Recommended Change to Author LIsting in Documentation

[David T.]

I see that John has already removed the email addresses of individuals listed in gnu cash-guide.xml.

Looking at the other two aspects, I see putting a combined note for both 2 & 3 attached to the releaseinfo tag, which currently says: “This Guide contains a tutorial for using GnuCash and describes the concepts behind GnuCash." 

Looking more at what John did and didn’t do, I see that he left the individual copyright statements in the document, but it seems to me that there is a cross up here that could cause problems. Specifically, the copyright is assigned to named individuals and also to the GnuCash Documentation Team, but some of the individual copyright holders are also later identified as members of the GDT, which could lead to questions about who actually holds the copyright. Does Yawar Amin hold copyright, or does the GDT, of which Yawar is a member? 

I don’t know what the proper answer to this question is; perhaps someone else does?

Cheers,
David T.

> On Dec 12, 2016, at 10:48 AM, Chris Good <chris.good at ozemail.com.au> wrote:
> 
>> Message: 2
>> Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2016 23:49:38 +0500
>> From: "David T." <sunfish62 at yahoo.com>
>> To: "David T. via gnucash-devel" <gnucash-devel at gnucash.org>
>> Subject: Recommended Change to Author LIsting in Documentation
>> Message-ID: <648ED8FF-7D36-4D18-8331-90D9E11E03D2 at yahoo.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain;	charset=utf-8
>> 
>> Hi,
>> 
>> In response to seeing yet another new user sending a support request
>> directly to one of the people mentioned in the documentation, I created
> Bug
>> 775919 (https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=775919
>> <https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=775919>) as a proposed
>> change to the way that the docs present the author attributions. In that 
>> bug,
>> I state:
>> 
>> I recommend the following:
>> 
>> 1) Remove all individual names and email addresses from the documentation
>> title page, and replace them with a general attribution to "The GnuCash
>> Documentation Team." Since the current copyright is to this entity, I
> think
>> this is not only convenient, but also more accurate than the current list.
>> 
>> 2) Place a large note on the title page identifying gnucash-users as the 
>> proper
>> location to which to direct help requests. Section 2.4.2 is clearly not
>> prominent enough for new users.
>> 
>> 3) Retain the list of contributors that show on the title page verso. I
> will 
>> note
>> that this list omits email addresses. In addition, add a note there about 
>> who
>> and what the GnuCash Documentation Team is.
>> 
>> I propose: "The GnuCash Documentation Team is a self-designated group of
>> GnuCash users and developers who have volunteered to write this
>> documentation for the benefit of the broader user base. People who are
>> interested in joining this group are encouraged to express their interest
> on
>> the GnuCash lists (gnucash-users and gnucash-devel) for further
> direction.?
>> John Ralls thought that this change should be run past the Devel list, and
> 
>> so
>> here I am, giving it a run. As one of the named contributors, I personally
>> would prefer that my email not be included in the documentation, but I
>> defer to the general interest of the group.
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> David T.
> 
> Hi David,
> 
> Sounds good to me.
> A link to https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists would be good.
> 
> Regards,
> Chris Good
>