-compatible with wikipedia (anything copied from
> third-party websites to wikipedia is quickly marked as copyvio, and then
> reverted),

It certainly shouldn't be marked as a copyvio and reverted if its
license is compatible with Wikipedia's. Wikipedia has large amounts of
material that was copied into it from license-compatible sources,
including Flickr and many works whose copyright terms have expired.

> and stackexchange questions about flashrom usually receive
> zero upvotes (maybe because people tend to look elsewhere for flashrom
> information).

Perhaps. But if the Flashrom wiki content were CC BY-SA 3.0, then it
could be excerpted into such answers on SE, which might lead to better
quality answers there, and more upvotes.

> Any licensing which inhibits moving code comments to the wiki or vice
> versa is a really bad idea.

I doubt this would be a problem in practice. I think there are
standard exceptions for this sort of thing. But I'll try to remember
to look into it, because if there *aren't* exceptions for it, then
you're right: it could be a problem.

>> If you agree with the position I have taken above, please do reply to
>> this thread to say so, especially if you have suggestions about how to
>> best achieve the (re-)licensing.
>>
>> If you disagree with my position, please reply to explain your
>> disagreement.
>
> It looks like you're trying to start a vote with special rules where
> only those who disagree with you have the burden of explaining their
> position.

No.

If people agree with my position, there's a good chance their reasons
are similar to mine, which means I don't want to burden them by asking
them to explain those reasons, nor burden other list members by having
people duplicate my arguments.

If, however, people disagree with my position, then I would be
grateful if they would explain their reasons so that we on the list
can all consider those reasons, and revise our opinions if
appropriate.

Thanks,

Sam