[MPlayer-DOCS] CVS: homepage/images arpi-s.jpg, 1.1, NONE arpi.jpg, 1.1 , NONE hq-small.gif, 1.1, NONE hq.gif, 1.1, NONE lgb-640k.jpg, 1.1 , NONE poncso.jpg, 1.1, NONE team.jpg, 1.1, NONE torgyi.jpg, 1.1 , NONE

[Diego Biurrun]

Sorry for this overly long-winded reply.  I came back home late from
work and decided to just get this over with.  Sleepiness has made this
take much longer than it should have and the result is probably less
clear than it should be.  Anyway, here it goes...

Michael Niedermayer writes:
> 
> On Tuesday 02 November 2004 13:57, Diego Biurrun wrote:
> > Arpi writes:
> > > > Arpi, you don't have to like what I do, just as I don't like some of
> > > > the things you do.  But you have to come to terms with the fact that
> > > > you stepped down and are no longer in control of MPlayer.  Some things
> > > > are done differently now and you will have to accept that.  Trying to
> > >
> > > i dont try to control mplayer. i just thought i had some copyright of
> > > some things i (or we, with my friends from old-team) made in the past.
> >
> > What's your point?  Do you feel I (or we, with my friends from the
> > Neu-Team) infringed your copyrights?  How?
> 
> dunno, IANAL, but removal could be considered a modification ...

If you would consider the complete homepage as a work that could be
protected under copyright *as a whole*, then yes, this might have some
merit, but I sincerely doubt there is a way to make it fit that
definition.

Let's have a look at what the homepage consists of and what parts may
be copyrightable by whom.  First off we have design and we have
content.  I think they should be treated separately.

[standard disclaimer: IANAL]

Design:

- design1-6: Done by various people, they are completely unchanged.

- design7: The layout was done by me starting from design6 as a base
  but has been completely changed internally.  It's gone from three
  columns to two, I redid much of the HTML, two instead of five nested
  tables, etc.  The images are from mechanik fiveonetwo with some
  modifications from me.  I mailed him, he wants to keep his name on
  the page as long as we keep using his images, so no problem from
  him.  If there is copyright here (I would say only the images are
  copyrightable) one part is mine, the other used with permission.

Content:

- codecs.html: Written by me and Roberto based on Alex' old codecs
  page (IMO too trivial to be copyrightable).

- dload.html: 90% of its current content written by me, based on
  previous versions (IMO too trivial to be copyrightable).

- donations.html: Redesigned by Alex (no, NOT me!), text mine,
  absolutely trivial.

- info.html: Reworded and rewritten by me, description at the top is
  taken from the (GPL) man page, feature lists are trivial.

- news.html: About two thirds written by me and Alex, the rest by Gabu
  and Arpi.  Again some parts are very trivial (like three line
  announcements that only state simple facts or release changelogs)
  but here are some parts where copyright may apply.

- news-archive.html: Mostly by Gabu and Arpi, a bit from Alex, me and
  Pontscho.  The first entries are not signed, I won't bother looking
  up the CVS logs, it's probably Arpi and Gabu who wrote them.  The
  same as for news.html applies.

- projects.html: Has over 100 entries, two thirds mine, rest Gabu and
  Alex.  Text rewritten by me, but it's all quite trivial anyway.

- screen.html: Text absolutely trivial, 54 screenshots, I added more
  than 30 from various sources.  Are screenshots copyrightable?  I
  doubt it.  All are used with permission, unless Gabu decides to
  revoke that permission from the 10 or so taken on his machine.

- bestofmplayer.html: Quotes from IRC and mailing lists, 95%
  Hungarian.  It's written by Gabu, but who should copyright belong
  to, when it consists of quotes from so many people?  Is a collection
  of quotes as a whole copyrightable?  I doubt it.

- faq2.html: FAQ-style joke collection, maybe copyrightable as a
  whole.  3K of text, not really much anyway.

- fpage.html: No text, some images that are probably copyrightable.
  500 bytes without the 5 images, not really much anyway.


All in all I think the parts that may deserve copyright and should be
preserved as is are unchanged.  Does the homepage constitute a work
that is copyrightable as a whole?  I don't think so.  The homepage of
an active project is in constant flux by its very nature.  You have to
be able to change it.

Then there is the point raised by Arpi that the homepage was never
released under GPL or whatever.  This is true.  Nevertheless the
homepage has served as project homepage for years with the consent of
all authors, this probably allows continuing to use it this way under
customary law.

Copyright just does not work this way.  In order to be able to say
"The homepage may only be used with the fun page, not without." you
need to attach a license to it that says so.  There is obviously no
such thing.

Modifying parts that are more than mere statement of facts and have
clear authorship attached to them is not OK.  News entries fall under
this category as would individual quotes from IRC and mailing lists.

[We've been through this; I made a mistake, recognized the error of my
ways and apologized, so please let's not go back to this.]

However, what we are discussing now is different.  bestofmplayer.html,
faq2.html and fpage.html are not directly related to each other, nor
to the rest of the homepage.  They have been written at different
times by different authors with different intent.  Therefore they
cannot fall under copyright as a whole.  Removing something that is
protected by copyright on its own is not the same as removing part of
something that is protected by copyright and does not violate
copyright.

> > > i cant respect your destroy-all-the-past style, sorry.
> >
> > I'm not destroying the past.  Also, there is no point in singling me
> > out like you constantly do.  I'm not acting alone from out of a void.
> 
> who is supporting these removals except u?

Alex for sure.  I talked with many people about the homepage redesign
etc and I don't remember objections to the removals.  I think I had
some more explicit consent (Attila?), but my memory is rather unclear
about this because I always considered this to be a minor issue since
the pages are very short and not elaborate at all, even unfinished.

> > Let's stop arguing and try to find a compromise that is workable for
> > both sides.
> 
> what about asking/voting before such controversial steps?

I really did not expect this to be so controversial in the first
place.

I remember talking it over with Alex and I think some others as well
while the new homepage design was discussed.  Nobody objected and
there was no reaction on the mailing list (until now).  I am the
homepage maintainer so I would expect my opinion to have some weight
when it comes to deciding about homepage design and content.

There is much ado about nothing going on here.  Let's review again
what it is that we are talking about, many people have never seen
those pages. Therefore I've put up the pages again in my home dir.
Here is what I think of them and why I removed them.

http://mplayerhq.hu/~diego/design7/faq2.html

Partially funny, partially offensive, partially WTF.  I don't like it,
neither does Alex.  Since I decided not to link to it anymore from the
info page I did not see much point in keeping it.

http://mplayerhq.hu/~diego/design7/fpage.html

It's marked TODO and wasn't updated in years.  You could consider it
the beginning of a developer's gallery (I like the idea of a page with
info about some or all developers), but it is completely unfinished
and barren.  IMO the images are lame, childish and extremely ugly.

http://mplayerhq.hu/~diego/design7/bestofmplayer.html

I have no idea what it is about since it's mostly Hungarian, the jokes
are thus lost on me.  It's mostly private stuff and doesn't belong on
the homepage IMO.  Most of the people in there are no longer active,
some for a very long time.

I also want to have a uniform and professional look for all parts of
the homepage (and have it completely translated), but I see no way to
make these pages fit in.  It's either redo from scratch or remove IMO.
Also (but admittedly minor) the HTML of those pages is horrible and
full of errors.

So while I was redesigning and rewriting the homepage I thought what I
should do with these pages.  Since I saw no value for the project in
those pages I just couldn't be bothered to make them fit in with the
rest of the homepage.  And thus I decided one day that I had had
enough of them, that they had had their fifteen minutes in the
spotlight, that nothing is for eternity and that their time had come.

Diego