Linux Gazette

[Reply-To set to TAG. Not Cc'ing Phil, since he's already seen this.]
 
Quoting Jay R. Ashworth (jra-AT-baylink.com):
 
> Alas, Phil, the concensus is that you *are, in fact* going off in some
> strange new direction, and I concur with those who think so.
 
It's important to realise that, at the time the staff (unanimously)
decided to leave, Phil and his webmaster had pretty much announced it as
a fait accompli that all the core concepts of a magazine (periodic
issues, editors) were to be done away with when the CMS rolled in.
He suddenly about-faced and _rediscovered_ interest in those concepts
only after we published the November (linuxgazette.net) issue.
 
Just because the TAG people and public haven't seen it before, what
follows is the staff's polite and appreciative notice to Phil on Oct. 28
that we were moving the magazine -- as previously discussed with him
numerous times as likely if he followed his plan. The text was kept
confidential at the time, because of the last item mentioned, but here
it is now nine days later, and SSC is still wrongfully asserting
copyright over Yan-Fa Li and LeaAnne Kolp's work. (See:
http://www.linuxgazette.com/node/view/58
http://www.linuxgazette.com/node/view/61 )
 
 
 
 
 From rick Tue Oct 28 12:01:56 2003
 Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 12:01:56 -0800
 To: Phil Hughes <fyl-AT-a42.com>
 Cc: Jeff Tinsler <jet-AT-comwestcr.com>
 Subject: Transition matters
 User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.4i
 
Dear Mr. Hughes:
 
I'm writing on behalf of the Linux Gazette staff and its current
leadership, Mike Orr and Heather Stern, to fill you in on what is going
on with Linux Gazette's magazine production and hosting, and to arrange
for an orderly transition.
 
SSC, Inc. has always been incredibly supportive of LG's activities,
helping out with mirror space four months after John M. Fisk founded our
publication at his ISP in Nashville, and then furnishing our _primary_
hosting for seven years -- from August 1996 until a few days ago.
Moreover, you've actually underwritten some of your staff's time in
helping us (Marjorie Richardson, Amy Kukuk, Mike Orr, Jeff Tinzler, and
others) throughout that time. We are very grateful.
 
Recently, Linux Gazette's staff decided that we needed to move our
hosting to a different site, because, although we are sympathetic to
your aim of operating a dynamic, CMS-driven site open to public posting,
that is not compatible with Linux Gazette's longstanding mission to
publish a periodic set of edited newsletters with editor-picked, fixed
contents. Our new host site will be at http://www.linuxgazette.net/ ,
with the November issue coming out in a few days. We felt you should
know this immediately, in advance of any public announcement.
 
Following are a number of transition items we'd like to call to your
attention:
 
(1) Linux Gazette has been hosted at SSC so long that, inevitably, there
    are some snarls we'll need to untangle: One is the existing LG
    e-mail addresses, which we'd like to somehow transition over. We
    would be glad to furnish an alias table for your sysadmins.
 
(2) Likewise, if you wish for any SSC sites to carry mirror copies of LG
    issues, you'll have to establish a new mirroring run to pull them
    down from our main site or its other mirrors. You are of course
    welcome to use LG content in any way that complies with the Open
    Publication License (issues #9 - present) or the BSD licence (issues
    #1-8). There is actually an existing problem in that area, needing
    SSC's immediate attention, about which more below.
 
(3) We would of course appreciate SSC assisting in letting the public
    know of Linux Gazette's move. The other Linux press outlets will be
    notified, a short time after this e-mail, and SSC's aid in getting
    the word out will help assure a smooth changeover.
 
(4) In the course of populating our mirror network with back issues,
    we've noticed that at least two of the issues carried on SSC's own
    site (and from there picked up by most of its mirrors) now have
    modifications to the magazine text that were not authorised by the
    staff. I refer to issue #95 (Oct. 2003), for which SSC's copy is
    missing a large fraction of the Mailbag article, and issue #92 (July
    2003), which is missing Janine M. Lodato's article "Linux to Save
    the Health of the World". These deletions were done without the
    knowledge or approval of the staff, and impair the integrity of our
    magazine's content. Accordingly, we must ask that you and all
    downstream mirrors reverse those two -- and any other --
    unauthorised changes to magazine text that SSC has enacted without
    consulting the LG staff.
 
    The issue #95 deletion I'm referring to is the same one we inquired
    with you about in e-mail a couple of weeks ago, without receiving
    any reply from you or from Jeff Tinzler. Clearer channels of
    communication might have averted this situation.
 
(5) We wish you the best of luck with the recently deployed CMS-based
    site. It is, however, absolutely not Linux Gazette, which (as
    mentioned) we will keep publishing indefinitely on a non-CMS site.
    Accordingly, we would appreciate your firm coining some other name
    to use for the CMS site, and also assigning the linuxgazette.com
    domain to us at your earliest convenience, to reduce confusion
    between the sites.
 
 
The last item I need to mention is obviously sensitive, and so we are
deliberately bringing it to your attention privately, to avoid public
attention to it. (We assume that the problem referred to was created
entirely inadvertantly.)
 
(6) As we've seen material being added to your CMS-based site in chunks
    taken from prior LG issues, it seems that author attributions are
    being (inadvertantly) stripped from the articles, the author's
    copyright notice removed, and SSC's copyright notice added in the
    latter's place. Staffer Michael "Mick" Conry happened to notice
    this happening with his News Bytes articles, now visible inside the
    CMS at http://www.linuxgazette.com/node/view/92 . Mick's posted
    copyright notice, viewable at
    http://www.tldp.org/LDP/LG/current/lg_bytes.html, was wrongfully
    removed from the CMS rendition. Such treatment of authors'
    articles, in addition to being disrespectful of the authors' rights
    to credit and ownership, constitutes violation of the covering Open
    Publication License, and thus of copyright law.
 
    We would love to be able to tell you that Mick's are the only articles
    to which this happened -- or to give you a complete list of the
    problematic postings -- but we don't (yet) have that information.
    Accordingly, we strongly suggest that you do whatever is required to
    find and correct all instances of credits / copyright notices
    stripped from LG articles throughout your CMS.
 
    We regret having to bring that matter to your attention, but are
    obliged to take this matter seriously, as protectors of our authors'
    interests. We would hope you can send us written assurance within
    two days from this message's datestamp that no such instances exist
    any more on your CMS. Please advise us by that same date if you
    need additional time.
 
    Because of the unfortunate pattern of non-communication with the
    staff concerning SSC's unauthorised deletions from issue #95, and
    the complete lack of consultation with the staff on SSC's deletions
    from issue #92 and possibly others, we have to insist on a specific
    written response on that matter. If we do not receive it, we will
    have to pursue more public options, which we very much prefer to
    avoid.
 
 
Thank you greatly for your patience and forebearance on these difficult
issues, which I expect and hope will be soon behind us. Pending our
straightening out our long-term communications channels, I would suggest
replying to both Mike Orr <mso-AT-oz.net>, and Heather Stern
<star-AT-starshine.org>, as they are leading the staff during this interim
period.
 
Yours Respectfully,
Rick Moen
on behalf of the Linux Gazette staff as a whole