[erlang-questions] Erlang documentation cleanup (PREV: R13B01modules, quick reference)

[Michael Turner]

On 8/11/2009, "Ulf Wiger" <ulf.wiger@REDACTED> wrote:

>
>Since you're referring to copyright lawyers here, I
>think we can relate to the media industry, and observe
>that if it's not ok to publish a video of your kid
>playing if the viewer can discern a Prince song in the
>background*, you should regard the documentation as a
>trivial (from a legal standpoint) re-packaging of the
>XML source.

Under that interpretation,
   dig if you will the picture,
I can modify the XML at will,
  of you and I engaged in a kiss,
so that the docs produced are misleading,
  the sweat of your body covers me,
because of some original and rather racy song lyrics I interpolate,
  can you my darling,
and it would still be OK,
  can you picture this?

You do that to the Erlang docs on your site, some Ericsson lawyers will
give those doves something to cry about, I can tell you that much.

Here's a general guiding principle of property law: no harm, no foul. 
(This gets stretched a little in America, where "someone was on my
property and it scared the bejesus outa me, so I blew his head off" is
considered an extenuating circumstance.)

Under this interpretation, if you copy the documentation and improve it
(even if only by making it more searchable and navigable, as you have),
Ericsson, if properly credited, isn't harmed.  Ericsson is actually
helped, in a way, because some people might attribute the enhanced
navigability to Ericsson, if they didn't know any better.  So let's
say some supposed copyright infringement action went all the way to
court.  The judge would probably shrug and say to Ericsson, "Well, you
guys left it ambiguous, with this sloppy EPL you drafted, but now
you're complaining?  After somebody actually did you a *favor* under
those ambiguous terms?  Case dismissed!"

Aren't you relieved?

But let's say your Erlang doc site becomes the most popular link on
Google when people search on "Erlang" and "documentation", but then
you get bored, and you don't hand site maintenance off to anybody, and
the docs go out of date, and people using Erlang according to your dated
documentation get pissed off, because a recent release of Erlang/OTP
doesn't work the way it's described on your site, and they get a
negative impression of Ericsson in the process?  Then it goes from "no
harm (benefit, actually)", to "harm", thus to "foul."

Maybe.  I don't know.  IANAL.  Especially, IANAIPL.  I just bite the
heads off live chickens at carnival sideshows for a living, and write
bad Python code as a hobby.

-michael