Jump to content

Discussion of CKAN forking issues (split from another thread)


Stone Blue

Recommended Posts

59 minutes ago, neistridlar said:

*in fact I don't think I can deny any one making a "CKAN edition" of NAP, and posting puting it on CKAN, given the licensing I'm using.

IIRC, CKAN team made a concession about keeping license seperate from whether it gets listed on CKAN or not, for versions distributed by different "authors"
ie, IIRC, even tho you hve an open license, *you* can still say yea or nay, on having *your* version listed on CKAN...whether the NETKAN is submitted by you, or any other joe shmoe from the community...

Now, if because you have an open license, someone *else* wanted to fork/adopt/takeover/continue the mod, as a seperate "version" from yours, and have *theirs* listed on CKAN, then you're basically out of the loop

IIRC, it due to the long past kerfluffle between mod devs and CKAN/the community, when people in the community felt they deserved to have any mod listed on CKAN, regardless of licensing, *or* the wishes of the mod devs.
ie, even tho mods had open licenses, they were still being actively developed/maintained by devs who didnt want to deal with the hassle of CKAN listing... So, IIRC, the CKAN team agreed to freeze/lock/not list ANY mod, regardless of license, based on the active developer/owners' wishes

Edited by Stone Blue
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, neistridlar said:

*in fact I don't think I can deny any one making a "CKAN edition" of NAP, and posting puting it on CKAN, given the licensing I'm using.

On the other hand,  it's not needed.

On Linux Distributions, it's not unusual to have two different "Maintainers" on the loop: the guy that develop the thing, and the guy that build the package of the thing to be distributed somewhere.

Take Midnight Commander, for example. The guy that packs it on Debian is not the same guy that packs it on Gentoo - not to mention on MacPorts. All different people packing the same thing on different places. But the Developers are the same on every distro.

The guy that maintain a netkan metadata file doesn't needs to fork the project. Just need to keep the netkan metadata accurate. CKAN could make things yet more easier by adding a metadata called "packager" that on absence would be defaulted to the author.

 

7 hours ago, Stone Blue said:

IIRC, it due to the long past kerfluffle between mod devs and CKAN/the community, when people in the community felt they deserved to have any mod listed on CKAN, regardless of licensing, *or* the wishes of the mod devs.

What ended up hurting both the tool and the users. I'm not opposed (au countrary) to have a "main branch" where only "official forks blessed by the current maintainers" are distributed, but not having an alternate channel for everybody else is a nice shot on the feet I say.

Edited by Lisias
Of cuorse, tyops!
Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 hours ago, Lisias said:

On the other hand,  it's not needed.

On the gripping hand, let's not confuse hypotheticals with how CKAN actually works. Anyone on the team can investigate problems with metadata and fix them (usually whoever notices a problem or receives a report of it), and in most cases this requires no special mod-specific expertise. A "packager" property would not be useful and would become outdated quickly, given this dynamic free-flow of authorship. If we need to know the last person to touch a netkan, the complete edit history is available in the git log.

But that's completely separate from the question of author consent, which is obtained for community relations reasons, not technical or legal, more or less along the lines explained in some earlier replies. It's just better for everyone if the mods in CKAN are there because their authors want them to be there.

20 hours ago, Lisias said:

not having an alternate channel for everybody else is a nice shot on the feet I say.

Such an alternate channel would cause all the same old problems all over again. Mod authors who object to being listed in CKAN, aren't suddenly going to be fine with it because we say they're in an "alternate channel".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

On the gripping hand, let's not confuse hypotheticals with how CKAN actually works. Anyone on the team can investigate problems with metadata and fix them (usually whoever notices a problem or receives a report of it), and in most cases this requires no special mod-specific expertise. A "packager" property would not be useful and would become outdated quickly, given this dynamic free-flow of authorship. If we need to know the last person to touch a netkan, the complete edit history is available in the git log.

It's not how it works on the example I gave. A "packager" is not a random guy that zipped the thing, It's a guy responsible to keep the thing working on the target environment.

If the guy is self nominated, if it's pinpointed by the Author, or chosen by the CKAN guys, it's a completely different history.

 

2 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

But that's completely separate from the question of author consent, which is obtained for community relations reasons, not technical or legal, more or less along the lines explained in some earlier replies. It's just better for everyone if the mods in CKAN are there because their authors want them to be there.

Exactly. And the problem here is not about consent, it's about hassle. The Author already stated he doesn't object being listed on CKAN, he objects having to deal with it.

He don't want to write the netkan file. He don't want to support problems related to CKAN. He's willing only to support his work directly.

In other words, he wants a Packager who will maintain all the CKAN specific problems away from him: someone what would keep the netkan updated and handle the support tickets from ckan users first, filtering everything not directly related to the Add'On.

Additionally, please remember that imposing additional restrictions to the licensing terms is a direct violation of the licensing terms of some Add'Ons. Avoid claiming lack of Author's consent when the thing is licensed under GPL or CC-SA style licenses, that explicitly forbids additional restrictions over the licensing terms. Say "I don't like your nose" as the reason if you want (you have not the duty to publish anything) but don't impose additional conditions explicitly forbidden by the license - you are painting the Author as a possible license infringer him/herself.

 

2 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

Such an alternate channel would cause all the same old problems all over again. Mod authors who object to being listed in CKAN, aren't suddenly going to be fine with it because we say they're in an "alternate channel".

Authors that object being listed on CKAN (or in any other place) should pick a license that allows them to do that. See the licensing terms discussed above. But, in a way or another, and returning to the problem at hands, we are talking about Authors that don't care about CKAN, they just don't want to support CKAN themselves. A completely different problem.

Once one manage an agreement from the Author to allow the use of the Trademark on CKAN (a right the licenses I mentioned agree is not waived by the author on publishing), or adequately adapt the thing to respect it, what would be the legal/moral/whatever problem on allowing an alternate channel where Packagers would do proper support on CKAN for Add'Ons those authors just don't care (what's different from objecting) publishing on CKAN?

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Lisias said:

Additionally, please remember that imposing additional restrictions to the licensing terms is a direct violation of the licensing terms of some Add'Ons. Avoid claiming lack of Author's consent when the thing is licensed under GPL or CC-SA style licenses, that explicitly forbids additional restrictions over the licensing terms. Say "I don't like your nose" as the reason if you want (you have not the duty to publish anything) but don't impose additional conditions explicitly forbidden by the license - you are painting the Author as a possible license infringer him/herself.

Licenses are simply not relevant here. This is a question of CKAN's policy, how the CKAN team internally governs the behavior of its members. Nothing about a license could possibly obligate a CKAN team member to merge any particular pull request. If we want to establish a conversation with a mod author before taking an action, and decide what to do based on the outcome of that conversation, that's entirely our prerogative.

2 minutes ago, Lisias said:

Authors that object being listed on CKAN (or in any other place) should pick a license that allows them to do that. See the licensing terms discussed above.

Again, the licensing terms are not at all relevant. An author that doesn't want to be listed on CKAN, can ask for that, and the team will comply. No license can block those choices.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

Please return the discussion to the topic of this thread, folks. 

I was really hoping you would split it off into a new thread, because there's one point left that's worth addressing as long as this has come up:

24 minutes ago, Lisias said:

But, in a way or another, and returning to the problem at hands, we are talking about Authors that don't care about CKAN, they just don't want to support CKAN themselves. A completely different problem.

what would be the legal/moral/whatever problem on allowing an alternate channel where Packagers would do proper support on CKAN for Add'Ons those authors just don't care (what's different from objecting) publishing on CKAN?

In that case, you are trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist. Mods whose authors are OK with being on CKAN but don't want to maintain it themselves, already go in the normal main repo. In these cases, a CKAN team member works up the appropriate metadata for them. There would be nothing left to put in the "alternate channel".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

41 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

Please return the discussion to the topic of this thread, folks. 

Besides marginally, I consider this ontopic because @neistridlar mentioned above "*in fact I don't think I can deny any one making a "CKAN edition" of NAP, and posting puting it on CKAN, given the licensing I'm using", and I'm counter arguing saying a fork is not needed, what the needs is a Packager to handle the undesired burden while he keeps focused on the Add'On itself. Of course, I may be wrong on it

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

(From this thread)

58 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

In that case, you are trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist. Mods whose authors are OK with being on CKAN but don't want to maintain it themselves, already go in the normal main repo.

And where the users are going to get support, once the Author says he don't want to handle CKAN issues at all? There's a place on the netkan file where such information is available? 

 

1 hour ago, HebaruSan said:

Licenses are simply not relevant here. This is a question of CKAN's policy

Dude, if the policy says that the Author must violate the licensing terms of the Add'On in order to get the thing published, licensing is relevant here.

Some licenses say explicitly that Authors cannot impose further restrictions without violating the licensing terms themselves. So by telling people they need to get consent of the Author to exercise a right already granted by the license, you are putting the guy between a rock and a hard place - because he just can't say "no", and failing to say "yes" may not be an acceptable excuse on a license infringement claim.

Use the Trademark coin, say the thing must be published on Forum first (and let the Forum handle this mess), say anything else, but don't say the author needs to violate his own licensing terms in order to someone get the thing published on CKAN. (of course, assuming the dude is using GPL and/or CC-SA).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You're confusing 'being eligible to get into a club' with 'the bouncers turning you away at their discretion'. CKAN operates on the latter no matter what license a mod is published under. There is zero obligation for the CKAN Metadata team to accept and list any mod.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, Lisias said:

And where the users are going to get support, once the Author says he don't want to handle CKAN issues at all? There's a place on the netkan file where such information is available? 

  They can submit an issue for help from the CKAN team. If they really want support from the author, they can reproduce the issue with a manual install.

Quote

Dude, if the policy says that the Author must violate the licensing terms of the Add'On in order to get the thing published, licensing is relevant here.

Good thing the policy doesn't say that, then.

Quote

Some licenses say explicitly that Authors cannot impose further restrictions without violating the licensing terms themselves. So by telling people they need to get consent of the Author to exercise a right already granted by the license, you are putting the guy between a rock and a hard place - because he just can't say "no", and failing to say "yes" may not be an acceptable excuse on a license infringement claim.

I don't understand why you're twisting your mind into a pretzel trying to uncover a problem where none exists. Mods' licenses govern the terms of use and distribution of mods. They do not govern CKAN metadata, since it is neither use nor distribution of the author's intellectual property. Asking an author, "Are you interested in having this mod listed in CKAN?" is a question of the author's preferences, not legal terms.

Quote

don't say the author needs to violate his own licensing terms

Don't worry, we don't.

Edited by HebaruSan
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Poodmund said:

You're confusing 'being eligible to get into a club' with 'the bouncers turning you away at their discretion'. CKAN operates on the latter no matter what license a mod is published under.

Nope. You are not understanding the problem

CKAN says "In order to enter this club with this token, you need to ask permission from the previous owner of the token - however, the permission is already granted by the license and the previous owner would be in license infringement if he/she fails to say 'yes'".

 

1 hour ago, Poodmund said:

There is zero obligation for the CKAN Metadata team to accept and list any mod.

So there's zero need of asking any Author for consent, instead of risking putting the guy on a license infringement claiming he need to grant a permission already granted by the licensed he used.

Just use any other excuse, never claim a consent is needed.

 

1 hour ago, HebaruSan said:

I don't understand why you're twisting your mind into a pretzel trying to uncover a problem where none exists. Mods' licenses govern the terms of use and distribution of mods.

Because if you drop or refuse an Add'On licensed under GPL ou CC-SA under the claim that the "original" Author opposed to it, you are saying the Author exerted an additional restriction, what's explicitly forbidden by the GPL and CC-SA. GPL goes one step beyond: it nullifies itself on the case, and so the Author would be in license violation of every third-party commit the repo have (every single commit has a copyright) - what implies in copyright violation.

And since yourself said above:

5 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

But that's completely separate from the question of author consent, which is obtained for community relations reasons, not technical or legal, more or less along the lines explained in some earlier replies. It's just better for everyone if the mods in CKAN are there because their authors want them to be there.

that this is a separated issue from the question of the author consent, when the licenses mentioned explicitly says it's not, I'm a bit sceptical by your statement above, where you says:

1 hour ago, HebaruSan said:

Don't worry, we don't.

Please note that I'm not criticising what you intent to do - I'm criticising what I think you are doing instead.

 

Edited by Lisias
Hit "Save" too soon.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why is this *MY* thread??... :P

OMG... If I had known what would get started, over me just trying to give a quick explanation to the mod dev, that they had moar choice of having their mod listed on CKAN (Note: I said "listed", NOT "hosted"), regardless of chosen license...I wouldnt have opened my mouth.

Geez... it seems at least half the time I post something trying to be helpful on this forum, it always seems to bite me in the @22...

Maybe this simple explanation will help:

Think of mod distribution being like a book store and a library. Devs (authors) create content (books). They then decide to commercialize them (sell in a book store (restrictive license)), or give away free ((open licesne) library being an example, because the book has been bought and paid for by *someone*, if it wasnt already free).

A hosting/distribution site is the book store or library. They cant just giveaway, edit, change author's name. They abide by the licensing.

Now, think of CKAN as only the card catalog (yes, I'm showing my age :P), in the library. It has NOTHING to do with distributing or handling the *content*.

ALL it is, is a *listing* of all the books in the library, with *information on where to GET the content*, along with pertinent information...
NONE of which has ANYTHING TO DO WITH LICENSING.

If an author of a series of books came along, and did not want the information listed in that card catalog, for people to easily find (say it included his address/ph. number/email address), and he was getting stalked and bothered by TONS of people demanding to know why he decided to kill off the main character, or pestered for him to write the story the way *they* want him to write, or when the next book in the series was gonna come out, so he said "Enuff of this!!", and quit writing altogether....

HOW DOES THAT HELP THE VERY people who are such fans??...NOT to mention ALL the other people who love their books, but were considerate enuff not to pester the author and drive him to quit providing content for everybody?

And how again, does that scenario have ANYTHING to do with licensing?

Also, if the library doesnt let you in the door to look at the card catalog (CKAN), because you dont have a library card good for their library, or because you are not wearing a mask, even tho its not required by law, its the *libraries* policy...
HOW IS THAT RELATING TO LICENSING??

Anyway, thats the last I'll post.
I'm sure, as always, *someone* will post, just to have the last word and argue some moar.

Edited by Stone Blue
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Lisias said:

you are saying the Author exerted an additional restriction

Nope, not at all. Because, and I repeat myself yet again here, the mod's license has nothing to do with CKAN's metadata. There's no "restriction",  "additional" or otherwise, because nothing related to the use or distribution of the mod is implicated. The license has no relevance to the question, "Would you like this mod to be listed in CKAN?" The two things simply have nothing to do with one another.

Look, you're entitled to your bizarro legal theories, and there's little point in two non-lawyers arguing back and forth about something in which neither of their opinions has much importance. But I would like to make sure that anyone else reading this is clear: No one on the CKAN team considers Lisias's peculiar notions to have any bearing on anything we do. We don't have to index or not-index any particular mod based on some interpretation of any license, and asking a mod author whether they'd like to be listed is perfectly fine and standard practice, in all cases (and it feels weird even to have to say that).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

Nope, not at all. Because, and I repeat myself yet again here, the mod's license has nothing to do with CKAN's metadata. There's no "restriction",  "additional" or otherwise, because nothing related to the use or distribution of the mod is implicated. The license has no relevance to the question, "Would you like this mod to be listed in CKAN?" The two things simply have nothing to do with one another.

And again, I'm not talking about the CKAN metadata, but the "need of the author to have consent when the license has already granted it".

People are somewhat freakout here about a thingy called "consent", disregarding the licensing terms. As you said above:

On 9/7/2020 at 2:10 PM, HebaruSan said:

But that's completely separate from the question of author consent, which is obtained for community relations reasons, not technical or legal, more or less along the lines explained in some earlier replies. It's just better for everyone if the mods in CKAN are there because their authors want them to be there.

(emphasis are mine).

And this is the legal problem. I'm not arguing it's better or worse if the author wants the thing to be published on CKAN, this is not a judgment of value about the policy.

I'm talking about someone else willing to publish a GPL and/or CC-SA material on CKAN and you saying "no" because the author didn't consented - and the need of such consent is a direct violation of that license terms, what can render the license null and void, what by its turn potentially renders the author in copyright violation of the material he reused on his work.

So, you would be triggering such problems by denying the publishing using this reason. So, use any other reason and don't mention the Author to get the dude's SAS covered on the matter.

 

23 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

Look, you're entitled to your bizarro legal theories, and there's little point in two non-lawyers arguing back and forth about something in which neither of their opinions has much importance. But I would like to make sure that anyone else reading this is clear: No one on the CKAN team considers Lisias's peculiar notions to have any bearing on anything we do. We don't have to index or not-index any particular mod based on some interpretation of any license, and asking a mod author whether they'd like to be listed is perfectly fine and standard practice, in all cases (and it feels weird even to have to say that).

That no one on CKAN considers my theories valid it's obvious, otherwise you would be mitigating them. That's the reason I'm talking about, there's not need to talk about something that would not be happen because it's mitigated already. :)

Of course CKAN is entitled to call me nuts, but yet, Copyright Trolling is a thing and it happens and it doesn't need your acknowledge of the problem.

You don't need to be wrong to get a strike, it's enough for the claimer to have a plausible cause.

Even GITHUB had to deal with this (besides not exactly the same way I think CKAN should):

Quote

GitHub eventually added a sentence addressing the issue; it can be seen in the current version of the terms: "If you upload Content that already comes with a license granting GitHub the permissions we need to run our Service, no additional license is required."

Source.

So, it's not a bizarro legal issue. It's real and even big players are handing it somehow.

Edited by Lisias
Wrong emphasis removed. removing a somewhat bold claim for one more reasonable.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

And again, I'm not talking about the CKAN metadata, but the "need of the author to have consent when the license has already granted it".

The license hasn't granted anything, because it has nothing to do with CKAN. I've explained that over and over.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

The license hasn't granted anything, because it has nothing to do with CKAN. I've explained that over and over.

It has to do with the Authors. If CKAN removes or denies an entry claiming lack of consent from another copyright holder of the material, then that copyright holder is on license infringement him/herself if the material is on GPL and/or CC-SA .

By using any other claim, that situation doesn't present itself.

It's a two layered problem - someone could get burnt by something you claim while doing something, not by doing it.

Edited by Lisias
Tyops! Surprised?
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd just like to say, Lisias, if you want to include my content on your personal blog you don't need to blur out my profile name. The content of this forum is in the public access sector and I've agreed to the EULA as such so post away my friend.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/9/2020 at 4:27 AM, Lisias said:

It has to do with the Authors. If CKAN removes or denies an entry claiming lack of consent from another copyright holder of the material, then that copyright holder is on license infringement him/herself if the material is on GPL and/or CC-SA.

Only if the author actually denied them consent to modify or distribute the mod; which has nothing to do with the question of what the author said about constructing metadata about the mod. (Furthermore, the latter obviously isn't a matter where the author can forbid CKAN to do that, anymore than you can forbid me to write down the size of a file you have created; asking them not to construct metadata is a request.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

38 minutes ago, damerell said:

Only if the author actually denied them consent to modify or distribute the mod; which has nothing to do with the question of what the author said about constructing metadata about the mod. (Furthermore, the latter obviously isn't a matter where the author can forbid CKAN to do that, anymore than you can forbid me to write down the size of a file you have created; asking them not to construct metadata is a request.)

Exactly. But I need to bring to your attention that, under the Copyright Law, the burden of the proof belongs to the Copyright User.

Once a Copyright strikes you, it's up to you to prove you are compliant.

Quote

In a civil copyright infringement claim, many users of copyrighted material are surprised to learn that once the copyright owner has demonstrated that it owns a copyright in the work, the burden shifts to the copyright user to demonstrate that it had the right to use the work in the way it was using it.

Source.

And since on Open Source almost everyone is a copyright user in a way or another (unless you are the only and solely guy ever writing code on the project, without accepting any kind of contribution), things can get hot pretty fast when ill intentioned people is around.

Edited by Lisias
Whoops...
Link to comment
Share on other sites

CKAN does not publish mods, it publishes an index of mods. This is a crucial difference. The first situation is akin to going to a warehouse yourself to get your mod packages, while the second is like a kiosk with a helper who tells you where to go and what to get. Ultimately the warehouses still do the actual mod distribution.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

And since on Open Source almost everyone is a copyright user in a way or another (unless you are the only and solely guy ever writing code on the project, without accepting any kind of contribution), things can get hot pretty fast when ill intentioned people is around.

I think you want to be careful about desperately Googling up links in a hurry which look vaguely plausible, but the difficulty with this kind of "anyone might sue anyone" argument is, well, CKAN doesn't change anything there. If Alice forks Bob's mod, Alice always runs the risk that Bob will decide she has done something wrong and take action (imposing the "burden of proof" on Alice), even if Alice has not done anything which was not permitted. Whether or not Alice said CKAN could do something doesn't change that, especially when that thing is something which doesn't involve Bob's copyright and isn't something Alice can actually require CKAN not to do, as opposed to requesting they not do it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, damerell said:

I think you want to be careful about desperately Googling up links in a hurry which look vaguely plausible, 

And i think you are deaperate to dismiss the issue using any argument you can find that could "stick".

Go back and start again. Give special attention on the post where I talk about github.

Take your time, you don't need to hurry.

Eventually, you will realize the obvious: "CKAN decided to decline your submission because xxxx" is perfectly ok, as long "xxxx" is not about lack of consent from any copyright holder when the work in question is using a license where any additional restriction beyond the ones explicitly stated on it is forbidden.

Just say anything else and everything will be ok.

Edited by Lisias
hate typing on mobiles...
Link to comment
Share on other sites

39 minutes ago, Lisias said:

Go back and start again. Give special attenttion on the post where I talk about github

github distribute software. To do that, they need permission from the copyright holder(s). CKAN don't distribute software.

github users upload software to github. To do that they need permission from the other copyright holder(s). People who write CKAN metadata don't upload software anywhere. A mod author doesn't upload software anywhere because CKAN indexes their mod.

The distinction here has been explained to you several times already.

Edited by damerell
Link to comment
Share on other sites

42 minutes ago, Lisias said:

Eventually, you will realize the obvious: "CKAN decided to decline your submission because xxxx" is perfectly ok,

“Xxxx” can be any reason at all, including the “mod author didn't give permission”.  CKAN is a purely volunteer organization, following a pretty clear set of rules.  They  are not publishing mods, they are publishing an index.  If the subject of an index objects for whatever reason, CKAN is perfectly within their rights to decline (or remove) an entry.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...