Re: [Gnumed-devel] Launchpad Blueprints vs Bug vs Wiki todo-list

[James Busser]

On 14-Sep-08, at 4:55 AM, Karsten Hilbert wrote:

> I am still not sure about the license of Blueprint *content*.  If  
> that would be required to be
> BSD we might want to be careful with it - should someone hit on a  
> killer idea and document
> it as a blueprint then Canonical would gain rights to market that  
> idea as closed source (if it was BSD licensed).

I have saved a copy of the Launchpad Terms of Use (attached 1+ page  
PDF). Though I am not a lawyer, I would have some confidence that the  
clause which pertains to General Copyright would hold when not over- 
ruled in a more-specific subsidiary clause.

The only non-General clause about user-supplied content pertains to  
Translations which we already discussed. (The other clauses pertain  
to the build logs and metadata and statistics generated *about*  
projects and these are not IMO an issue, they are specified to be  
usable for any purpose on the condition of accreditation).

The matter then falls back to the General copyright which specifies

> All data that is made available on this website is the
> property of someone - the author in the case of content
> produced elsewhere and reproduced here with permission, or
> Canonical or its content suppliers.

So the data made available on the website is the property of someone  
-- the author in the case of content produced elsewhere and  
reproduced here by permission. I suppose it would be better that it said

	... the author in the case of content *which may have been* produced  
elsewhere and reproduced here with permission

but they do go on to say

> Before you use this content in some way please take care to ensure
> that you have the relevant rights and permissions from the  
> copyright holder.


So I am not uncomfortable to put ToDos and other ideas on  
Launchpad ... the origins are typically in discussion on the list  
(where it is maybe reasonable anyway to have the seeds of the ideas  
talked about before creating Blueprints). Also, the Blueprints are  
not for holding the detail... each Blueprint makes provision to  
*point* to the detail which lives elsewhere e.g. on the wiki.

I would be careful about spreading our information in too many  
places. I see Launchpad as excellent for project management including  
bug tracking and also the administration and planning of new  
construction per Blueprints whereas I think the *detail* of any new  
construction can remain on the wiki. Launchpad's knowledge base might  
prove very helpful to allow people to look up a wide variety of  
answers but again these should be short and anything more-detailed on  
the wiki (or in better documentation like a yet-to-be reference  
manual or user manual).