[pydotorg-www] License of website

[Michael Foord]

On 20 Apr 2012, at 15:03, Stefan Drees wrote:

> Hello dear pythonic list members,
> 
> although mirroring of the python website is not "needed" anymore,
> no one ever told the various contributors, that this is now a guaranteed "feature".
> 
> So I think, if someone offers "the internet in a box" for institutions in countries, where access to the internet is close to impossible, then I do not see any differenence to mirroring (just a systemeatically outdated mirror).
> 


The issue is that the PSF doesn't (necessarily) have the *right* to permit mirroring of the wiki - as no license to the PSF was ever required for contributions. For the main site the content is clearly marked as copyright the PSF (even if we didn't explicitly get contributors to license their contributions to the PSF as we do for code contributions). 

So for the wiki at least, and potentially for the rest of the site too, we aren't in a position to formally agree to mirroring (or other forms of redistribution) even if we really *want* people to be able to do this (which I think we do). As we are being asked for formal permission we have to give a formal answer.

All IMO and I'm very happy to be overruled.

Michael Foord

> All the best,
> Stefan.
> Am 20.04.12 13:21, schrieb Michael Foord:
>> 
>> On 19 Apr 2012, at 23:54, martin at v.loewis.de wrote:
>> 
>>> 
>>> Zitat von Michael Foord<michael at voidspace.org.uk>:
>>> 
>>>> Hey all,
>>>> 
>>>> What is the license of the python.org website content? The website has a copyright message but no license. We have a request on the webmaster alias for permission to distribute the website "to people lacking Internet access via the eGranary Digital Library".
>>>> 
>>>> That sounds fine, but the license terms of the website, for purposes of redistribution, are not clear.
>>> 
>>> We could ask a lawyer for a recommendation, but my personal feeling
>>> is that copying the entire website is not ok. Many people have contributed
>>> to it, in particular to the wiki and the mailing list archives, and many
>>> might be assuming that their content will only appear on python.org.
>>> 
>>> Certain parts of it are meant for redistribution; those should typically
>>> also have an explicit license with them (I'm thinking about the documentation
>>> in particular).
>>> 
>>> If this position is agreeable, it would then be possible, but very tedious,
>>> to go through the website and indicate what pages can be redistributed
>>> and which one cannot. So unless somebody volunteers for this, the natural
>>> consequence would be "if there is no explicit permission given to make
>>> copies, one may not make copies".
>> 
>> I think unfortunately you are correct. The non-profit in question looks like they are providing a potentially valuable service - so it would be *nice* to be able to license at least the core parts of the website for redistribution, but it seems like it may be an onerous task.
>> 
>> The core parts of the website that are in our SVN repository, and built by our build scripts, we probably have full licensing control over. So it may be possible to explicitly license those parts for redistribution. The PSF would have to make a decision on this though.
>> 
>> All the best,
>> 
>> Michael
>> 
>> 
>>> 
>>> Regards,
>>> Martin
>>> 
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> pydotorg-www mailing list
>>> pydotorg-www at python.org
>>> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/pydotorg-www
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> --
>> http://www.voidspace.org.uk/
>> 
>> 
>> May you do good and not evil
>> May you find forgiveness for yourself and forgive others
>> May you share freely, never taking more than you give.
>> -- the sqlite blessing
>> http://www.sqlite.org/different.html
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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> 
> 


--
http://www.voidspace.org.uk/


May you do good and not evil
May you find forgiveness for yourself and forgive others
May you share freely, never taking more than you give.
-- the sqlite blessing 
http://www.sqlite.org/different.html