h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I was about to try and modify the GNU GPL to adhere to the House Rules (so that community members can post GPLed software without breaking the house rules) and I noticed that the House Rules state that users "...grant us a non-exclusive licence to distribute and edit the material in any way that we want..."

I believe this statement could be illegal since you should not be allowed to remove any copyright notices placed on texts. Would it be possible to get the House Rules modified to reflect this?

This statement in our rules isn't illegal, but submitting something to h2g2 that has an unremovable copyright notice would be illegal on *your* part. This is because the author has not waived his or her your moral rights to their stuff, as being GNU means, by definition, that moral rights cannot be waived (ie the notice cannot be deleted). A pity, but that's the law.

The best thing by far is to put in a link to another website where you can get hold of the GNU stuff. That would be good, and wouldn't get anyone in trouble.

The *best* thing would be to change the T&C so that it does not require waiving moral rights. It's not as if being unable to delete copyright notices is going to destroy any prospect of creating a collaborative guide, is it?

in case there's any confusion, my understanding is that some bloke(...) wants to create a GPL-like license that gives additional permissions (where necessary) to the BBC - not to post stuff under the standard GPL to h2g2.

The next best thing would be to change the T&C so they offer a specific exception for GPL'd work.

Ah, you're right, Lucinda - sorry some bloke, I read your Posting too fast!

Unfortunately there's no chance that the lawyers will drop the bit about moral rights from the terms, as the BBC wants to be able to do with the content what it will. As I've explained in the past, this does *not* mean that we'll do things like drop authors' names as a matter of course, but we may want to, and we want to be able to. This is particularly relevant with things like the BBC's i-Bar on digital TV, where space is severely limited, and most content is published without any credits; if i-Bar wanted to use DNA content, then they could do so without publishing the name, and given the constraints of i-Bar, one could understand the reasoning, as long as credits were included whenever possible.

Does this mean the GPL can be altered? I guess so - you can write whatever you like in your software documenatation, so that wouldn't be a problem. There are two options:

1. We (the BBC) agree that in the case of some bloke's specific software, we would agree that his content could only be redistributed by the BBC if the copyright notice is included - ie we don't ask him to waive this particular moral right.

2. The GPL gets re-written so the insistence of including the copyright notice does not apply to the BBC.

I would presume you'd prefer the first one, some bloke? If so, let me know, and I'll see what I can rustle up in terms of confirming emails, etc. We'd have to do this on a case-by-case basis, but that should be OK. How's that sound?

And thanks for the clarification, Lucinda. I missed the point totally!

Just spotted your last suggestion, Lucinda. Again, the lawyers wouldn't go for this, as people would simply include GPL licences in all their content that they wished to retain moral rights on. Too easy to abuse, but taking each case as it comes should be OK - it's not as if the programs can actually be uploaded to our serversm, is it?

In all honesty, linking to your own website is by far the simplest solution...

the point behind the original question relates to including source code in an entry, as part of a "how to program" type set of entries. therefore, the code in qestion (a small part only to illustrate the point) would need to appear in the entry, and thus by deinition would be on your servers.

What is specifically being looked for is a way of including snippets of code from gpl and similar programs (which are thus easy to look though for examples) in such a way as to not breach the law.

any ideas that you have which would help facilitate such a project would be appreciated.

see the thread F73672?thread=180015 for a detailed context to this question.

Ah, thanks for that, xyroth. I had zip files of programs in my head, for some reason, but of course that's *not* what's being discussed here.

I guess this only applies to people wanting to submit their *own* code to h2g2, as you obviously can't submit other people's work. Given this, and assuming that the author has the right to submit said code to h2g2, I think the easiest solution would be for the author not to submit the code to h2g2 along with the GPL, as it simply can't be upheld. However, the code could legally be included in h2g2 content without the GPL *if* it's submitted by the author, and the same code could also be released into the world with the GPL attached without conflict.

The advantage is that GPL code can be submitted to h2g2 for discussion, and this won't affect the GPL version out in the rest of the world. However, this does have the disadvantage that, in theory, the BBC could edit that content (though I can't think of anyone here who would entertain such an idea, unless it was to edit and re-publish stuff on h2g2 as part of the programmers' corner). Understandably, some people may not like that idea, but as with professional writers, our position would be: do not submit content unless you are happy to do so.

The programmers' corner is an excellent idea, but as with a writers' corner, I'd advise against people submitting their magnum opuses (sp?) to h2g2. I'd stick to submitting code fragments, really, but it's up to the individuals.

How does that sound? I don't think we're ever going to be sophisticated enough to allow GPL stuff on h2g2 that retains the notice, unless it's done manually (and even then, it'd take a while to work out exactly how the conditions applied). But the above dual system would enable GPL programs to be published on h2g2, as long as programmers don't publish their life's work without realising what that might mean.

And remember that nobody can reproduce h2g2 content without permission, so putting GPL code on h2g2 would not clash with the GPL distribution anyway... and if it's always done in a 'Not for Review' Guide Entry, then it can also be removed from h2g2 by the author, should they wish.

Thanks for that.

I think that is probably one of the best answers that you have ever given.

You did miss another disadvantage: nobody reading the h2g2 version will be aware that it is also available under the GPL, unless a link is given to the off-site, GPL'd version, in which case you might as well simply link to the off-site version.

I prefer my method, unsurprisingly

> "nobody can reproduce h2g2 content without permission"

But permission is implicitly given to all h2g2 researchers to reproduce and produce derivative works on h2g2 anyway.

"You did miss another disadvantage: nobody reading the h2g2 version will be aware that it is also available under the GPL, unless a link is given to the off-site, GPL'd version, in which case you might as well simply link to the off-site version."

True, but including a link to code is quite different from including code itself, especially when you're discussing code fragments. It's up to the individual, of course, but I'd presume that most people would quote bits from programs they'd written, while also saying that the complete, working code is available from their site and giving a link. That's what I'd do, anyway, but as always, it's up to the person who created the program in the first place.

"But permission is implicitly given to all h2g2 researchers to reproduce and produce derivative works on h2g2 anyway."

You're right, but this doesn't clash with the GPL version at all, as the GPL version cannot be published on h2g2 with the licence, and nobody except the BBC can publish the h2g2 version outside of h2g2 (and as I said, I can't envisage the BBC editing the program anyway - it's not like it's text). So this isn't a problem, I don't think.

It isn't a problem unless someone wanted to post a code fragment written by someone else and GPLed.

True, but that seems inevitable...