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 Post subject: what is the license of the text at www.osdev.org/wiki ?
PostPosted: Mon Apr 23, 2007 7:15 am 
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Hi people,

I am playing with my little OS. There are some parts I would like to copy & paste your text to my document (the parts that are relevant to my code).

http://altair.dcs.elf.stuba.sk:60001/up ... ackh2o.pdf

At present I am dealing with the Timer device driver (Section 4.1, page 76). In addition to the actual code I would like to accompany it with all the information necessary for understanding it.I would like to use some parts of this page:

http://www.osdev.org/wiki/Programmable_Interval_Timer

What license governs that text?

Also, I think there are some mistakes. I assume that the BIOS sets at boot-time the counter 0 to 65535, not to 65536 because counter is only 16 bit wide. Unless I am wrong.

Regards, Matej Košík


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PostPosted: Mon Apr 23, 2007 1:27 pm 
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What are you copying and pasting?
Why are you wanting to copy and paste?

Some things are not protected such as the actual information.

I would actually have a problem with someone copying pasting the someone else's expression of a idea for the purpose of themselves producing a document. If this is the case why can you just not write it in you're own words? Since there is no way to verify you're intentions of doing so. You might want to make a lot of money and I think who wrote it is entitled to compensation of such things.

At the same time we have some zealotish public domain hippies running around here that most likely never produced anything worth being copied to begin with so I suppose they will be the real people to ask, and I am not mentioning any names associated with this "we force you to publish things our way here or no way" movement. Which makes me think they are quite oblivious to the fact that people write documents that include these things to make money which might be the case since you're PDF contains no license which means it is automatically copyrighted with all rights reserved. And I think the entire movement is just a poor fix for content management.

How about you come up with you're own example code? At the least do not just copy and paste something. I am sure there are about one hundred different ways to implement something, or am I wrong?

So now that I have stirred up the water and made it all murky and unclear I hope this presents a difficult and tedious passage for those wishing to exploit things in a unfair manner. Where the posts after this one can clean it up how they like. :D

I will be laughing when a turd the size of a house tries to cram through that little metal blade fan.

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Last edited by Kevin McGuire on Mon Apr 23, 2007 1:54 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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PostPosted: Mon Apr 23, 2007 1:45 pm 
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read: http://www.osdev.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=13270

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Apr 23, 2007 5:53 pm 
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Hi Kevin,

Kevin McGuire wrote:
What are you copying and pasting?
Why are you wanting to copy and paste?

This is philosophical question. I like literate programming
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Literate-Progra ... 255&sr=8-1

I try to follow these ideas in my little projects. See for example:
http://altair.dcs.elf.stuba.sk:60001/uploads/lfm.pdf

It might perhaps seem weird at the first sight. It is far tougher to write programs this way, but I have better confidence that whenever I will need, I will be able to figure out how my programs (I have written some time ago) work. This is sort of complete memory dump.

These are my (perhaps silly) ideals.

Concerning operating systems, it is only natural, to weave information about hardware details into the document/program. I have started to look around for decent descriptions of devices I started to play with. Your site provides good content. I was interested to the license of that content.

I very well understand that there are tons of licenses and people tend to disaggree on them (license wars). The fact that your wiki has does not state the license explicitely has unpleasant implications and I wanted to be sure about that.

Kevin McGuire wrote:
I would actually have a problem with someone copying pasting the someone else's expression of a idea for the purpose of themselves producing a document. If this is the case why can you just not write it in you're own words? Since there is no way to verify you're intentions of doing so. You might want to make a lot of money and I think who wrote it is entitled to compensation of such things.

The war over operating system market is over. I am skeptical if it is still possible to make money by coming up with a new operating system and start selling it.

What I do is an experiment with in-kernel language-based capabilities. It is not commercial. I would like to show how it is possible to implement robust monolithic kernel.

In particular, even though the Timer driver is running happily in the kernel-space, it is given exactly the authority to
- register an observer of IRQ 0
- write to the 0x40 I/O port
- write to the 0x43 I/O port
Nothing else. It cannot scribble over hardrive. It cannot scribble over the kernel data segment arbitrarily.

Kevin McGuire wrote:
At the same time we have some zealotish public domain hippies running around here that most likely never produced anything worth being copied to begin with so I suppose they will be the real people to ask, and I am not mentioning any names associated with this "we force you to publish things our way here or no way" movement. Which makes me think they are quite oblivious to the fact that people write documents that include these things to make money which might be the case since you're PDF contains no license which means it is automatically copyrighted with all rights reserved. And I think the entire movement is just a poor fix for content management.

My PDF contains a copyright notice immediatelly after the table of content (page 3). It should be correct except for the text about PIT.

Kevin McGuire wrote:
How about you come up with you're own example code? At the least do not just copy and paste something. I am sure there are about one hundred different ways to implement something, or am I wrong?

I do not have problems with coming up with my version of the actual source code. My Timer driver is written in a completely different programming language (not C, not assembly) so that was not very hard.

I am mostly interested in the text. Rephrasing the data-sheets just to be sure that I have a copyright on it seems to me as a waste of time and it is quite boring. That is why I looked around for good content and tried to use it.

To do that legaly, I have to know the license.

If that were not possible, I would at least try to do it in a moral way. That is, by explicitely citing all the information sources I used.


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PostPosted: Mon Apr 23, 2007 7:19 pm 
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Quote:
This is philosophical question. I like literate programming
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Literate-Progra ... 255&sr=8-1

No its not some sort of silly mind game. Its called: what are you going to copy and why. Which you answer further down.

Quote:
It might perhaps seem weird at the first sight. It is far tougher to write programs this way, but I have better confidence that whenever I will need, I will be able to figure out how my programs (I have written some time ago) work. This is sort of complete memory dump.

These are my (perhaps silly) ideals.

Concerning operating systems, it is only natural, to weave information about hardware details into the document/program. I have started to look around for decent descriptions of devices I started to play with. Your site provides good content. I was interested to the license of that content.

I do not care.. Why would I care if I were to stay on topic?

Quote:
I very well understand that there are tons of licenses and people tend to disaggree on them (license wars). The fact that your wiki has does not state the license explicitely has unpleasant implications and I wanted to be sure about that.

I am sure we about to find out why it has unpleasent implications.

Quote:
The war over operating system market is over. I am skeptical if it is still possible to make money by coming up with a new operating system and start selling it.

I do not remember saying anything about operating systems.

I would actually have a problem with someone copying pasting the someone else's expression of a idea for the purpose of themselves producing a document. If this is the case why can you just not write it in you're own words? Since there is no way to verify you're intentions of doing so. You might want to make a lot of money and I think who wrote it is entitled to compensation of such things.

I mean a expression of a idea in writing. The actual document text, and unlikely the example code I am sure which I can be certain of so I must say (below) for a general fit anywhere case:

Point A
How about you come up with you're own example code? At the least do not just copy and paste something. I am sure there are about one hundred different ways to implement something, or am I wrong?

Or, when using some common sense and some experience working on this level. The code in that document appears to be so general as I could never think that it could be copyrighted or even brought up as a copyright infringement. Simply changing a few register names should be a absolutely effective way.

You answered my question by talking about:

kosik wrote:
It might perhaps seem weird at the first sight. It is far tougher to write programs this way, but I have better confidence that whenever I will need, I will be able to figure out how my programs (I have written some time ago) work. This is sort of complete memory dump.

This means you are not copying code. So some common sense would say no problem here. I would hope you can come to this conclusion.

Quote:
I am mostly interested in the text. Rephrasing the data-sheets just to be sure that I have a copyright on it seems to me as a waste of time and it is quite boring. That is why I looked around for good content and tried to use it.

I appreciate the honesty, but you actually make no sense after the first sentence. However since you implied that you find looking through the data-sheets for a copyright notice a waste of time I assume you would like to copy the actual information about the device. Of course I notice in you're document you already have the actual information. So I assume what you want to do is copy the actual content.

Point B
This of course is not a good idea. Someone took time to write that. Actually some people have edited it and change the look almost completely over time it appeared by looking back through the change logs on the wiki. You have some distinct parts to that wiki page:

code blocks - See Point A
text blocks - See Point B
tables of information - See Point C

Point C
It is already known that information can not be copyrighted. Instead the expression of the information can be copyrighted. You have the information by comprehending the expression of it therefore it should be feasible to come up with you're own expression of this information with out resorting to copy and paste tactics just to save time because you feel lazy about doing it. By reading the document you just comprehended it. This means you now have the information in you're head and you may expression this how you like. Copying a already existing expression of this information is not good.

There should be numerous options instead of copy and pasting a expression of a idea or information. You can copy the information but not how it is expression in it's entirety. This is called copying someone elses work and calling you own. If you go into this world you are own you own and for no good reason did you enter it but just to be lazy about it in the first place.

So the problem would not be:
- Copying the information.
- Copying the source code when you are going to translate it into some abstract language that will bear no resemblance.

The problem would be:
- Copying the expression of this information and accompanying source code in whole, and of course the source code in whole part can have some exceptions which are mentioned in Point A (above).

Quote:
To do that legaly, I have to know the license.
If that were not possible, I would at least try to do it in a moral way. That is, by explicitely citing all the information sources I used.


You are confusing me here. Do you want to copy the information or the expression of this information. How about you give a example of what it would look like when you copy it from the wiki then we could figure out if it is ok to do that or not?

And to try once more to help you understand:
- The problem is copying the expression of information.
- The problem is not copying the information.
- The problem has nothing to do with a operating system or kernel.

And: I hold no control over the Wiki. I do not host it nor do I host this site or have any personal or business affiliation with anyone who does. You really must talk to someone else like Combuster who made a post right after I did (above).

If this is too complicated for you to understand then you need to ask someone to clarify it for you further or educate you're self. Ignorance is no step aside or excuse for a mistake when you screw up instead it is simple a reason. The world is complicated and it is not going to get any easy any time soon. If you just can not comprehend what I am talking about them keep thinking about it until you do.

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PostPosted: Tue Apr 24, 2007 12:45 pm 
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Wow this got a little intense for a simple question of whether the text can be copied. Given that most of the editors agreed the text was completely open for use by anyone i am sure this is fine. Check the link given a few posts above to get to the thread where we discuss the exact details.


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PostPosted: Tue Apr 24, 2007 2:24 pm 
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I think, however, that a lot of the code cannot really be copyrighted. For example, the code about moving the cursor in pmode. The real code is near 5 lines of out operations, and those are probably from some manual somewhere. Any OS needing to move the cursor will probably have those several lines somewhere in their kernel. It's common knowledge.

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PostPosted: Tue Apr 24, 2007 5:21 pm 
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http://www.osdev.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.p ... lic,domain
SpooK wrote:
Brynet-Inc wrote:
Bryant? :? That's not my name SpooK.


Sorry, I know someone named "Bryant", who likes BSD and I couldn't see past the first 3 letters of your name at that point :P

Tyler wrote:
Alboin wrote:
Tyler wrote:
The GPL, and BSD also stop someone like Microsoft from taking the code, selling it and not telling anyone where they got it and not having to release the source code.

Isn't there BSD code in the Windows networking system?


Yes, and they don't deny it and they follow the rules of the license... that is my point, they haven't just taken code from the public domain and given no credit.


"Giving credit" didn't change the fact that MS used the code and was able to cooperate in a agreeable standard. That was due to the fact that the code was good and free... free as in beer. Without MS and ISP's like AOL, do you really think TCP/IP would have *really* taken-off as it did?

Once again... ego... credit... drawing any lines of conclusion???

As for public domain, well, not all countries/territories recognize it so you do need some sort of declaration as to what conditions the code can be released in. BSD comes close to this.


@Tyler:

So what are you? The proponet of the "assumption" of public domain in this thread context - OR - a proponet of GPL and BSD style license?
Or is the discussion about the expression of a idea or information in a textual spoken language such as a article different in you're view from source code?

Let me make a little bit clearer what I am talking about:
- Programmer
- Writer

Some people do both. Yet they are too different fields, and both require different skills although they may share skills from each field.

I am arguing over the "writer" field more than the "programmer" field. Yet both have a significant similarity in that someone will take and no give credit. Which I use the thought of right and wrong.

I feel different personally about the expression of a idea or information in a textual spoken language such as a article -- different from that of source code in the case (above) where Alboin has already noted above is so trival and basic that it should not be copyrighted. However to remain correct I just use the wording of, "If it is so simple just write you're own and do not worry about using the copy and paste keys."

And koisk has already made it clear he is not wanting to copy the source but instead the content or I assume the expression of a idea or information which rubs me the wrong way when he should be able to write something like that in his own words (or his own expression) instead.

Which this can be futher backed up by from a post (above) by quoting this extraction.:
kevin mcguire wrote:
...<snip>..
I mean a expression of a idea in writing. The actual document text, and unlikely the example code I am sure which I can be certain of so I must say (below) for a general fit anywhere case:

Point A
How about you come up with you're own example code? At the least do not just copy and paste something. I am sure there are about one hundred different ways to implement something, or am I wrong?

Or, when using some common sense and some experience working on this level. The code in that document appears to be so general as I could never think that it could be copyrighted or even brought up as a copyright infringement. Simply changing a few register names should be a absolutely effective way.
...<snip>..

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PostPosted: Tue Apr 24, 2007 5:23 pm 
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SpooK wrote:
Once again... ego... credit... drawing any lines of conclusion???


And. I will answer this shallow minded individual's question for you.

Yes. It is drawing a line of conclusion for me which is one that you are incapable of understanding the deep implications that run right to the root of civilization.

http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:NUn ... cd=2&gl=us
Jonathan Lethem wrote:
And, yet, I make my living by helping authors get published and therefore buying heavily into this system of the ownership of ideas, or rather the ownership of the expression of those ideas. How can I say what I say above, and also find Jonthan Lethem's article so compelling? Isn't there an inherent conflict there? I guess I agree with good ol' Thomas Jefferson. Copyright is a necessary evil. Because we need to provide an incentive for the creators to create and not just toil at the 9-5 jobs and never have the time or the energy. Gone are the days when a noble or well-to-do merchant would sponsor an artist and keep them from not-quite-starving in their garrett as they communed with their muse (and then take credit for the creation in their cultural salon or gentlemen's club). Now we must rely on the public to do the same and on corporations to provide the avenue for the public to do so.

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PostPosted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 3:59 pm 
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What... the... ****... i don't know why you think my post had any text in the realm of discussion but i was not voicing any sort of opinion. I really couldn't give two shits what your views on whether he should be able to copy the content of the wiki... the fact of the matter is that he can if he really wants to and we are not going to fight it.


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PostPosted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 4:02 pm 
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hehe :D

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PostPosted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 4:07 pm 
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lol :P

When you think about it... the code isnt exactly gonna get him anywhere and its his loss when he doesnt become an operating system design genius like we all obviously are!


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PostPosted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 12:51 pm 
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So I've been doing some research into this. I can't find that the Mega-Tokyo versions of the FAQ (version 1 or the phpwiki version 2) had a license ever publicly mentioned. Without a stated license the default usually is that all rights are reserved by the author. However the phpwiki version of the FAQ allowed anonymous editing and my understanding is that anonymous contributions reserve no rights by default. Additionally the Mega-Tokyo version of the FAQ was knowingly mirrored and distributed in various formats (http://www.osdev.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=11179) with no objections so apparently not all rights where reserved. Some of the content of the new version of the wiki have explicitly allowed copying (http://www.osdev.org/wiki/Talk:Projects).

I'm going to make a good faith assumption the all contributions to the wikis have been made with the intent that they are "free" in the sense of free speech (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html). The exact amount of freedom needs to clarified through a license. So I will add licensing information to clarify the intent which has always been in place. If you are an author that does not agree with the license that is placed on the wiki please send a take down or request for removal notice so your content can be deleted from the wiki.

I propose two licenses:

* For code (both complete files and inline code blocks) I suggest that the Public Domain be used.

* For all other text and orginal artwork I suggest the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license.

If you have contributed to the wikis in the past please let me know if you have any strong objections to these licenses and what they are. Please only raise objections if you have actually contributed to the wiki.

If you are aware of any content that has been copy & pasted from other sources with different licenses please point it out.


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PostPosted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 3:58 pm 
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///edit///
oops. I just noticed you made a proposal and did not state that alternatives would be considered. I misunderstood when I read it the first time.

I also want to say, "Thanks", for someone finally responding about the difference in the text (poor word usage) and the source code. It is what I have been trying to say for a long time, and maybe only one person, solar, ever responded by stating in clear English anything about the text instead they always reply about the source code which I have never cared about. So if anything at least that makes two people, and I am glad someone actually took the time to help find a alternative which does seem a step better than the public domain idea -- for the text not source code.
/////////

What about this one for the text:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/

Which basically gives someone a license almost exactly like the public domain, except for the attribution and non-commercial parts. Since most people here are going to be using the text to learn the license would have absolutely no effect on them unless they actually wanted to copy the text and use it for a commercial purpose.

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PostPosted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 7:32 pm 
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Kevin McGuire wrote:
What about this one for the text:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/

Which basically gives someone a license almost exactly like the public domain, except for the attribution and non-commercial parts. Since most people here are going to be using the text to learn the license would have absolutely no effect on them unless they actually wanted to copy the text and use it for a commercial purpose.

Well both are Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike, the only difference is the NonCommercial clause. The reason I suggested the one that allows commerical use is because if the wiki ever gets into a more book like state I'd like to sell bound copies to help support the site using something like http://www.lulu.com/. I wouldn't really be worried about other people printing it and profiting because I'd always host it in electronic format for free. Since I'm not asking people to transfer ownership to osdev.org then if we don't allow commercial use now then we'd never be allowed to sell printed copies in the future.


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