From lojbab@lojban.org Wed May 03 15:47:57 2006 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list llg-board); Wed, 03 May 2006 15:47:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from eastrmmtao04.cox.net ([68.230.240.35]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1FbQ8O-0000gl-7q for llg-board@lojban.org; Wed, 03 May 2006 15:47:55 -0700 Received: from [127.0.0.1] (really [24.250.99.39]) by eastrmmtao04.cox.net (InterMail vM.6.01.06.01 201-2131-130-101-20060113) with ESMTP id <20060503224750.BKBQ9931.eastrmmtao04.cox.net@[127.0.0.1]> for ; Wed, 3 May 2006 18:47:50 -0400 Message-ID: <44593300.5050408@lojban.org> Date: Wed, 03 May 2006 18:47:28 -0400 From: Robert LeChevalier User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.7 (Windows/20050923) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: llg-board@lojban.org Subject: [llg-board] Re: PLEASE READ: Re: Re: Archivist: PD docs... Which, exactly? References: <20060424172644.GK2842@chain.digitalkingdom.org> <4457AF02.6040805@lojban.org> In-Reply-To: Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Spam-Score: -2.6 (--) X-archive-position: 104 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: llg-board-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: llg-board-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: lojbab@lojban.org Precedence: bulk Reply-to: llg-board@lojban.org X-list: llg-board Arnt Richard Johansen wrote: >>We never say what constitutes "language definition materials", though it >>was discussed in the annual meeting, but at the very least they include >> >>all OFFICIAL word lists - gismu and cmavo and rafsi >>(I am not all of the lists on the tiki list are "official", and I'm not >>sure we can speak for the authors. I presume Jorge did the Spanish list >>for example, and it was never adopted as official and I'm not even sure >>anyone did an independent check. As author he would have to release it >>either to us or to the public domain). > > Ah. That clears up a lot of things. The actual problem Robin is trying to > solve, is whether or not he is in the wrong to say that everything that > currently is in Jbovlaste is PD. I think that would have to be an explicit policy decision, since it is a work in progress. Because it is draft, I would favor a copyleft, which is what I assume you mean by the "general license". > As I see it, the following parts *are* PD: > > - Imports from gismu.txt (by virtue of being official) > - Imports from cmavo.txt (by virtue of being official) > - User contributions (by virtue of having accepted the Jbovlaste PD > clause) > > And the following are somewhat of a grey zone: > > - Import from NORALUJV.txt (it is not baselined, but is it official?) This seems to me to reflect a fallacious understanding of copyright. A document or other "work" in fixed form has a copyright status. The information in the work is not and cannot be protected by copyright. To the products that jbovlaste generates, are probably covered by the copyright status of jbovlaste itself as a whole. People can take public domain information and put it into a copyrighted work, so the fact that much or even all of the source data in jbovlaste is public domain has no bearing on the copyright status of jbovlaste itself or of any products that it generates, although if ALL of the data were public domain, someone could generate a wordlist with the same content as a jbovlaste report, but in an independently derived format, and could make that list either public domain or copyright. We have substantially more control on derivative works when we have a copyleft situation. The data in NORALUJV.txt was and remains very drafty (I cannot comment about whatever the state is of the data as incorporated in jvovlaste). We do not want to call it official language definition material, because that would mean that we recognize every word therein as being a bonafide word in the language having whatever meaning is stipulated, and I am pretty sure that everyone would agree that should not be the case. It is in fact a compendium index of a lot of material in lojban texts, themselves drafty and sometimes with embedded English that sometimes looks like Lojban words to a computer program. The point of creating it was to allow Nora (and others) to review the list and decide which should be official, in which case proper definitions with full place structures should be attached. > Do I understand it correctly that the intent of this board decision was > that *all* LLG publications, including software, should either be covered > by the General Licence, or be in the public domain? The policy was specifically with reference to electronically distributed products, and thus does not indicate any intent with respect to things produced or distributed in hard copy. To the extent that everything we do is put on line and distributed electronically, I think your statement is effectively true, but in 1991, I don't think we were quite at the point of deciding that everything LLG produced would in fact be distributed on line. Nora comments that we specifically have to distinguish between a product that is officially produced vs something that someone produces on their own. Unless they explicitly turn their stuff (and copyright) over to LLG, they retain ownership of their work. When Nora and I were producing all of our "official" products, this was trivial. But we should not be making assumptions about stuff not done as part of an official project (and I'm not sure whether there has been a decision about products of an official project). The decision as to the copyright of CLL itself, which is not distributed electronically in final form, was a decision of the author (John), and not of the Board. I think that the general expectation has always been a predisposition towards a copyleft arrangement, but with a decision being explicitly made with respect to each such product. >>(assuming we have a Board meeting in progress with a quorum - so far as >>> I recall, we never convened one after somewhat irregularly electing a >>> new President). > > > It is the view of the President that the Board meeting is in session > continuously, as per John Cowan's mail on Mon, 19 Dec 2005 02:06:40 -0500. > Of course, I will make sure that everyone has chimed in on the matter, as > per article 4, section 7. I have now reviewed the email traffic and I agree with you, but I note that the new officers slate was never announced to the membership, and I just had Nora look, and she a) did not know that Arnt was President and b) could not find anywhere on the website quickly that identified him as president. So the officer slate should be somewhere more obvious and it should be somehow marked as official (having the list of members page labeled as unofficial and user-maintained looks really weird - Nora says, even though she realizes that tag is probably attached to all pages) She did find a general license page for the website dated through 2000 (which may be what you meant by "general license"), that has my name as president, and that should be updated along with the public domain announcement. I would like to modify my motion to include it. -------- As for Robin's comment which I just saw - my motion is that the text be updated, and was not merely a request for comment, which means that Robin or someone else should come up with a text to be approved. I did NOT specify that it should be Robin that comes up with the changes in case he objected. I am willing to accept a friendly amendment that will charge the Secretary over the long term with maintaining such official licenses and public domain notices at a current level, so as to not need a vote each time, or on a specific text. But since there is uncertainty as to what the policy means right now, I think we should have a vote agreeing on a particular clarification, but don't feel up to deciding what it should be on my own. I made it a motion on the floor expecting that it would be amended in some way or another before a final vote, but forcing that whatever is done be done officially with a vote at some stage being recorded, rather than leaving things in perpetual discussion mode. lojbab