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[FAQ] Repository on GitHub, license, review cycle

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  [FAQ] Repository on GitHub, license, review cycle Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2015-12-13 18:02 +0100
    Re: [FAQ] Repository on GitHub, license, review cycle "danca (Daniele Campagna)" <cyberdanny@tiscalinet.it> - 2015-12-13 21:04 +0100
      Re: [FAQ] Repository on GitHub, license, review cycle Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2015-12-15 09:46 +0100
    Re: [FAQ] Repository on GitHub, license, review cycle Joao Rodrigues <groups_jr-1@yahoo.com.br> - 2015-12-14 15:22 -0200
      Re: [FAQ] Repository on GitHub, license, review cycle John Harris <niam@jghnorth.org.uk.invalid> - 2015-12-20 11:49 +0000
    Re: [FAQ] Repository on GitHub, license, review cycle Asen Bozhilov <asen.bozhilov@gmail.com> - 2015-12-16 22:35 +0200
      Re: [FAQ] Repository on GitHub, license, review cycle Cezary Tomczyk <cezary.tomczyk@gmail.com> - 2015-12-17 00:05 +0100
      Re: [FAQ] Repository on GitHub, license, review cycle Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2015-12-17 00:41 +0100
    [FAQ] Updates (was: [FAQ] Repository on GitHub, license, review cycle) Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2016-02-09 01:30 +0100

#29011 — [FAQ] Repository on GitHub, license, review cycle

Hello all,

some of you might have noticed already that, as I indicated recently [0],
this weekend I have migrated the code repository for the “FAQ for 
comp.lang.javascript” (“the FAQ”) from SVN to Git, and published it on 
GitHub:

  <https://github.com/PointedEars/faq-cljs>

It is my intention (as explained in the README there), in addition to 
considering FAQ contributions via the already known channels [1], to review 
Pull Requests for the “dev” branch of that repository (as it is customary, 
“master” is the name of the stable branch on which the live version is 
based).  I will continue to post here a summary of the suggestions for the 
FAQ that I have and receive from you via those channels, and other *direct* 
channels (like social media), for public discussion.

The FAQ will continue to be hosted at my Web site under

  <http://PointedEars.de/faq> 

and it will only be modified there via Git (pull).  (This distinguishes my 
approach from a similar one by others from a few years ago where a FAQ would 
have been publicly edited via Markdown on GitHub, and not necessarily after 
consultation of the subscribers of the newsgroup.  AIUI, that approach was 
frowned upon, and the proposal was eventually unsuccessful, also for that 
reason. [2])

The links in the FAQ to the changelog and the repository browser have been 
updated accordingly.


To make contributions even easier, I intend to publish the FAQ content under 
the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International 
(CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) License.  AIUI, this change would only codify the existing 
informal agreement, and it had some support [3].

Why that license?

  - Although it contains code examples, the FAQ content is more like a book
    than a piece of software; so a software license is not the appropriate
    type of license for it.  Creative Commons fill that gap by providing
    free *content* licenses.

  - It allows contributions to the FAQ content, and contributors have to be
    named.

    Historically, it was not clear who contributed what to the
    “comp.lang.javascript FAQ” which has resulted in the aforementioned
    agreement.  The list of contributors that can already be found at the
    bottom of the main document of the FAQ, in addition to mentions in the
    FAQ Notes, and the commit history, provide that information.

  - Nobody can use the FAQ content for commercial purposes, i.e. primarily
    to make money from it.

    Knowledge that has been provided for free in free time should remain
    free; not only “free” as in “free speech”, but also as in “free beer”.
    IMHO this is different with software, where modified versions can
    add significantly to the value of the original software, and there
    should be a way for the developers making the modifications to be
    compensated for their efforts.

  - Anyone can fork the FAQ, but only redistribute the content under the
    same terms.

    The FAQ is a community effort and its general availability should not
    depend on the availability of one individual and their technical
    infrastructure.  Historically, before I launched the “FAQ for 
    comp.lang.javascript” in 2012-12 CE, that was one reason why the 
    original “comp.lang.javascript FAQ” was frequently offline for longer
    periods of time, and it is the reason why it had not and has not been
    updated for more than two years (since 2010-10-08).

    Finally, nobody can limit or take away the freedoms, or lift the
    non-commercial restriction, through redistribution, that are granted
    by the license (copyleft).

See <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/> for details.


From now on, I am going to consider your comments *here* on FAQ postings 
(including this one) for the duration of 7 standard days after each FAQ 
posting.  If there are no substantial objections or counter-proposals within 
that time, the proposed changes will be implemented afterwards.

It is my sincere hope that with the changes proposed here the number of 
substantial contributions can be increased, and we can have an up-to-date 
FAQ more quickly.


\\//, Live long and prosper

PointedEars, ed.
________________
[0] <news:3122029.1v30ixl5SL@PointedEars.de> or, e.g.,
    <https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.lang.javascript/DVTDYjqTm5c/X9U2T19e7tUJ>
[1] see <news:2715826.m0UDekTA75@PointedEars.de> or, e.g.,
    <https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.lang.javascript/yvxh6sd5deU/OVlYGsRKIIYJ>
[2] <news:+idJTVMLvgzQFwH3@invalid.uk.co.demon.merlyn.invalid> or e.g.,
    <https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.lang.javascript/yvxh6sd5deU/LYOVtEEMlIgJ>
    pp.
[3] <news:af10987b-7993-44a3-ac51-1f3edac4ceb5@u13g2000vbc.googlegroups.com>
    or, e.g., 
    <https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.lang.javascript/yvxh6sd5deU/XujmE1qk2ekJ>
-- 
FAQ: <http://PointedEars.de/faq> | SVN: <http://PointedEars.de/wsvn/>
Twitter: @PointedEars2 | ES Matrix: <http://PointedEars.de/es-matrix>

Please do not cc me. / Bitte keine Kopien per E-Mail.

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#29012

Il 12/13/2015 06:02 PM, Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn ha scritto:
> Hello all,
>
> some of you might have noticed already that, as I indicated recently [0],
> this weekend I have migrated the code repository for the “FAQ for
> comp.lang.javascript” (“the FAQ”) from SVN to Git, and published it on
> GitHub:
>
>    <https://github.com/PointedEars/faq-cljs>
>
...

Thank you for your valuable work and continuous effort.

Dan

-- 
"Everybody should pay taxes with a smile"
I tried, but they want money.

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#29017

danca (Daniele Campagna) wrote:

> Il 12/13/2015 06:02 PM, Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn ha scritto:
>> some of you might have noticed already that, as I indicated recently [0],
>> this weekend I have migrated the code repository for the “FAQ for
>> comp.lang.javascript” (“the FAQ”) from SVN to Git, and published it on
>> GitHub:
>>
>>    <https://github.com/PointedEars/faq-cljs>
>>
> ...
> 
> Thank you for your valuable work and continuous effort.

@all: You are welcome.

But apparently the rest of the message was easily overlooked.

@all: What do you think about the content license and the review cycle?

-- 
PointedEars, ed.
FAQ: <http://PointedEars.de/faq> | SVN: <http://PointedEars.de/wsvn/>
Twitter: @PointedEars2 | ES Matrix: <http://PointedEars.de/es-matrix>
Please do not cc me. / Bitte keine Kopien per E-Mail.

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#29016

Em 13/12/2015 15:02, Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn escreveu:
> Hello all,
>
> some of you might have noticed already that, as I indicated recently [0],
> this weekend I have migrated the code repository for the “FAQ for
> comp.lang.javascript” (“the FAQ”) from SVN to Git, and published it on
> GitHub:
>
>    <https://github.com/PointedEars/faq-cljs>
>

Great news! Thanks for taking the initiative in moving the c.l.js FAQ to 
Github. Despite some occasional bickerings, I acknowledge your hard 
work, commitment and efforts.


-- 
Joao Rodrigues

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#29028

On Mon, 14 Dec 2015 15:22:24 -0200, Joao Rodrigues
<groups_jr-1@yahoo.com.br> wrote:

>Em 13/12/2015 15:02, Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn escreveu:
>> Hello all,
>>
>> some of you might have noticed already that, as I indicated recently [0],
>> this weekend I have migrated the code repository for the “FAQ for
>> comp.lang.javascript” (“the FAQ”) from SVN to Git, and published it on
>> GitHub:
>>
>>    <https://github.com/PointedEars/faq-cljs>
>>
>
>Great news! Thanks for taking the initiative in moving the c.l.js FAQ to 
>Github. Despite some occasional bickerings, I acknowledge your hard 
>work, commitment and efforts.

The FAQ Editor can't run a kill file otherwise something about the FAQ
might be missed. This noble sacrifice by the Editor should also be
acknowledged.

  John

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#29019

Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn wrote:
 > Hello all,
 >
 > some of you might have noticed already that, as I indicated recently [0],
 > this weekend I have migrated the code repository for the “FAQ for
 > comp.lang.javascript” (“the FAQ”) from SVN to Git, and published it on
 > GitHub:
 >
 >    <https://github.com/PointedEars/faq-cljs>

Great news! I have waited for years someone starts maintaining the FAQ. 
Hope with the community efforts FAQ to be improved and keep in good 
shape as it is.

If I remember correct, the maintaining of FAQ was dropped in the time 
when ES5 was released. Today there is ES2015 a.k.a. ES6 is officially 
approved and I think there would be many new frequently asked questions. 
By today, the most common question is "How can I use ES6 in ES5 
environment?". Babel transpiler fills that gap, and if you browse npm 
packages you can notice how many packages are written in ES6.

 > It is my intention (as explained in the README there), in addition to
 > considering FAQ contributions via the already known channels [1], to 
review
 > Pull Requests for the “dev” branch of that repository (as it is 
customary,
 > “master” is the name of the stable branch on which the live version is
 > based).  I will continue to post here a summary of the suggestions 
for the
 > FAQ that I have and receive from you via those channels, and other 
*direct*
 > channels (like social media), for public discussion.

The contributions process seems pretty straightforward, but I think 
before PR, it should be open for discussion either via a github issue or 
thread here. My predictions, since FAQ is available in github the common 
approach would be using github's bug tracking system. This would lead to 
fragmented discussion, so you have to consider how to prevent it.

 > ... via Markdown ...

As we have discussed in twitter, as long FAQ is in github Markdown 
format would be pretty convenience and straightforward for github users, 
but of course every new entry and changes should be added after 
discussion here or in github, could be discussed in both places.

 > To make contributions even easier, I intend to publish the FAQ 
content under
 > the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 
International
 > (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) License.  AIUI, this change would only codify the 
existing
 > informal agreement, and it had some support [3].
 >
 > Why that license?
 >
 >    - Although it contains code examples, the FAQ content is more like 
a book
 >      than a piece of software; so a software license is not the 
appropriate
 >      type of license for it.  Creative Commons fill that gap by providing
 >      free *content* licenses.

You are correct, but there are many examples of softwares which include 
their own FAQ and the FAQ is not separately licensed under other license 
than the main project.
I think some entries of c.l.js FAQ could be included in some open source 
projects licensed under MIT, BSD and LGPL. Those licensed are pretty 
relaxed and the code can be used for commercial purposes, so if they use 
c.l.js FAQ entries, they have to distribute their FAQ or doc separately 
under (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).

Please reply with your thoughts about the above statement.

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#29021

On 12/16/2015 o 9:35 PM, Asen Bozhilov wrote:
[...]

> By today, the most common question is "How can I use ES6 in ES5
> environment?". Babel transpiler fills that gap, and if you browse npm
> packages you can notice how many packages are written in ES6.

Would be also good to present some advantages and disadvantages of using 
ES6 transpilers. The biggest problem which I had with transpiler to ES6 
(I have used by the way using EmberJS) was debugging.

[...]

-- 
Cezary Tomczyk
http://www.ctomczyk.pl/

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#29022

Asen Bozhilov wrote:

> Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn wrote:
> > some of you might have noticed already that, as I indicated recently
> > [0], this weekend I have migrated the code repository for the “FAQ for
> > comp.lang.javascript” (“the FAQ”) from SVN to Git, and published it on
> > GitHub:
> >
> >    <https://github.com/PointedEars/faq-cljs>
> 
> Great news! I have waited for years someone starts maintaining the FAQ.

Well, if you follow the references, you can see I *am* maintaining *that* 
FAQ since almost exactly *three years ago* (2012); there have been a few 
off-VCS contributions by others, too.  I have just migrated the code 
repository now so that it is *easier* for people to contribute (I do not 
have to create an account for every contributor, or an anonymous account 
which cannot be easily tracked to an individual contributor, unlike in a 
centralized VCS such as SVN), and for me as I am gradually switching 
everything to Git (which, in case you are interested, is easy to do with 
using git-svn during the transition [1]).

> If I remember correct, the maintaining of FAQ was dropped in the time
> when ES5 was released. 

The maintainance of the “comp.lang.javascript FAQ” was abandoned in  
2010-10; ES 5 was published in 2009-12 (5.1 in 2011-06).  Hence the “FAQ for  
comp.lang.javascript” since 2012-12.

> Today there is ES2015 a.k.a. ES6 is officially approved and I think there
> would be many new frequently asked questions.  By today, the most common
> question is "How can I use ES6 in ES5 environment?". Babel transpiler
> fills that gap, and if you browse npm packages you can notice how many
> packages are written in ES6.

I see.  But AFAIK, that question has never been asked *here*.  For the “FAQ 
for comp.lang.javascript”, the focus must naturally be questions that are 
*asked* *frequently* *in comp.lang.javascript*.  Writing a general 
JavaScript/ECMAScript FAQ would be another project.  I think this precisely 
why we have the FAQ and the FAQ Notes separately.

And therein lies the problem: There are not many people using Usenet these 
days, certainly there are at least fewer people *posting* (one cannot know 
how many there are just reading unless one does a survey).  Without postings 
there are cannot be new questions.

Regardless, I think that the questions-and-answer pairs already collected 
deserve a clean-up.

> > It is my intention (as explained in the README there), in addition to
> > considering FAQ contributions via the already known channels [1], to
> > review Pull Requests for the “dev” branch of that repository (as it is
> > customary, “master” is the name of the stable branch on which the live
> > version is based).  I will continue to post here a summary of the
> > suggestions for the FAQ that I have and receive from you via those
> > channels, and other *direct* channels (like social media), for public
> > discussion.
> 
> The contributions process seems pretty straightforward, but I think
> before PR, it should be open for discussion either via a github issue or
> thread here.

That does not make sense.  How can I know which contributions via Git(Hub) 
there are before someone makes a pull request?

That, same as it already is, pull requests would not be the only way to 
contribute, and that incoming pull requests would in most cases not be 
*merged* before public discussion took place, is precisely what I indicated 
above.

> My predictions, since FAQ is available in github the common
> approach would be using github's bug tracking system. This would lead to
> fragmented discussion, so you have to consider how to prevent it.

ACK.
 
>  > ... via Markdown ...
> 
> As we have discussed in twitter, as long FAQ is in github Markdown
> format would be pretty convenience and straightforward for github users,
> but of course every new entry and changes should be added after
> discussion here or in github, could be discussed in both places.

I am using Markdown in my job on a daily basis.  It is easy to edit indeed, 
but it is rather hard to maintain when documents grow larger.  It is not a 
viable approach to have a FAQ as large as this to consist of only one 
Markdown document (one of the next iterations would see the current FAQ be 
available as separate HTML documents as well, generated dynamically via 
PHP), and when you start referring from one Markdown document to another, 
things quickly become unconvenient.  We (at the company) have also tried 
GitHub pages where the navigation for several documents would be generated, 
and found it to be such a PITA that we had to abandon the approach.

By contrast, the XML/XSLT that the FAQ currently is based on is harder to 
edit (and it can certainly be streamlined), but it has the singular 
advantage that it is very easy to add new content in separate documents, 
reorganize sections, have the Table of Contents updated automatically, and 
present the *same* content in different formats (for example, it would not 
be too hard to implement the posting of a FAQ section as plain text) just by 
applying a different set of transformations.
 
> > To make contributions even easier, I intend to publish the FAQ
> > content under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
> > 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) License.  AIUI, this change would
> > only codify the existing informal agreement, and it had some support
> > [3].
> >
> > Why that license?
> >
> >    - Although it contains code examples, the FAQ content is more like
> >      a book than a piece of software; so a software license is not the
> >      appropriate type of license for it.  Creative Commons fill that gap
> >      by providing free *content* licenses.
> 
> You are correct, but there are many examples of softwares which include
> their own FAQ and the FAQ is not separately licensed under other license
> than the main project.
> I think some entries of c.l.js FAQ could be included in some open source
> projects licensed under MIT, BSD and LGPL. Those licensed are pretty
> relaxed and the code can be used for commercial purposes, so if they use
> c.l.js FAQ entries, they have to distribute their FAQ or doc separately
> under (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
> 
> Please reply with your thoughts about the above statement.

AISB, one must differentiate between source code and other content.  It is 
not reasonable to distribute the FAQ under a software license such as the 
MIT (Expat) or (Modified) BSD license or the (L)GPL¹ because it is not 
software.

Maybe it is possible to distribute the parts that are source code under a 
free software license, but at the moment I do not see the unique creative 
value in those snippets that would warrant that.  Which ones can you point 
out that would not already be found elsewhere on the Web?  The main value 
that the FAQ brings to users is to have all the (hopefully) good answers in 
one place.

__________
¹  <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html>

[1] <https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/migrating-overview/>
-- 
PointedEars
FAQ: <http://PointedEars.de/faq> | SVN: <http://PointedEars.de/wsvn/>
Twitter: @PointedEars2 | ES Matrix: <http://PointedEars.de/es-matrix>
Please do not cc me. / Bitte keine Kopien per E-Mail.

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#29583 — [FAQ] Updates (was: [FAQ] Repository on GitHub, license, review cycle)

Updates of the “FAQ for comp.lang.javascript”
==============================================

Suggestions since last update
(2015-12-13 UTC+1, <news:1578386.5B2p4gcX6K@PointedEars.de>)
-------------------------------------------------------------

- With “FAQ” Subject tag: none
- With “<FAQENTRY>” body markup: none

- Pull requests for <https://github.com/PointedEars/faq-cljs>

#4 Pointed out that suggestions can be made as PR
   Enhancement by Christoph M. Becker (cmb69) on 2016-01-14

<https://github.com/cmb69/faq-cljs/commit/2c57346e3d54a8daf4d7306330ce54efa474052e>

sections/suggestions.xml
 @@ -25,6 +25,11 @@ To make a suggestion to this FAQ, use either the FAQENTRY method
  above, or send e-mail to Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn
  &lt;&#99;l&#106;s&#64;P&#111;i&#110;&#116;&#101;&#100;Ea&#114;&#115;&#46;&#100;&#101;&gt;
  (editor).
 +Alternatively, you can <a
 +href="https://help.github.com/articles/creating-a-pull-request/">create a pull
 +request</a> for the <a
 +href="https://github.com/PointedEars/faq-cljs/tree/dev">dev branch</a> of the
 +Github repository.
  All comments, suggestions, and especially corrections are welcome, and will be credited, where it is due, below.
      </P>
     </CONTENT>

- Via e-mail, instant messaging, and social media: none
- Editor’s suggestions: none

Next steps (planned)
---------------------

- Merge pull request #4 (2016-02-16 UTC+1)
- Evaluate GNU Free Documentation License
  <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-1.3.en.html>
- Editor’s suggestions


The “FAQ for comp.lang.javascript” is an ongoing community effort intended
to replace the “comp.lang.javascript FAQ” that has gone unmaintained since
2010–10–08.  You can find further information on how to participate in the
FAQ process in:

- <news:1578386.5B2p4gcX6K@PointedEars.de>
- <http://PointedEars.de/scripts/faq/cljs/#makeSuggestion>
- <https://github.com/PointedEars/faq-cljs/blob/master/README.md>

-- 
PointedEars, ed.
FAQ: <http://PointedEars.de/faq> | SVN: <http://PointedEars.de/wsvn/>
Twitter: @PointedEars2 | ES Matrix: <http://PointedEars.de/es-matrix>
Please do not cc me. / Bitte keine Kopien per E-Mail.

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