[ILUG] ILUG AGM Announcement

[Niall Walsh]

Colm MacCarthaigh wrote:

>On Fri, Oct 15, 2004 at 04:29:38AM +0000, Niall Walsh wrote:
>  
>
>>1.    Copyright.
>>Discuss the issue of "copyright" as it applies to documents on the site 
>>(could/should we not use a Creative Commons or similar license?)
>>    
>>
>
>This is not a suitable topic for the AGM, at least as you have it here.
>  
>
Why?   Yes, I've read the rest of your comments, understand and agree 
with them (except that it is a waste of time) but I do not understand 
why this removes the issue from discussion at the AGM.

>The manner of copyright assignment is a decision for the copyright 
>assigners - the individual people who wrote it. "ILUG" per se does not
>own any copyrights on the documents, this is made clear at:
>
>	http://www.linux.ie/legal/copyright.php
>
>So, if you want CC licenses for content on the site, it's individual
>authors you have to speak to - not the membership on the whole. There
>certainly is no way a motion at the AGM could impose any license on the
>content. At most, you could maybe propose that ILUG recommend a
>particular license to authors, or refuse articles not using a particular
>license. Both of these options are, in my opinion, a waste of time. 
>
>  
>
A motion at AGM could impose any license on future content.

Let's take a simple example, I have rewritten some documents for the 
BLG, I did not have the option to edit the existing documents (and 
neither does anyone else other then the original author).   If content 
was placed in a wiki (as has been discusssed) then what happens then to 
the author's copyright?   What is your objection to a dictat that future 
ILUG content be entered into a Commons?   Why are the options you 
describe a waste of time?

>>2.    Authors
>>Contacting all authors of material on the site to establish whether they 
>>still wish to be regarded as the primary author/maintainer of documents 
>>they are credited with and encouraging them to update them (if required) 
>>if they do
>>    
>>
>
>All authors who may actively want to update are probably subscribed to
>this list.
>  
>
It's the ones who don't want to be involved anymore, or have gone 
missing, that are an issue.   Their documents are therefore dead and at 
some point need to be removed or dealt with by some means.

>The rest of your proposals, whilst not off-topic seem like action points
>you could get on with in the absense of an AGM rather than motions
>directly influencing the operation and objectives of ILUG.
>  
>
An AGM does not serve only to produce motions, it is also a forum to 
discuss things.   It is a method of discovering opinions of interested 
members, more productive then firing a mail to a list which will 
generally either be ignored or start a flame war with no resolution.

>A motion that may be worth considering:
>
>	1.	That the membership endorse that the ILUG mailing list 
>	        be made subscriber-only.
>
>	I would hope that this motion would dramatically fail, but
>	that this would at least serve as backup for Colm when the
>	bi-annual thread on this list raises its ugly head. It'd be
>	useful to finally put the issue to rest.
>
>  
>
Well why not propose the reverse if that's what you want?

1.    That the membership endorse that the ILUG mailing list must remain 
open to non-subscriber posting?

Niall Walsh