Perl or Python?

[localzuk]

I'm sorry the xkcd licensing page is only a description of what the Author would like to happen. It has no legal force. The creative commons licence I quoted for the UK is the legal licence and it specifically states that the AUTHOR must be attributed that is all. Fair use trumps the licence conditions anyway. Even if the licence said do not copy this picture at all I could still use it here for the purposes of criticism/review/parody/reporting etc.

 

The wikihow page deals with the US Licence and is not relevant.

 

Of course if you want to be nice put a link.

 

As a copyright holder, the owners wishes trump sub-conditions of licenses. ie. if the owner posts 'i'm following the CCbyNC license, but instead of mentioning my name, link to my site' then he has effectively created a new license. There is no difference between a guy listing their own conditions of use, and them using a predefined license. Both are legal. If their wishes are ignored, they have two courses of action - 1. sue for breaching the terms of the license (which, I suppose could be extended to be called copyright infringement), or 2. contact the police and try to get them to initiate a criminal copyright case. Whether they used the CCbyNC or modified it to make it more relevant, that is irrelevant.

 

Also, you have a slight misunderstanding of fair use. Fair use is *very* restrictive. You can use it for parody, reporting etc... but we are not doing either here - they're simply posted as adornments, bits of art. Precisely their original intention, and as such they are very much NOT covered by fair use.

[somabc]

I would argue that the Licence is not a modified CCbyNC nor is it dual licenced. The words This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License are clear enough.

 

Can I change the terms of a CC license or waive some of its conditions?

You can change any of our licenses, but if you do so you should know that your modified license is not likely to be compatible with CC’s licenses. Also, if you change our licenses then you cannot say that your work is licensed under a CC license.

 

from http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Frequently_Asked_Questions

 

The Licence has to be enforceable and requiring a URL would not be enforceable here, which is why CCbyNC has no mention of it, unlike the USA version which is

 

USA

 

Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

 

UK

Attribution — You must give the original author credit.

 

The licence must be enforceable in that jurisdiction to have any bearing. For example I could use the hat licence (you must ensure all viewers of the work wear a hat) but that will never be enforced here.

Edited August 18, 2010 by somabc

[localzuk]

I would argue that the Licence is not a modified CCbyNC nor is it dual licenced. The words This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License are clear enough.

 

The Licence has to be enforceable and requiring a URL would not be enforceable here, which is why CCbyNC has no mention of it, unlike the USA version which is

 

The licence must be enforceable in that jurisdiction to have any bearing. For example I could use the hat licence (you must ensure all viewers of the work wear a hat) but that will never be enforced here.

 

You misunderstand me. The license ceases to be the CCbyNC as soon as the copyright owner says so. What you are saying is that once the person mentions the CCbyNC license, they're stuck with its exact terms - which is nonsense.

 

As has been said on the xkcd site, the terms of his license are that the image is under CCbyNC - and his version of that is that a link to xkcd.com is the attribution.

 

Really, you do not have the grounds to argue against this, as (I'm assuming) a) you aren't a contract lawyer (you wouldn't be here if you were, you'd be relaxing on a beach with your millions of pounds of income) and b) you are not the copyright holder.

 

So, regardless of your individual interpretation of the license there, or whether you deem the license as written there to be enforceable, his license is the CCbyNC license, with the changes he has made to say linking to his site is attribution.

 

EDIT: Even the CCbyNC license states what I said above! "Waiver — Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder."

 

EDIT 2: The simple page which is linked to is NOT the license by the way - it is simply another simplification of the actual legalese, which clearly states: "You must keep intact all copyright notices for the Work and provide, reasonable to the medium or means You are utilizing: (i) the name of Original Author (or pseudonym, if applicable) if supplied, and/or (ii) if the Original Author and/or Licensor designate another party or parties (e.g. a sponsor institute, publishing entity, journal) for attribution in Licensor's copyright notice".

 

So, as the original author, or pseudonym (which one could argue xkcd is as one argument) has stated that xkcd should be linked to, this could be construed as him making xkcd his publishing entity...

 

So, whichever way you look at it, its pretty conclusive!

Edited August 18, 2010 by localzuk

[somabc]

You misunderstand me. The license ceases to be the CCbyNC as soon as the copyright owner says so. What you are saying is that once the person mentions the CCbyNC license, they're stuck with its exact terms - which is nonsense.

 

No I acknowledged that the author can use any licence they wish but it must have enforceable clauses and if modified it is not CC.

 

As has been said on the xkcd site, the terms of his license are that the image is under CCbyNC - and his version of that is that a link to xkcd.com is the attribution.

 

The misunderstanding on the site is that CCbyNC in the USA unmodified does exactly what he has said in his licence section however he has not taken account of some of the subtle differences outside the USA. This is to be expected as he is in the USA, the work is in the USA, most of the users are in the USA, obviously he is coming at it from a USA centric viewpoint. So in terms of the USA he has a completely watertight and valid CCbyNC. Not a modified CCbyNA.

 

Really, you do not have the grounds to argue against this, as (I'm assuming) a) you aren't a contract lawyer (you wouldn't be here if you were, you'd be relaxing on a beach with your millions of pounds of income) and b) you are not the copyright holder.

 

Look none of us are contract lawyers or the copyright owner I just wanted to clarify the situation between bossman and powdarrmonkey. I did not even really think I was saying anything contentious just that strictly speaking you could argue that you do not need a URL underneath an XKCD comic strip.

 

So, regardless of your individual interpretation of the license there, or whether you deem the license as written there to be enforceable, his license is the CCbyNC license, with the changes he has made to say linking to his site is attribution.

CC themselves say such a licence cannot exist and be called CCbyNC. He would be breaking their copyright by insisting it was valid and incorrectly displaying their logo. It would be like saying the licence is GPL except for the changes I have made where you do not need to include the source code. Well then it's not GPL is it.

Edited August 18, 2010 by somabc

[localzuk]

CC themselves say such a licence cannot exist and be called CCbyNA. He would be breaking their copyright by insisting it was valid and incorrectly displaying their logo. It would be like saying the licence is GPL except for the changes I have made where you do not need to include the source code. Well then it's not GPL is it.

 

Whether or not the guy is breaking CC's copyright is a completely separate issue. The license would still stand, but the use of the term CCbyNA would be up to the CC people to deal with. A court wouldn't even bring that up.

[somabc]

So you are going to go with Python?

 

Have you considered Ruby as well?

[localzuk]

Yeah, going with python. Been reading for the last couple of hours, and it looks pretty easy, compared to, say, c.

 

Looked at ruby in the past. Couldn't really think why I'd want to know it though. PHP/AJAX/ASPX/Silverlight handles most web base needs very nicely. Ruby seemed a little too niche.

[Chillibear]

Looked at ruby in the past. Couldn't really think why I'd want to know it though. PHP/AJAX/ASPX/Silverlight handles most web base needs very nicely. Ruby seemed a little too niche.

 

Being a big fan of Ruby I can't see why it would be niche? I do all my coding in Ruby these days, web apps, console scripts, windows GUI apps, games, whatever... maybe I'm just biased, or perhaps Ruby on Rails has just become too well known for Ruby's own good

[localzuk]

Being a big fan of Ruby I can't see why it would be niche? I do all my coding in Ruby these days, web apps, console scripts, windows GUI apps, games, whatever... maybe I'm just biased, or perhaps Ruby on Rails has just become too well known for Ruby's own good

 

The reason I think 'niche' is that I have yet to see any job advertisements asking for it. I've seen python ads (even google had advertised for python people), perl ads, c# ads, java ads, c++ ads etc... But no Ruby.

[Chillibear]

That makes more sense, sorry I assumed you meant niche in the sense that what could be achieved with it as a language was limited (based on the sentence about web based needs). Granted it isn't as highly in demand a quick search on one job board gives me 88 ruby jobs vs 237 python ones. Edited August 19, 2010 by Chillibear
typo

[somabc]

C++ and .NET still seem to be the most common in job adverts.

[localzuk]

C++ and .NET still seem to be the most common in job adverts.

 

Yup. Already a keen user, so adding more to my list.

[ascott2]

Google advertise for Python developers as YouTube is almost completely in Python and alot of their webserver search stuff is written in Python also.

[somabc]

They wrote their own faster interpretation of Python

 

unladen-swallow - Project Hosting on Google Code

 

The book _why's (poignant) guide to ruby is nearly enough to make me want to learn ruby!

 

why’s (poignant) guide to ruby :: 3. A Quick (and Hopefully Painless) Ride Through Ruby (with Cartoon Foxes)

 

http://mislav.uniqpath.com/poignant-guide/images/dr.cham-4.gif

Edited August 19, 2010 by somabc

[somabc]

http://i.imgur.com/G7WyP.gif

[somabc]

What's better about Ruby than Python? - comp.lang.python | Google Groups

[localzuk]

Really enjoying Python. Making myself a google app engine app, to chuck myself in the deep end.

[scholarpack]

Python is a great language to pick up quickly, without a lot of the hassle of Java / C variants.. good luck..

[mavhc]

Ruby, because Perl is for people who write perl all day, and python has the weird v2 vs v3 thing going on, so you have to learn both.

 

Of course in reality all I write is vbscript

[localzuk]

Ruby, because Perl is for people who write perl all day, and python has the weird v2 vs v3 thing going on, so you have to learn both.

 

Of course in reality all I write is vbscript

 

I've gone with Python v2, as it is the most used variety at the moment, and v3 is basically the same as v2 but with a few changes - not an entirely new language.

 

Maybe once I've got to grips with python, I'll investigate another language.

[framlo]

ok, i admit i'm not in the programming industry any more but are you sure you want to be learning v2? i had to regex my way through all of my scripts to go from v2 to v3 about a year ago. not much fun. if i was pointing anyone in the direction of a starting point, i'd say v3 all the way.

 

however if there are jobs aplenty for v2 and that's your reasoning, fair enough.

[localzuk]

ok, i admit i'm not in the programming industry any more but are you sure you want to be learning v2? i had to regex my way through all of my scripts to go from v2 to v3 about a year ago. not much fun. if i was pointing anyone in the direction of a starting point, i'd say v3 all the way.

 

however if there are jobs aplenty for v2 and that's your reasoning, fair enough.

 

The number of libraries available for v2 compared to v3 is the main reason. v2 is 'stable' and well maintained, with a large install-base. It is also still the language used in Google App Engine, with no short-term plans to switch to anything newer.

 

v3 is still in its infancy, so switching to it is a little pre-mature from all the chatter I've been reading!

[powdarrmonkey]

Python 3 is useless until it's included in major distributions, which it isn't. When that day comes, there is 2to3.py.