Erlang forums (was Re: PING TEST)
Ivan Uemlianin
ivan@REDACTED
Sat Dec 18 00:30:02 CET 2021
Aston
The site needs to say clearly what legal entity owns and runs it.
The content of the ToS is not interesting to me.
Diolch
Ivan
On 17/12/2021 01:40, Contact | Erlang Forums wrote:
>> The problem with the Erlang Forum ToS is not at all the content,
>> which is standard. The problem is that they claim the terms are
>> legally binding, and yet there is no indication who or what is the
>> legal entity behind Erlang Forums.
>>
>> The domain name is registered anonymously in Iceland.
>>
>> Is Ericsson the legal entity that owns erlangforums.com
>> <http://erlangforums.com>? If not, who is?
>>
>
> Ivan, you might have missed it but it was mentioned in the original
> announcements (as well as in Kenneth's recent post) that he/the
> Erlang/OTP team approached Aston of the Elixir Forum (me) to set up
> and run this forum (which of course I do in close cooperation with the
> Erlang team).
>
> Terms are generally binding from the moment you start using a site and
> ours merely reflect the implicit permissions you grant the forum and
> our users when you register on the site, submit a contribution to it,
> and continue submitting contributions to it - because you are making
> the conscious decision to do so freely and willingly. They aren't
> strictly necessary because there’s nothing in them that isn’t
> reflected by user behaviour or what would be reasonable or expected on
> such a platform and that is what would usually form the basis of any
> legal examination or interpretation, however, on sites like this they
> can be useful for the avoidance of doubt. You don't need the name and
> address of a site operator to be bound by its terms so long as those
> terms don't require you to do anything where you would traditionally
> need a properly signed contract containing those details (such as when
> transferring copyright/ownership of intellectual property - which of
> course is not something we ask) or where the site is operated by an
> entity such as a large LTD/PLC where there may be a legal requirement
> for those details to be disclosed (which again, is not the case here).
>
>> The domain name is registered anonymously in Iceland.
>
> This is just the standard Whois protect service which many domain
> registrars offer free of charge (to help prevent spam etc)
>
> Ultimately, you have to decide for yourself whether you are happy with
> the terms, how the forum is set up, managed etc. Obviously the Erlang
> team and those already taking part are, but you have to make that
> decision for yourself. Personally I hope you'll give us a try...
> particularly as a fellow Welshy :p
>
>
>> On 16 Dec 2021, at 23:16, Ivan Uemlianin <ivan@REDACTED> wrote:
>>
>> The problem with the Erlang Forum ToS is not at all the content,
>> which is standard. The problem is that they claim the terms are
>> legally binding, and yet there is no indication who or what is the
>> legal entity behind Erlang Forums.
>>
>> The domain name is registered anonymously in Iceland.
>>
>> Is Ericsson the legal entity that owns erlangforums.com
>> <http://erlangforums.com>? If not, who is?
>>
>> Ivan
>>
>>
>> On 16/12/2021 16:27, Fred Hebert wrote:
>>>
>>> On Wed, Dec 15, 2021 at 12:53 PM Scott Ribe
>>> <scott_ribe@REDACTED> wrote:
>>>
>>> > On Dec 15, 2021, at 10:27 AM, Contact | Erlang Forums
>>> <contact@REDACTED> wrote:
>>> >
>>> > This is not the case. Code use is based on context and intent.
>>> So if somebody posts a code snippet in a thread where someone is
>>> asking a question about how to do something, they are, by
>>> contributing to the thread, implicitly stating that that person
>>> (or anyone reading the thread in future) may use that code in
>>> the context of the thread that they posted their snippet in
>>> (otherwise they wouldn't have contributed to it).
>>>
>>> While I imagine this is the INTENT, the ToS restrictions go well
>>> beyond:
>>>
>>> "You may not adapt, alter or create a derivative work from any
>>> erlangforums.com <http://erlangforums.com/> content except for
>>> your own personal, non-commercial use."
>>>
>>> "You may not copy, reproduce, republish, post, broadcast,
>>> download, transmit, make available to the public, or otherwise
>>> use erlangforums.com <http://erlangforums.com/> content in any
>>> way except for your own personal, non-commercial use."
>>>
>>> Restrictions on republishing, posting, broadcasting are
>>> understandable. But we may not download nor "otherwise use"?
>>> Really???
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Unfortunately, most of these clauses are generally correct even in
>>> the context of a mailing list. Copyright applies implicitly without
>>> needs to declare it at all, and the clauses of "not creating
>>> derivative use except for personal use" are active for any code you
>>> find online, get sent by email, and so on, unless noted otherwise by
>>> a license. If someone shows you code in a thread where asking for
>>> help but that code is not licensed, there is actually no legal
>>> permission to use any of that code in any sort of commercial systems
>>> nor for redistribution.
>>>
>>> Code and even quoting people requires explicit legal permission to
>>> be reusable in most jurisdictions, and any use you have made of such
>>> contributions could have been considered by the original author to
>>> have been intended for education purposes, and reusing them may be a
>>> legal liability (which your lawyer -- which I am not -- should
>>> inform you about). I have written books where even quoting someone
>>> from a public mailing list was a big no-no without written
>>> permission, and if I wanted to cite Joe Armstrong after his death,
>>> I'd have had to ask for written permission from his estate in order
>>> to publish. Contexts in terms of academic reviews or literary
>>> criticism tends to offer more freedom, but none of this is guaranteed.
>>>
>>> Particularly, bits like:
>>>
>>> Where you are invited to submit any contribution to erlangforums.com
>>> <http://erlangforums.com/> (including any photographs, text,
>>> graphics, audio or video) you agree, by submitting your
>>> contribution, to grant Erlang Forums a perpetual, non-exclusive,
>>> royalty-free, sub-licenseable right and license to use, modify,
>>> reproduce, publish, translate, distribute, make available to the
>>> public. By submitting your contribution to erlangforums.com
>>> <http://erlangforums.com/>, you: ...
>>>
>>> tend to lean on "non-exclusive, royalty-free, sub-licenseable right
>>> and license" as legal jargon to say "you allow the erlang forum to
>>> republish your stuff" (because otherwise they can't display it to
>>> other users whether logged or not). The fact that a license is
>>> non-exclusive means that you are free to keep another license for
>>> other uses, but implies that you also had a license in the first
>>> place where it was legitimate to share that code and grant that
>>> right. Eg. you can't share code your employer owns and isn't open
>>> source and legally grand rights to it.
>>>
>>> These are standard and would usually have been required or implied
>>> by the erlang-questions mailing list archive. That Ericsson didn't
>>> explicitly set them up is up to their lawyers; but there were, for
>>> example, a google groups mirror of the list, which are posted under
>>> the following general terms: https://policies.google.com/terms ,
>>> specifically the section "Permission to use content" which similarly
>>> contains a "non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free" license to
>>> anything that gets posted there.
>>>
>>> As such, if you look into the way the groups are mirrored for the
>>> mailing list, anything posted there may already more or less abide
>>> by similar-sounding licensing terms and there isn't much that's new
>>> under the sun. In fact, the erlangforums terms may even be narrower
>>> than Google's terms, which also include permissions to data-mine and
>>> translate whatever is posted to their systems.
>>>
>>> Also let me add a mandatory "I am not a lawyer, this is not legal
>>> advice" disclaimer here; I am speaking of my experience having had
>>> to deal with copyright before in various functions as an author and
>>> someone having had to deal with lawyers in corporate settings around
>>> open source, but have no such qualifications myself.
>>
>> --
>> ============================================================
>> Ivan A. Uemlianin PhD
>> Llaisdy
>>
>> Ymchwil a Datblygu Technoleg Lleferydd
>> Speech Technology Research and Development
>>
>> ivan@REDACTED
>> @llaisdy
>> llaisdy.wordpress.com <http://llaisdy.wordpress.com>
>> github.com/llaisdy <http://github.com/llaisdy>
>> www.linkedin.com/in/ivanuemlianin
>>
>> festina lente
>> ============================================================
>
--
============================================================
Ivan A. Uemlianin PhD
Llaisdy
Ymchwil a Datblygu Technoleg Lleferydd
Speech Technology Research and Development
ivan@REDACTED
@llaisdy
llaisdy.wordpress.com
github.com/llaisdy
www.linkedin.com/in/ivanuemlianin
festina lente
============================================================
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