Re: Erlang forums (was Re: PING TEST)

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 <[email protected]> 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 
>>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>
>>>     > On Dec 15, 2021, at 10:27 AM, Contact | Erlang Forums
>>>     <[email protected]> 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
>>
>>                      [email protected]
>>                          @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

                     [email protected]
                         @llaisdy
                          llaisdy.wordpress.com
               github.com/llaisdy
                      www.linkedin.com/in/ivanuemlianin

                         festina lente
============================================================