[sword-devel] CrossWire mirroring

[Chris Little]

On 1/4/2013 10:12 PM, Andrew Thule wrote:
> Peter, please temper your judgement with mercy.  Your claims here are
> neither correct nor fair.

So, Andrew, the fundamental problem here is that you seem to believe you 
are never wrong and that any disagreement is always the result of the 
other party being wrong. You believe you interpret the world correctly 
and that every other perspective is a demonstration of others' mistaken 
perceptions.

My perspective is that you are not a rational actor. You only really 
seem to care about what you want and what you deem important, but you 
aren't particularly concerned about anything beyond the immediate term. 
As a result, your actions are unpredictable and frequently destructive. 
Whatever short-term gain you may achieve is undermined by the fact that 
you can't be trusted not to act at cross-purposes to CrossWire and a 
fair number of us perceive you as completely irrational. As a result, we 
can't realistically work with you.

> On Friday, January 4, 2013, Peter von Kaehne wrote:
>
>     On Fri, 2013-01-04 at 16:49 -0500, Andrew Thule wrote:
>
>     It is clear. Your lack of respect for what is expressed in the conf file
>     re Distribution license is your problem and not a problem of lack of
>     clarity on our side. It is up to you to read and act upon (or rather
>     refrain from acting) instead of us spoon feeding you (or you to demand
>     such spoon feeding.
>
>
> The belief that Crosswire's license to distribute the ISV text was based
> upon what was contained within the isv.conf. It was not unreasonable for
> me to conclude therefore that additional contributions to the module
> would fall under the same terms.  Clearly when Nic asked about updating
> the module, he apparently believed the same as I - specifically
> mentioning the OT.
>
> Perhaps, but lack of clarity on licensing constaint isn't doing this
> project, or its volunteers any good. The actual language of the license
> doesn't need to be modified for the wiki to be expanded.
>
> I've already answered this, yet still, you stand my accuser, providing
> no answer to my defence.  Please don't make it seem like my offer to
> help was a lack of respect, or unreasonable.  That is simply
> a perversion of truth.

To reiterate, the license text in the .conf, which you have admitted to 
reading, states:
Copyrighted; Permission to distribute granted to CrossWire

We've discussed the meaning of this with you before and that you are 
forbidden from distributing such content. You've acknowledged this 
before, yet you irrationally posted the ISV anyway.

How does "Permission to distribute granted to CrossWire" need 
explanation? Along with "Copyrighted", that clearly identifies that you 
may not distribute, but CrossWire may.


>     The licenses we have vary wildly. While we have endeavoured to put
>     standard descriptive sentences on modules, this has not happened
>     universally and many modules have individually written copyright
>     statements. FWIW, this will also make script driven partial mirroring
>     impossible or at least rather difficult.
>
> Well, that's patently false.  As long as the .conf files accurately
> reflect their licenses appropriately, and those licenses
> remain honoured, it is a trivial thing to demonstrate accurate mirror
> synchronization (I can demonstrate this now)

But you DON'T honor licenses in our modules. You ignored the license in 
isv.conf.

> I thought the goal was to digitally propagate the Word of God as much as
> possible while still meeting a moral and legal obligation to safeguard
> copyright? Subtle hints of oligarchy manifesting itself as enthusiastic
> polemics against those offering help makes it seem otherwise; almost as
> though the goal here to stock-pile a pseudo-public repertoire of heavily
> licensed texts in the name of CrossWire.org, alone for the benefit of
> select few.
>
> The dominion of trust, more than technology, is the impediment here.
>   Ultimately, it comes down to the project's true purposes.

One of our goals is to, as you put it, "digitally propagate the Word of 
God as much as possible while still meeting a moral and legal obligation 
to safeguard copyright". Your behavior presents a potential threat to 
that mission, however. You're willing to violate copyrights, which makes 
your presence a threat to CrossWire. You believe you simply know better 
and are willing to do as you please, even if it means you're violating 
our wishes for our materials and copyright holders' wishes for theirs.

We are a community, and we value the assistance of volunteers. However, 
we do not appreciate actions such as yours, which defame CrossWire and 
threaten our ability to work with copyright holders. We want people who 
are willing to work with us, not against us, and sometimes that means 
volunteers don't get to do whatever they want.

Does that mean CrossWire's leadership is going to dictate what 
volunteers must do? No. But it does mean we're going to dictate what 
volunteers must NOT do, if they wish to be part of the community. Your 
reckless, often illegal activities clearly mark you as someone who 
cannot work as part of this community.

--Chris