Re: (beta3) WANTED: Linux Knowledge Base Org. Developers

[Aaron Turner <aturner@linuxkb.org>]

On Fri, 18 Jun 1999, Roger Dingledine wrote:

[snip]

> > The Linux Knowledge Base Organization Project is a volunteer effort which
> > is 100% sponsor supported (ie. no ad banners) and licensed in the spirit
> 
> hm. i get bad vibes from hearing the word 'sponsor' here. is there a good
> way to mention the 'no ad banners' without saying 'sponsor supported'?
> For instance, 'The Linux ... is a volunteer effort. We will keep our website
> completely banner free, and all material will be licensed as open source.'

I can't think of a good way to say it.  Saying 'We will keep our
website...' just doesn't sound that great IMHO.  Either we should mention
having sponsors (which is after all mentioned in the developers.html) and
no ads or leave both out.  Personally if I hear no ad banners and not
sponsor supported I start wondering how they support the site.  Usually
collecting information about the users and then selling it comes to my
mind... but I'm pretty paranoid.  (Though if you could hear some of the
deals we're talking about with some companies you'd be paraniod too. It's
all too easy to collect info about you at one place and then give someone
else access to it.  It may not happen today, but in 5 years it will be
very common.)
 
> Which reminds me of another small issue -- 'in the spirit of open source'
> sounds like we're trying to weasel our way into calling it open-source
> without actually making it open-source.

I don't know how you can have 'open source' documentation.  There is no
source code to documetation after all.  I'd like to avoid mentioning our
license is based on the NOD license in the email.  That's getting too deep
into it.  Besides, I haven't yet gotten the offical OK from Netscape that
we can use it without being in violation of their copywrite.  If you have
better way of saying 'in the spirit' I'm all ears.

> Of course...*are* you going to providing everything as open source
> (tools, infrastructure, etc), or only the content?

We've already agreed that the infrastructure: scripts, DB schema, etc will
be released under the GPL which the license FAQ does say.  Hence the
content and the infrastructure will be relased under two different
licenses.  Complicated yes, but necessary from what I understand legally.

I appreciate your comments Roger- keep 'em coming.

-Aaron