Darren Nickerson
2004-03-23 14:01:28 UTC
Folks,
I'm grateful to those of you who took the time to consider our wiki
announcement, and I'll try to summarize the feedback I've received publicly
from hylafax-devel, in the order from earliest responder. Let's not use this
as a reason to rekindle the discussion unless you really need to add/correct
something or re-educate me on your position. Apologies in advance if I've
missed your point.
Tim Rice
======
Tim approves of the licence, after reviewing it. I know we put a lot of
thought into this aspect of the site, since it's arguably the most important
thing to get right when you're building an enduring resource which must
remain in the public domain. So we appreciate someone taking this seriously
and kicking the tyres on the legal framework, so to speak. The community
commons is widely regarded in the Open Source community as the GPL/LGPL of
content, and it's gaining a whole heckuva lot of steam.
Tim thinks a CNAME for wiki.hylafax.org pointing to wiki.ifax.com makes
sense, as does a blurb saying the site is sponsored by iFAX, as well. I
interpret this to mean he supports:
wiki.hylafax.org IN CNAME wiki.ifax.com
and that the blurb in question would reside on the wiki.ifax.com site, and
not the www.hylafax.org main site.
Lee Howard
=========
I can't do Lee's entire argument justice, but I'll try. He has suggested
that iFAX seeks to inappropriately divert traffic from www.hylafax.org to
ifax.com because there may be legal problems with advertising iFAX on the
hylafax.org site. He believes we seek to "hijack hylafax.org traffic - using
community volunteers to unknowingly build equity in your private business".
He feels that iFAX is trying to deceive people into writing a whole bunch of
free content for iFAX, so that the company looks good, so that it links well
in Google, and so it will drive people to the iFAX website. He's not jazzed
about the license either, since it does "not restrict the work of the
authors from being used publicly for private benefit (such as Google-fodder
for marketing)".
Chris Wood
=========
Chris would be less inclined to contribute to the wiki if the hostname was
not wiki.hylafax.org, and thinks it best if the site was just a
no-strings-attached donation to the community, with no iFAX association at
all.
Patrice Fournier
============
Patrice felt the hostname should be wiki.hylafax.org, but that it could also
be available at wiki.ifax.com. He felt it important that the http link from
www.hylafax.org be 'wiki.hylafax.org', and that there should be some clear
notice on the site that the wiki is sponsored by iFAX, with a link back to
www.ifax.com from that notice. He noticed some stylesheet issues that may
cause license display problems if poeple play with themes.
The Unknown Developer
=================
Approximately 175 people chose to express no objection, and no support.
As you may recall, iFAX did not actually request a referendum on hostnames
... it was actually a call for participation in an iFAX project (hence on an
iFAX server in an iFAX domain) which we feel will benefit users and
developers of HylaFAX, and from which we can gain enough 'good will' in
terms of 'being good community contributors' that it will benefit our
consulting business. That will, in turn, make sure we're invested in keeping
the site running well, and committing resources to it as required to make
sure it never just fades away. It felt like a no-brainer, but we did not
feel entitled to include it under the hylafax.org umbrella. In announcing it
on -devel while wearing my iFAX hat (not my hylafax.org hat), I was seeking
buy-in on the concept from the people whose opinion matters most to me, and
it was actually a call to participate. There hasn't been much of that
really, aside from the helpful licensing, browser compatibility and CSS
issues raised by Tim and Patrice (which will get looked into). If we ever
get beyond the hostname discussion and suggestions of malfeasance I do
encourage you to list your own consulting businesses on this site in a way
that will drive traffic to your own consulting businesses too, because your
success is important to the long-term vitality of HylaFAX just as ours is.
The feedback you all offered today has been very helpful in shaping how the
current wiki idea can be improved, and I thank you for it, sincerely.
There's no clear concensus, but I think there are some trends that help
inform how we can do this in a way that fits as gracefully as possible into
the current community.
Incidentally I would never have dreamed we would be urged to include this
under the hylafax.org domain, since as Patrice points out it's clearly to
iFAX's advantage to do this. The lack of separation between Church and State
still makes me a bit nervous ... I had thought a "you are now leaving
hylafax.org ... " link-out page might even be necessary to clarify that this
was not a hylafax.org facility! Perhaps the best way to resolve this issue
is by creating a poll on the wiki itself! ;-)
That's all the spew you'll see from me today, I promise. Apologies in
advance if I've missed anyone in this summary, and especially if I've
misunderstood or mischaracterized anyone's opinion.
-Darren
--
Darren Nickerson
Senior Sales & Support Engineer
iFAX Solutions, Inc. www.ifax.com
***@ifax.com
+1.215.438.4638 ext 8106 office
+1.215.243.8335 fax
____________________ HylaFAX(tm) Developers Mailing List ____________________
To subscribe/unsubscribe, click http://lists.hylafax.org/cgi-bin/lsg2.cgi
On UNIX: mail -s unsubscribe hylafax-devel-***@hylafax.org < /dev/null
I'm grateful to those of you who took the time to consider our wiki
announcement, and I'll try to summarize the feedback I've received publicly
from hylafax-devel, in the order from earliest responder. Let's not use this
as a reason to rekindle the discussion unless you really need to add/correct
something or re-educate me on your position. Apologies in advance if I've
missed your point.
Tim Rice
======
Tim approves of the licence, after reviewing it. I know we put a lot of
thought into this aspect of the site, since it's arguably the most important
thing to get right when you're building an enduring resource which must
remain in the public domain. So we appreciate someone taking this seriously
and kicking the tyres on the legal framework, so to speak. The community
commons is widely regarded in the Open Source community as the GPL/LGPL of
content, and it's gaining a whole heckuva lot of steam.
Tim thinks a CNAME for wiki.hylafax.org pointing to wiki.ifax.com makes
sense, as does a blurb saying the site is sponsored by iFAX, as well. I
interpret this to mean he supports:
wiki.hylafax.org IN CNAME wiki.ifax.com
and that the blurb in question would reside on the wiki.ifax.com site, and
not the www.hylafax.org main site.
Lee Howard
=========
I can't do Lee's entire argument justice, but I'll try. He has suggested
that iFAX seeks to inappropriately divert traffic from www.hylafax.org to
ifax.com because there may be legal problems with advertising iFAX on the
hylafax.org site. He believes we seek to "hijack hylafax.org traffic - using
community volunteers to unknowingly build equity in your private business".
He feels that iFAX is trying to deceive people into writing a whole bunch of
free content for iFAX, so that the company looks good, so that it links well
in Google, and so it will drive people to the iFAX website. He's not jazzed
about the license either, since it does "not restrict the work of the
authors from being used publicly for private benefit (such as Google-fodder
for marketing)".
Chris Wood
=========
Chris would be less inclined to contribute to the wiki if the hostname was
not wiki.hylafax.org, and thinks it best if the site was just a
no-strings-attached donation to the community, with no iFAX association at
all.
Patrice Fournier
============
Patrice felt the hostname should be wiki.hylafax.org, but that it could also
be available at wiki.ifax.com. He felt it important that the http link from
www.hylafax.org be 'wiki.hylafax.org', and that there should be some clear
notice on the site that the wiki is sponsored by iFAX, with a link back to
www.ifax.com from that notice. He noticed some stylesheet issues that may
cause license display problems if poeple play with themes.
The Unknown Developer
=================
Approximately 175 people chose to express no objection, and no support.
As you may recall, iFAX did not actually request a referendum on hostnames
... it was actually a call for participation in an iFAX project (hence on an
iFAX server in an iFAX domain) which we feel will benefit users and
developers of HylaFAX, and from which we can gain enough 'good will' in
terms of 'being good community contributors' that it will benefit our
consulting business. That will, in turn, make sure we're invested in keeping
the site running well, and committing resources to it as required to make
sure it never just fades away. It felt like a no-brainer, but we did not
feel entitled to include it under the hylafax.org umbrella. In announcing it
on -devel while wearing my iFAX hat (not my hylafax.org hat), I was seeking
buy-in on the concept from the people whose opinion matters most to me, and
it was actually a call to participate. There hasn't been much of that
really, aside from the helpful licensing, browser compatibility and CSS
issues raised by Tim and Patrice (which will get looked into). If we ever
get beyond the hostname discussion and suggestions of malfeasance I do
encourage you to list your own consulting businesses on this site in a way
that will drive traffic to your own consulting businesses too, because your
success is important to the long-term vitality of HylaFAX just as ours is.
The feedback you all offered today has been very helpful in shaping how the
current wiki idea can be improved, and I thank you for it, sincerely.
There's no clear concensus, but I think there are some trends that help
inform how we can do this in a way that fits as gracefully as possible into
the current community.
Incidentally I would never have dreamed we would be urged to include this
under the hylafax.org domain, since as Patrice points out it's clearly to
iFAX's advantage to do this. The lack of separation between Church and State
still makes me a bit nervous ... I had thought a "you are now leaving
hylafax.org ... " link-out page might even be necessary to clarify that this
was not a hylafax.org facility! Perhaps the best way to resolve this issue
is by creating a poll on the wiki itself! ;-)
That's all the spew you'll see from me today, I promise. Apologies in
advance if I've missed anyone in this summary, and especially if I've
misunderstood or mischaracterized anyone's opinion.
-Darren
--
Darren Nickerson
Senior Sales & Support Engineer
iFAX Solutions, Inc. www.ifax.com
***@ifax.com
+1.215.438.4638 ext 8106 office
+1.215.243.8335 fax
____________________ HylaFAX(tm) Developers Mailing List ____________________
To subscribe/unsubscribe, click http://lists.hylafax.org/cgi-bin/lsg2.cgi
On UNIX: mail -s unsubscribe hylafax-devel-***@hylafax.org < /dev/null