The Python Papers Edition One

[Fuzzyman]

Re: The Python Papers Edition One


Maurice LING wrote:
[snip..]

As Steven mentioned -- anything you can read is copyrighted. The
difference is whether is the copyright effective or enforceable. What do
I mean by this? Without copyright, there will not be plagarism. Ask
yourself this question, can you copy William Shakespeare's MacBeth and
submit it as a literary work for a Master of Literary Arts degree? I
believe the candidate will be expelled from university. William
Shakespeare's MacBeth is still copyrighted work but not "enforceabl e"
because it is pre-1900's work and the author had been dead for more than
50 years. Similarly, works in public domain are still copyrighted --
academically, using work in public domain without attribution (giving
credits in the form of citations) is still plagarism.
>

This is very, very incorrect. :-)

You're mixing your own moral ethics with an incorrect understanding of
what copyright means...

Fuzzyman
http://www.voidspace.org.uk/index2.shtml

[Carl Banks]

Re: The Python Papers Edition One


Paul Rubin wrote:

"tleeuwenburg@g mail.com" <tleeuwenburg@g mail.comwrites:

Your email indicates a possible concern that we are doing something
untoward -- this was not at all intended, nor is it true.

>
Although you might not have intended it, I feel it is still true. You
are misappropriatin g terminology ("free as in freedom") from the free
software movement that means a work is licensed in a way that meets
some specific criteria, that the license you're using does not meet.

"Free as in freedom" is not terminology; it's a way to differentiate
one of two different senses of the word "free". "Specific criteria" is
some people's idea of what freedom is, but they're not the last word on
it.


Carl Banks

[Paul Boddie]

Re: The Python Papers Edition One

Jerry Hill wrote:

MontyLingua is GPL software and thus has its own licensing issues for
commercial software.

MontyLingua might appear to be GPL-licensed, but then the author puts
some kind of non-commercial clause on top, either thinking that's what
the GPL is all about (out of confusion, perhaps), or believing that he
can limit the rights of the those who license his code. The effect is
that the code is not actually GPL-licensed at all, given the stated
conditions on distribution. See here for more discussion:

http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/08/msg00622.html

Paul

P.S. This obsession in academia for non-commercial licences is quite a
destructive force: everyone "protects" their own work yet steers clear
of other people's work, redoing what they need themselves, mostly
because they've got an eye on "monetizing " that work later on.
Consequently, the cult of the almighty dollar gets more out of it than
scientific progress does.

[Noah Slater]

Re: The Python Papers Edition One


On Nov 22, 12:41 am, "tleeuwenb...@g mail.com" <tleeuwenb...@g mail.com>
wrote:

Thanks for the comments. PDF is, to some extent, a requirement. To
preserve the entire journal as a single "entity" with a reasonably high
production quality, there seems to be no way around it. I could not
find a sufficiently simple way to do multi-format publishing with an
attractive layout and good typesetting.

Which is more important to the Python comunity...

Good typesetting or good, searchable, copyable, usable information?

[Fredrik Lundh]

Re: The Python Papers Edition One

Noah Slater wrote:

Which is more important to the Python comunity...

the community definitely don't need more random usenet posters who's
only contribution is to complain whenever someone tries to do some-
thing. this thread is an embarrassment for the Python community; you
should all be ashamed of yourself.

</F>

[Steven D'Aprano]

Re: The Python Papers Edition One

On Sat, 25 Nov 2006 08:13:58 -0800, Noah Slater wrote:

>
On Nov 22, 12:41 am, "tleeuwenb...@g mail.com" <tleeuwenb...@g mail.com>
wrote:

>Thanks for the comments. PDF is, to some extent, a requirement. To
>preserve the entire journal as a single "entity" with a reasonably high
>production quality, there seems to be no way around it. I could not
>find a sufficiently simple way to do multi-format publishing with an
>attractive layout and good typesetting.

>
Which is more important to the Python comunity...
>
Good typesetting or good, searchable, copyable, usable information?

Such a sweeping generalization, as if "the Python community" only wanted
one thing.

In any case:

(1) Whether the Python Papers is "good" depends on what content it
includes, not the file format it is published in.

(2) Google can index PDF files. If the Python Papers aren't reachable by
Google's spiders, well, I consider that the Kiss of Death for them.

(3) Code in the Python Papers are certainly legally copyable, and if your
PDF viewer doesn't let you copy text from PDFs, use another PDF viewer:

[quote from page 4 of the Python Papers]
def process(self):
'''
Processes the payment into the financial system
'''
self._recordPay ment()
self._despatchO rder()
self._sendConfi rmation()
self._concludeP ayment()
def _recordPayment( ):
'''
Make a permanent record of the payment in the database
'''
pass

Works fine for me, although I would question the choice of TWO spaces for
indents.

(4) The Python Papers are certainly legally usable, for non-commercial
use. For commercial use, you have at least two legal options:

- treat the work the same as you would any piece of code with an
unacceptable licence, and develop your own NON-derivative version. It's
only copyrighted, not patented: you are still allowed to write your own
independent version. Merely having read a work doesn't necessarily
contaminate whatever you write next.

- contact the author of the work and ask for a commercial licence. You may
have to pay a licence fee, or perhaps not.

Instead of bitching and moaning about it, how about you submit your own
work to the Python Papers under a dual licence? It can be both CC
Non-commercial, and GPL (or whatever licence you like).

I assume the purpose of the Non-commercial licence is to prevent somebody
taking up the Python Papers in full and charging for it. (Personally, I
think that is a very low risk -- who cares if somebody tries to charge
for it? They can't compete with the gratis version being given away for
nothing.) Dual licences for the contributed articles will still protect
the over-all integrity of the magazine from being sold for profit, while
still allowing coders to duplicate useful code and use it in whatever they
choose.

That way, the Python Papers themselves continue to be free as in beer, and
individual articles can, according to their authors wishes, be *at least*
gratis and possibly free as in speech as well.



--
Steven.

[Łukasz Langa]

Re: The Python Papers Edition One

Fredrik Lundh:

Tennessee Leeuwenburg wrote:
>
>

>If anyone has any good ideas for how to cope as a publisher with these
>difficulties , I'm all ears.
>>

>
has any of the format zealots posting to this thread actually
volunteered to produce any material for your publication? if not, I
suggest ignoring them. any bozo with a keyboard can contribute stop
energy to a project, but at the end, it's always the people *doing*
things that matters.
>
</F>

+1

The Python Papers look very, very promising! I'm looking forward to
reading next editions. Don't let whiners slow you down. PDF is a good
choice, I personally like to print out longer things I read. IANAL, so I
won't speak for or against CC licenses. They're used widely nowadays for
a variety of applications (music, art, software, publications) so it
seems they're doing their job.

Keep up the good work!

Best regards,
Łukasz Langa

[Noah Slater]

Re: The Python Papers Edition One

I do not think this thread is an embarrassment to the community. I
think it speaks volumes about people's commitment to free software.

While we can applaud such contributions it is no excuse to waiver on
one's ethics and principles.

Regardless of content, or even format, if the Python Papers are not
free as per the FSF's definition they are encumbered.

I am hoping that the author/publishers will reconsider the choice of
licencing.

As an aside, I keep seeing people refer to the CC licences as if they
were all comparable with each other.

This is incorrect. Each licence is very different and saying something
is licenced with a CC licence says absolutely nothing.

http://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/entry-20050920.html

http://www.linuxp2p.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=10771

[Ben Finney]

Re: The Python Papers Edition One

"Noah Slater" <nslater@gmail. comwrites:

I do not think this thread is an embarrassment to the community. I
think it speaks volumes about people's commitment to free software.
>
While we can applaud such contributions it is no excuse to waiver on
one's ethics and principles.

Yes, this was also my motivation for discussing it here.

Regardless of content, or even format, if the Python Papers are not
free as per the FSF's definition they are encumbered.
>
I am hoping that the author/publishers will reconsider the choice of
licencing.

I also hope that a free license can be chosen. In the meantime though,
I'm very happy that (as announced in a new thread) the existing
license terms are no longer being falsely described as free.

--
\ "If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, let |
`\ 'em go, because, man, they're gone." -- Jack Handey |
_o__) |
Ben Finney

[Alan J. Salmoni]

Re: The Python Papers Edition One

I heartily agree. pdf format has never been much of a problem for me.
Now that you have an ISSN, has it been submitted to Google Scholar or
other academic indexes?

http://scholar.google.com/intl/en/scholar/about.html for Google Scholar
http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/submitDocument.html for Citeseer

These are two I can think of but there must be more. Any suggestions?

I think that this is great work guys - I'll see if I can take some time
to submit some of the code I developed a few years ago.

All the best!

Alan

Łukasz Langa wrote:

Fredrik Lundh:

Tennessee Leeuwenburg wrote:

If anyone has any good ideas for how to cope as a publisher with these
difficulties, I'm all ears.
>

has any of the format zealots posting to this thread actually
volunteered to produce any material for your publication? if not, I
suggest ignoring them. any bozo with a keyboard can contribute stop
energy to a project, but at the end, it's always the people *doing*
things that matters.

</F>

>
+1
>
The Python Papers look very, very promising! I'm looking forward to
reading next editions. Don't let whiners slow you down. PDF is a good
choice, I personally like to print out longer things I read. IANAL, so I
won't speak for or against CC licenses. They're used widely nowadays for
a variety of applications (music, art, software, publications) so it
seems they're doing their job.

Keep up the good work!

Best regards,
Łukasz Langa

[tleeuwenburg@gmail.com]

Re: The Python Papers Edition One


Alan J. Salmoni wrote:

I heartily agree. pdf format has never been much of a problem for me.
Now that you have an ISSN, has it been submitted to Google Scholar or
other academic indexes?
>
http://scholar.google.com/intl/en/scholar/about.html for Google Scholar
http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/submitDocument.html for Citeseer
>
These are two I can think of but there must be more. Any suggestions?
>
I think that this is great work guys - I'll see if I can take some time
to submit some of the code I developed a few years ago.
>
All the best!
>
Alan

We haven't hit Google Scholar yet, but we are publishing to other
online archives.

I'm in the middle of finding a semi-permanent location with a good URL
for keeping archives, and once that is done, we can get them indexed in
Google Search and Google Scholar.

Unfortunately, the domain name is currently a redirect which prevents
the indexing from working properly. We need a better home, but we are
working on it. We should have this by the next edition.

Thanks for the props.

Cheers,
-T
(Editor-In-Chief)