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Link problem

The first reference link has a problem. It goes to a landing page that has a link labeled "read the entire article here" more or less. The problem is, that link just redirects to the same landing page. There's no apparent way to actually navigate to the complete article.

This link needs to be fixed or removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.64.163.126 (talk) 19:32, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Results of combining licenses

How does license "merging" work? Is it correct to say that when two or more licenses are combined, the resulting license is the union of all the single licenses' restrictions? --Abdull (talk) 17:50, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

No. Some licenses don't allow additional restrictions, and thus can't be combined at all with others that impose them. RossPatterson (talk) 22:53, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Combining GPL and BSDl

The related statement in the article is not correct. The BSD license does not permit sub-licensing, so the license of all downstream code is granted by the original contributor only. Relicensing is forbidden by law (by default) and as it is not explicitly permitted by the BSDl, the license for BSD code cannot be changed to GPL without explicit permission from the author.

A work that is a combination from BSDl code and GPL code thus would contain parts that are not licensed under GPL. A problem, that could be solved by thinking of a "collective work" created from the BSD and GPL parts..... --Schily (talk) 09:47, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

I wanted to bring this up as well. I think the parenthetical should be removed or supported with a cite, as I am reasonably certain it is untrue. If a GPL licensed project reuses some BSD licensed code, the BSD licensed code does not itself become GPL licensed -- the author(s) of the GPL project are not copyright holders on the BSD code, and cannot change it's licensing terms simply because they desire to. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.161.113.22 (talk) 03:59, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Combining LGPL and GPL

GPL and LGPL code cannot be combined without problems, so the article is wrong here:

The GPL and the LGPL are incompatible. A combination is only possible as the LGPL permits to relicense the LGPL code under GPL. This however is an irreversible change to the local copy of the library under LGPL. After you did that, you cannot use the same library anymore with other code that is not compatible to the GPL, as your local copy of the license is now under GPL. Schily (talk) 16:03, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

The article states that already, doesn`t it? "and LGPL, are "GPL-compatible". That is, their code can be combined with a program under the GPL without conflict (the new combination would have the GPL applied to the whole)." --89.0.18.35 (talk) 08:48, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

No, the article does not explain why GPL and LGPL are incompatible to each other. Schily (talk) 16:29, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

The quality of the article is not sufficient

Most claims in the article are from laymen and have only references to claims from other laymen.

According to Eben Moglen, the FSF webpages about license compatibility was written by Richard Stallman (a legal layman) and contains false claims based on false assumptions on license compatibility. An attempt from Moglen to ask Stallman to fix the false claims did not result in changes on the FSF website.

As a result, most of the claims in the article are based on unreliable sources and need to be removed.

I recommend to rewrite the article by removing claims from laymen like e.g. David Wheeler that are not verified by citations from reliable sources from experts.

Regarding reliable sources, there are some lawyers that publish in the open and that can be seen as reliable sources:

• Lawrence Rosen, who wrote a free book on OpenSource Licensing and who acts as advisor for OpenSource.org

• Lothar Determan, who is a pofessor of law (it seems simulataneously) at FU-Berlin and University of San Francisco. His published papers have many citations to other papers from other experts.

• Andreas Metzger and the related lawyer's office that supports Harald Welte.

Schily (talk) 15:48, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Please provide formated references so that the different and conflicting existing interpretations are represented better. cheers Shaddim (talk) 18:12, 16 December 2015 (UTC) (PS: Please resist the urge to change the article yourself, I know you are yourself personally involved in this license debate. Please wait on feedback from other non-involved WP authors but you are very welcome to provide independent material on this discussion page.)

Your formulation is suitable to convey a completely false impression. In the past, I have been forced by OpenSource enemies (Debian) to inform myself about legal facts in this area and I did this by talking with various specialist lawyers. So I call me an informed person. How would you call yourself? Are you suitable to discuss this topic? Schily (talk) 10:19, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm sure your are more knowledgeable than me. But that's not the point, you are involved personally what is according to WP policies a risk/problem. Therefore, we should act carefully here, to fulfil the neutral-point-of-view policy. Best regards and open for your proposals. Shaddim (talk) 15:52, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

I am sure that I am less biased than other people who already added text here. Schily (talk) 16:00, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Then, let's keep us this high standard and just improve the text. Propose references and texts and we will balance the text. Shaddim (talk) 16:03, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

I started with some annotations.... in general, the main articles appears like a novell and not like a WP article. A WP Article should not be mainly a collection of opinions but a collection of verifyable facts. Schily (talk) 09:52, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

This is a misunderstanding. The main goal of[REDACTED] is reproducable, check able content not the "truth". There is in many domains no conclusive decision available what is correct or wrong; like this complicated license compatibility domain (court rulings are missing). So the best what we can do represent the various positions of relevant specialist and organization in a transparent and balanced way, so that reader can make up their own mind. While some of your annotations are correct, at least one is unneeded: there is only the position of the FSF is given, no better source required .Shaddim (talk) 11:15, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

It seems that you are mistaken: WP aims to be an encycloipedia and an encyclopedia is not a comment or the opinion of the authors. In an encyclopedia, authors need to step back and just point to verifiable and credible sources. Schily (talk) 11:39, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Also please note that the FSF must be seen differently from entities like "OpenSource.org" as the FSF is a vendor of licenses and thus cannot make neutral claims. It is also important to regard the remark from Moglen who explained that in special the claims on license compatibility on the FSF website are incorrect. Schily (talk) 11:44, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Schily, you have not to tell me about the many existing conflicts of interest here: rest assure that I'm aware of them, e.g. the FSF's interest in pushing their own interpretation but also your interest in pushing your interpretation about compatibility. As there is no definitive agreement, we will present the various interpretation with due balance. Just provide independent/third party sources here and other non-involved authors will try to balance the article. Shaddim (talk) 14:43, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Collective works

I removed some false claims about collective works. Note that the GPL ends at work level and as a collective work combines two works, the GPL only applies to the previous GPLd work. Schily (talk) 11:50, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Schily, could you please give in detail explanation (and refs) what is your problem with which definition part. I have nothign to work with or a chance to improve it, just your full revert. Also, I would highly appreciate if you would switch to a more productive WP authoring style reducing your the number of non-constructive full reverts & instead give suggestions (annotations like before) or improving parts. Revert is not the only tool in our toolbox. Thanks Shaddim (talk) 11:52, 30 December 2015 (UTC) EDIT (after edit conflict): now I have an indication...

"Note that the GPL ends at work level and as a collective work combines two works, the GPL only applies to the previous GPLd work. " -> I'm not sure what you mean with that. Example: If a proprietary software uses a GPL'd library (compile it in) do you disagree that this combined work needs to be gpl'd on distribution? Shaddim (talk) 11:55, 30 December 2015 (UTC) (OK, I will wait 1 day for more info ...)

If you add a larger paragraph that is incorrect to more than 50%, the best method to deal with that text is a complete removal. Schily (talk) 12:50, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

In order to understand the problem, I recommend you to first read the GPL. The GPL does not include the word "linking" and you therefore cannot deduce that a binary that includes more than code from a GPLd work is an illegal binary. Schily (talk) 12:53, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

OK, do I understand you right you claim that the GPL has no viral properties (viral license) & copyleft? That all the lawsuits which end up in releasing all the source code (and not only the gpl'ed part) were misinterpreted? The point is: copyleft makes form combined works, derived works, which was explained in this paragraph & graph. Shaddim (talk) 13:08, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

If you interpret the GPL in a way that makes it more restrictive than the CDDL, the GPL cannot be used at all. Note that the GPLv0 was written in 1986 and at that time there was no dynamic linking. If a GPLd work cannot be part of a larger binary that includes code from any other arbitrary license, you cannot ship statically linked binaries that include compile results from a GPLd work because the binary at least contains code from libc as well. Do you like to tell me that the GPL is completely unusable? Schily (talk) 13:34, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

indeed, statical linking is a problem in the copyleft ecosystem (BSD ref). Shaddim (talk) 13:44, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Then you would first need to understand the GPL correctly. Linking never was a problem with the GPL, but there are some uninformed people who believe that linking makes a difference even though the GPL does not mention linking at all. The GPLv0 was a completely unusable license because it required you to deliver libc (and probably more) together with any binary even when libc was not licensed in a way that would permit this delivery. This is why I reported that problem in 1986 when the first GCC was published. As a result, GPLv1 was created. Since then, the GPL is usable and you may ship linked binaries that include a GPLd part and a non-GPLd part as long as these non-GPLd binary parts are from different works. Libc is e.g. of course a different work and thus is not affected by tht GPLd code it is linked against. BTW: I asked the FSF whether I am allowed to ship a gtar binary that is statically liked against a CDDLd libc and the reply was that there is no problem with that. Schily (talk) 13:57, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Ok, while interesting, this seems not to be the consensus/common interpretation (FSF "use library" FSF,BSD,torvalds). Could you please back that up with refs? Also, what is from your point of view the difference between LGPL/GPL? cheers Shaddim (talk) 14:07, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Good question, even Lawrence Rosen doubts whether there is a real difference as he believes that the additional limitations in the GPL are void. Schily (talk) 14:22, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

OK, what about this compromise: I take the dynamic/static linking topic as open question into the article and describe the graph as most conservative possible interpretation. cheersShaddim (talk) 14:31, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

The GPL (note that we should use the term GPL for GPLv2, as this is the dominating version and as there is no complete legal review for the GPLv3 yet) does not contain the term "linking". The only useful term is "work" which means a solid creative work. The GPL permits unmodified and modified republishing and it does not exclude "collective works" from its general permission. Any interpretation that would claim restrictions based on the term "linking" from my understanding may thus appear in a WP article when they are marked as unverifiable. Schily (talk) 14:40, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

The FSF believes it (see here "use library" -> explained as "linking" "“Use a library” means that you're not copying any source directly, but instead interacting with it through linking, importing, or other typical mechanisms that bind the sources together when you compile or run the code." -> GPLv3 & GPLv2 incompatible -> so "derivative work" and most other groups believing it too, alternative opinions exist but are not widely accepted or consensus. Was this ever challenged in court? Shaddim (talk) 14:44, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

The problem with the text from the FSF is that it only speaks about the derivative work case, where it may be correct. The collective work case, is not mentioned at all, so you cannot deduce anything for our case from that FSF text. Schily (talk) 15:12, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

I interprete the second part of the FSF table as collective work ("linking"), not derivative work ("source code copying"). But the compatibility is the same, even GPLv2 and GPLv3 are incompatible again, so would be the CDDL and GPL. So, if you would ask the FSF now about statically linking they would answer "no". 15:23, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

OK, I will go forward with proposed compromise solution (as this is exactly your "GPL + CDDL -> OK as collective work" theory/discussion where the community consensus was "no"). And ask you kindly to provide formatted references which backing up your position, which I would then integrate into the article. cheers Shaddim (talk) 14:57, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

This was a reply from Eben Moglen in a private conversation. I would need to check whether this discussion may have been attached to a mailing list. For the general understanding it may help that I discussed this with various specialized lawyers including Axel Metzger (one of the lawyers from Harald Welte). Mr. Metzger confirmed that my interpretation is correct but in conflict with the interpretation from several people that claim to speak for the "free software community". This talk was in a talk with limited audience in our institute. Schily (talk) 15:12, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Looking forward to receiving your material. Shaddim (talk) 15:19, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Could you explain again what you expect from me? Schily (talk) 15:39, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

I am disappointed to see that you added more or less the same false claims again. This is not helpful in special as you are using incorrect definitions. The term "combined work" cannot be found in legal essays, because it is not suited to describe a legal act correctly. Schily (talk) 16:22, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Schily, I will not accepted your sole personal opinion as fact. Especially, as this exactly the topic you are personal involved in the CDDL / GPL comaptiblity license conflict, whcih disqualifies you as WP author in this topic. As we agreed above, according to public general opinion, statical linking constitutes a derivative work. Have you even checked the new version ? I added multiple new references for that and also added the debate of linking and alterantive opinions. PLEASE resist the urge to revert again! And, again, bring references and I will integrate them/adapt the article. Until this happens, this will be version of the article. 16:31, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

I am not willing to accept your false claims and we did not agree that you reinsert your text, so I urge you to remove this text that uses incorrect terms and therefore cannot be remotely correct. What I explained to you is the agreed opinion of all lawyers that ever wrote about this topic, you however added text from non-lawyers.

Note that "combined work" is a weasel word that cannot be understand correctly and that may include a derivative work. Schily (talk) 16:53, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Please explain why you discuss things when you later ignore the results from the discussion. Schily (talk) 17:05, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

I found "combined work" in law book reference, the one from which I adapted the graph, other use "aggregated", other collective etc. I appreciate the discussion with you as I understood now your point. But the problem is, until you provide external refernces of the incidents you mentioned (Moglen), I can't include them beside being a "minority" opinion. Shaddim (talk) 17:09, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

A combined work can only be seen as a mixture of derivative works and collective works and this is not helpful in an article. Please note that if you discuss things with me and then add text that was not agreed, it seems that you are mainly interested to steal my time. Moglen is not a trustworthy source as he is well known for publishing intentionally false claims with the intention to use this to get political results. Given that I just forward statements from Rosen and Determan who are trustworthy sources, it should be easy to write a correct article with citations from trustworthy sources. Schily (talk) 17:26, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Schily, could you please provide exact & formated references if you want to have an alternative position to be presented? *"GPL compatibility: The only reliable information on non-GPLd filesystems in Linux is http://www.oreilly.de/german/freebooks/gplger/ from the Lawyers from Harald Welte and this explains that filesystems are independent works and can be under any lic" is not really helpful, infact I could not "guess" up to now by searching what you are refering to. Shaddim (talk) 12:37, 12 January 2016 (UTC) EDit: found it, but despite your claim it is also not clear or states that the FSF position is wrogn only that an alternative interpretation is possible. Shaddim (talk) 12:47, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

I already mentioned that you should first ask on the talk page before adding new claims to the article as you added incorrect claims more than once in the past already. What help do you need with the book? Did you read the book? It explains that filesystems that have been developed outside the Linux kernel are definitely independent works. For this reason, adding ZFS to Linux is creating a permitted collective work. Pointers for easier locating are here: http://www.osscc.net/de/gplger.html Schily (talk) 12:49, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

this is not a proper formated reference but just a link to everything and nothing, see my reference as example how to do it properly and specific. Shaddim (talk) 13:49, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

"I already mentioned that you should first ask on the talk page before adding new claims to the article as " -> and I already told you that due to your bias, personal involvment and inability providing useable references, other WP have now to step forward after giving you a due chance for discussion and explaining your position. Currently, you try to block and insisit on a inproperbly backed minortiy/personal interprettion. Fact is, majority currently follows the FSF interpretation. Shaddim (talk) 13:53, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Some time ago, you made an edit comment that I am personally involved which is seen as a personal attack as this is of course nonsense. Now I try to encourage you to use reliable sources instead of sources that are not based on specialized lawyers. I gave you the chance to present a better source for your claims but it seems that you still insist to add claims from hearsay that are not from specialists. I recommend you to follow WP rules and to add only claims from reliable sources. A majority opinion from laymen may be worth to be mentioned but only if you add a note that the claims you added are wrong. Note that while I quote several specialists and do not present my own opinion, you just add the opinion from laymen. Schily (talk) 16:02, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

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Fundamental problem in the article's content balance.

The title of this article is "License compatibility" but looking through the text it seems that the actual name might more accurately be called "Free Software Foundation issued license compatibility". This is not a slam against the FSF or the GPL family of licenses but merely a factual observation that nearly all of the content in this article revolves in some way around the degree to which one license or another is compatible with one or more of the FSF licenses. I see almost no discussion of compatibility of non-FSF licenses with each other, nor any section identifying which licenses are 100% incompatible with the FSF licenses. Looking at the TOC one can easily observe this dramatic imbalance as follows:

 3 Compatibility of FOSS licenses 
     3.1 GPL compatibility 
         3.1.1 Copyleft licenses and GPL 
         3.1.2 GFDL and GPL 
         3.1.3 CDDL and GPL 
         3.1.4 CC BY-SA and GPLv3 
     3.2 Creative Commons license compatibility 

Notice that only two license families have their own section, and of those two 90% of the content is GPL related. I recognize that GPL has the lion's share of the "market" but surely the other major families of licenses (BSD, MIT, Apache) should also have a subsection here in the article. I also see no discussion at all of the MS-RL which certainly should be in this article. Ditto public domain releases, how is that de facto license compatible/incompatible with the other FOSS licenses? (For those who would like to tell me PD is not a license, please note it's inclusion as a "Permissive" license in the graphic from the David Wheeler.)

One last subject that is seriously missing from the article is a section on == Consequences ==. The history of the MPL is a start but there should also be discussion of Torvald's rejection of GPL-V3. Additionally many high quality articles have been written on the corporate world's rejection of some/all FOSS elements being allowed inside their programming shops and the consequences of such policies. All of this belongs in an article named "License compatibility".

Until these issues are addressed there is a serious imbalance in the article's POV. This can be corrected by expending effort to increase coverage of non FSF-issued licenses and FSF non-compatible licenses and paying extra attention on their compatibility relationship to each other instead of to the GPL family. Koala Tea Of Mercy (KTOM's Articulations & Invigilations) 01:43, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

In general I agree, the article should be extended, generalized and neutralized. In fact I think I brought the article signidicantly this direction (status before). About the identified FSF focus & amount of content, another reason is there are plainly no other organisations with such a level of focus on license details & publications about it. It's hardly avoidable to refer to them. cheers Shaddim (talk) 17:42, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Creative Commons licenses table

I'm having a bit of trouble understanding the table under § Creative Commons license compatibility. Is there a source for it? Or can anyone explain why the NC licenses are compatible with CC0 and BY, and with BY-NC-SA, but not BY-SA? Thanks. —151.132.206.26 (talk) 21:57, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

well, the graph is directly form creative commons, it was a post form them and just made more dense by me. in general, you can't make SA more restrictive, non-SA licenses you can make more restrictive by joining with some other license. See copyleft and share-alike. Shaddim (talk) 20:22, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

We should cite the original CC posting, then. —67.14.236.50 (talk) 23:46, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

It was given as source all the time in file. Shaddim (talk) 08:22, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

I mean a source for the information represented by the image. What is our source for claiming that CC BY-SA is compatible with CC BY, or incompatible with CC BY-NC-ND? Some anonymous username on the CC wiki? What was the chart based off of? If not some reliable source, we shouldn’t use it like this unless we can back it up with one. —67.14.236.50 (talk) 08:36, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

First, it's all there. Second, we can, with editorial oversight, as we currently do. (Also, I urge you to slow down your crusade for "reliable sources". Your purging of pages of what you deem "non-reliable" does harm...) As before, I urge you do something productive and find good sources which satisfy your needs. Shaddim (talk) 08:50, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

What’s all where? Do we have a source for the information in this chart or not? If the source has editorial oversight, that’s a good sign that it’s reliable—but what is the source? And please don’t tell me we’re treating some CC wiki user as a reliable source. —67.14.236.50 (talk) 06:03, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

As for “do something productive”—first, don’t be a jerk. Second, have you seen the edit history lately? I have been productive—just not in your overly narrow sense of the word, perhaps. And adding or preserving quite possibly wrong or misleading information from unreliable sources to an encyclopedia article, and citing sources in an unstructured and inconsistent way that leaves out key information, is not my idea of being productive, so I could say the same of you. Third: You do not have a claim on other editors' time. You are adding or defending material that, as it stands, does not conform to Misplaced Pages's requirements and it is nobody else's job to fix it. It is unfair to pass this job on to other editors who may not have the time, inclination or knowledge of the subject material to fix it, especially if they believe in good faith that it can't be done at all. —67.14.236.50 (talk) 06:25, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

In fact, I have not, currently my motivation to interact with WP is on a very low level. Second, the material is directly from creative commons, a primary source, the only "problem" is that they used a technical utility for publishing, "a wiki", which is in the oversimplifed interpretation of some authors automatically not acceptable. (With a more differentiated interpretation every reasonable author would come to the conclusion that is not a problem at all... but looks like we lack this kind.) Shaddim (talk) 20:42, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

PS:Thank you for your formatting work. Shaddim (talk) 20:55, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

(Same IP user on a public computer.) The material is from a Creative Commons wiki user, and that wiki is open to public registration. By your logic, someone could take your or my original research and claim it came "directly from an encyclopedia." The contributor's username is redlinked on the CC wiki, which leads me to believe it's not an official representative of the organization, but a wiki user like you or me. Can you show otherwise? —151.132.206.26 (talk) 23:24, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

And then I saw the source added shortly before the post I replied to. —67.14.236.50 (talk) 02:49, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

It's still technically on a wiki... go on with your crusade against "primary sources" & "user created content". Reality is not as clear cut as you would like it. Shaddim (talk) 08:47, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

I don’t see any kind of facility to edit that FAQ. And I’m not on any “crusade” against user-generated content; it’s just unreliable by nature, hence WP:UGC. If you refuse to acknowledge that, I don’t know what else to tell you. Maybe you just don’t get how Misplaced Pages works? I keep suggesting you ask other people and get a second opinion, and you keep actively avoiding doing that… —67.14.236.50 (talk) 05:06, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

We don't need second opinions (which it seems to try to satisfy your need for clear cut, binary realities...there are no) we need reasonable compromises and agreements among the editors per article.... you apply a pretty literal policy interpretation which ignores the intent of the policy, against other editors, against policies which call for relaxed interpretations (e.g. non-controversial topics, non-personal topics etc). Can we use this case here, where you kind of agreed that this Wikisource is fine in this circumstances as precedence that the polices are oversimplified formulations which needs to be reasonable fit to reality? And do this in other cases too, with editiorial over sight, in consensus? Shaddim (talk) 10:21, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

If you object to the removal of UGC sources, then yes, you need a second opinion. WP:UGC is quite clear on this, regardless of whether you want to selectively apply it. And if you’re saying CC’s FAQ is a wiki, we should probably avoid using it as an unreliable source. But like I said, it seems reliable and I see no evidence that it’s a wiki; only that it uses an image hosted on one. So I’m not sure what the disagreement is here. Just be careful with your source selection, maybe give WP:Identifying reliable sources another read. And try to take those pages as more than loose suggestions, okay? They reflect the wider consensus, so they should be followed. —67.14.236.50 (talk) 03:05, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Confusing caption

The content restored with this edit seems to be written in somewhat broken English. If it’s worth keeping, could someone clean it up a bit to be more readable? I’d do it, but I’m not entirely sure what it’s meant to be saying. Thanks. —67.14.236.50 (talk) 02:46, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Also, the image is based on one from a PhD dissertation. If it hasn’t been published in a peer-reviewed journal, that fact causes some WP editors to think twice. There also seems to be an element of synthesis in the derivative image that makes me dubious of it. Thoughts? —67.14.236.50 (talk) 00:26, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

So, any objections to removal? —67.14.236.50 (talk) 06:35, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

• That's not a caption, it's an essay. I like it in general, but it should be a section, it should be conveyed in prose, and the image should only be there as an adjunct to it, with a short caption to it. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:14, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

  @Andy Dingley: Any thoughts on whether some of the modifications to the image (source: ) constitute WP:SYNTHESIS? Or whether an image from non-peer-reviewed academia is appropriate? Just looking for a third opinion (or fourth, or fifth—the more, the better). But I agree about the “caption,” should be rewritten and incorporated into the body. —67.14.236.50 (talk) 22:22, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

Okay, so I’m going to remove the image while better writers than me work the caption into the article proper. Any objections? —67.14.236.50 (talk) 13:31, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Yes. There was no consensus at all for removal but a voice for keeping but improving ("I like it but"). So I will revert. Feel free top propose imrpovemnts. Shaddim (talk) 21:43, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

There was consensus for removing it as a caption. So I had removed the caption with the expectation that it would be incorporated into the main text. I have just moved the restored content into the main text, so hopefully that makes the intent clearer. Please consider making or suggesting improvements rather than simply reverting, if you find this revision objectionable. Also, please address the concerns I raised about the modified image rather than simply restoring the image without comment. —67.14.236.50 (talk) 16:12, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

There was no consensus on the removal of the image, therefore I revert that. And again, I would enjoy if you would take the burden of improving texts instead of razing content which was hard to produce. And in general I follow the academic tradition and guidance that self-contained and self-explaining figures are a good idea, and separating captions from figure is not. Shaddim (talk) 17:04, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

@Shaddim: I’m pretty sure I’ve pointed this out before, but the burden of improving content is on those who want to include it. If you want to keep it in the article, it’s up to you to make sure it belongs in the article and is comprehensible, and you have no right to demand that someone else do it. You can leave the problematic content as deleted, or move it to Talk, and request that others have a crack at it (as I have), but you can’t insist that your WP:HARDWORK remain in the article while it waits to be fixed. And the “razed” content is still there in the history, where you can access and improve upon it before adding it back in. I agree that self-contained and self-explaining figures are helpful (and if they’re self-explaining, they don’t need captions, but they do need alt text); but it doesn’t matter how helpful the images are if they are a product of editorial synthesis, a concern which has still not been addressed. There is broad consensus for the removal of any such content. —67.14.236.50 (talk) 15:00, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

I have again removed the image due to WP:SYNTH concerns; though based on an image found in a PhD dissertation (which itself is of questionable reliability), additions were made to it which are not found in the original. I have also removed the confusingly written text, which seems redundant with § Kinds of combined works and had been restored with no attempt to copyedit or rewrite. If you disagree with either of these edits being an improvement to the article, please address the issues that prompted them. Thanks. —67.14.236.50 (talk) 02:19, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Please tag it before removal. You also removed an wp:anchor which likely would disrupt other links. Jim1138 (talk) 03:59, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

@Jim1138: How would one tag an image? In the caption? Edit: I did tag it, days before removal . Also, could you copyedit the text you restored? It’s still redundant and otherwise fairly nonsensical, and there’s been no indication of why it’s necessary. And good catch on the anchor, I missed that—but it’s a duplicate of the section name, which is itself an anchor, so that’s an error. —67.14.236.50 (talk) 16:29, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Can anyone justify the content that I’ve given policy-based reasons for removing? The only argument I’ve seen in favor of keeping it as-is, in this whole section, was WP:ITSUSEFUL. If you think it can be improved on, then do it. If you can’t—and if you’re leaving that work up to me—then I see removal as an improvement to the article, for the policy-based reasons I’ve given—at least until it can be restored with improvements (which thus far has not happened). —67.14.236.50 (talk) 22:35, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with this content destruction and personal agenda pushing. Again, there was no consensus but just personal misinterpreation and synthesis of disconnected WP policies for your destructive activities. Also, a PhD is a "peer reviewed" publication, I don't know how do you come to the idea it is not... And even if not, (again to your great displeasure), primary sources are not forbidden in WP at all, if used in appropriate transparent way, which is done here. While you dislike this personally and you seems to push for the pipe dream "truth" again, there is no truth and no perfect source which could provide such illusionary quality. Your consistent removal of content which doesn't fit your taste and sense of quality and truth harm the project, stop that, especially as you don't contribute to this (and other) topic at all. I will restore this content under the premise that it is sufficiently sourced, it properly represents without undue weight, while it was removed without proper consensus and strong reason. Shaddim (talk) 09:20, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Also, you misstate the answers you got if yol don't like them: the very clear answer to you was "The relevant guideline is WP:SCHOLARSHIP. PhD theses are generally regarded as reliable sources. StAnselm (talk) 03:24, 16 August 2016 (UTC) ". This was obvious. And even if not: THERE IS NO POLICY AGAINST PRIMARY SOURCES! (if used for non-controversial topics used in a balanced way not giving undue perceptions) Shaddim (talk) 09:47, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

@Shaddim: I never said anything against it as a primary source. My concern is its reliability as a source. It sounds like you missed the bit in that discussion about how we don’t know whether PhD dissertations in Finnish universities (or in this particular uni) undergo the same scrutiny that they do in the US and UK. And you continue to ignore the actual reasons I gave for removal: your original additions to the image, and the nonsensicality of the text that discusses things that had just been covered. Please address those instead of summarily dismissing my contributions. Thank you. —67.14.236.50 (talk) 12:11, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Don't side step, your bureaucratic crusade for the fuzzy term "reliability" targets "primary sources" and causes in general great havoc with little benefit and drives away constructive authors who want to contribute actual content. You know, the guys who want to do the hard work creating something, not simple "single click removal" Shaddim (talk) 10:12, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

@Shaddim: It’s not “fuzzy.” Primary sources can be supremely reliable. Secondary sources can be ridiculously unreliable. See WP:SOURCE and WP:RS. If any confusion remains after that, be communicative instead of confrontational and we should be able to clear it up. And please get it out of your head that poorly sourced content is any kind of benefit to Misplaced Pages. Keep the project’s values in mind. Verifiability is crucial. Now, if you want to say this particular source is reliable—okay, great, let’s discuss that. I brought it up at WP:RSN some time ago, but there was no consensus. If you have some insight into the workings of Finnish doctorate programs, or especially the Helsinki University of Technology, that would be helpful. But if this is a purely ideological argument for you (i.e., if you refuse to directly discuss the subject at hand), then please stop letting your personal ideology interfere with my editing. It’s been wasting both your time and mine, as well as disrupting the project to make a point. Besides, this is not the place for such debates; try WP:Village pump, and feel free to ping me. —67.14.236.50 (talk) 06:43, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

I agree with your point that this is a time wastage and disrupting the project.... but for different reasons than you. I disagree with your interpretation and overvaluing of "reliablilty" as crucial or even clearly defined (your multiple times linking it makes it not at all better). The policy is weak (for instance circular written), beside the five pillars, and in general only of limited importance and yet made by you the core element of your "work" here. Again, I'm not interested in bureacratic "work" of endlessly bickering about polices which were meant originally helping the goal of creating (Focus on creation!) of a[REDACTED] not as goal itself. PS: "but there was no consensus." there was no consensus for declaring it unreliable (whatever that means), so it is in. Shaddim (talk) 15:44, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Improving the former caption

Okay, so here’s the disputed text. Seems a bit word-salady to me, but if anyone can make sense of it, please rewrite it. And we should probably leave out the re-definitions of terms that the article already explains.

"Derived works" are mixing code, "combined works" have components under differing license. From right to left needs a combined work a stronger separation between differently licensed parts to prevent them in becoming a derived work ("separation": combined by statically linking or source file separation with all components living in the same process and address space, "strong separation": components connected only via binary interfaces and which live in separated processes).

1. Troan, Larry (2005). "Open Source from a Proprietary Perspective" (PDF). Red Hat Summit 2006. Red Hat. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-06. Retrieved 2015-12-29. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)

—67.14.236.50 (talk) 03:53, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

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