Direction of the Ubuntu system docs

[Phil Bull]

Hi guys,

On Sun, 2010-12-19 at 22:31 +0000, Phill Whiteside wrote:
> I am horrified at 
> 
>         * Canonical are now asking for people to sign a copyright
>         assignment agreement before contributing to
>         Canonical-maintained apps.[...]

> The whole idea of gpl (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html) was no
> assignable rights, we are NOT MicroSoft. Were Canonical to follow this
> issue they will loose so, so many people. It horrifies me. I'd like to
> put my feelings on the matter into simple words, but as these emails
> may be read by minors.... let me just say "they can go forth an
> multiply".
> 
> The other matters are less important, this is a no go situation,
> either they back down or you will loose so many people. I cannot
> believe which idiot thought up the idea? FOS <> $MS

I think this is a complicated issue, and one which I'm sure has already
been discussed to death elsewhere. I agree that it's important, but I'd
rather we used this thread for something other than discussing the
agreement in detail. (Michael Meeks has a detailed post on the topic of
copyright assignment [1]. It's definitely worth a read.)

There is no threat of the Ubuntu docs, as they are, falling subject to
this agreement. I flagged it up because people could encounter it when
writing docs for certain Ubuntu-specific apps in the future. It will
affect the ability of the Ubuntu documentation team to maintain docs in
apps like the Software Center, for example. If I'm reading the situation
correctly, doc team members who haven't signed the agreement won't have
their patches accepted into any of the projects listed here [2].

This does throw into question the extent to which we are actually
responsible for Ubuntu documentation in general, but I specifically want
to discuss the system docs in this thread.

Thanks,

Phil

[1] - http://people.gnome.org/~michael/blog/copyright-assignment.html
[2] - http://www.canonical.com/contributors

-- 
Phil Bull
https://launchpad.net/~philbull
Book - http://nostarch.com/ubuntu4.htm