1098425 - Un-feature anniversary demos, back out any changes we don't want to be permanent

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(developer.mozilla.org Graveyard :: Demo Studio / Dev Derby, defect)

Description

[Justin Crawford [:hoosteeno] [:jcrawford]]

The demo studio takeover was very successful, but temporary. We will want to un-feature any proprietary demos and back out any changes that we don't want to be permanent. We can start doing this on 11/24 and should plan to have at least the demos un-featured by 11/27.

This bug can probably accommodate both efforts. I will attach an etherpad for specs.

Comment 1

[Justin Crawford [:hoosteeno] [:jcrawford]]

Working on specs here:
https://devengage.etherpad.mozilla.org/10th-anniv-demos-reverse

Comment 2

[Justin Crawford [:hoosteeno] [:jcrawford]]

needinfoing myself: We'll want to send an email to dev-mdc asking for suggestions for featured demos.

Comment 3

[Justin Crawford [:hoosteeno] [:jcrawford]]

:shobson says: If we want to keep any of the skin changes we made, we should probably make them more permanent than they are. 

:shobson, can you add more details about that specific thing to the etherpad linked in comment 1?

:groovecoder, can you review the technical changes suggested in that etherpad and make the call about whether or not we should do them?

Comment 4

[Stephanie Hobson [:shobson]]

Added comments to the ether pad :)

Comment 5

[Luke Crouch [:groovecoder]]

Outside of the skin changes that :shobson described, the changes in the etherpad should only take an hour or so.

Comment 6

[Justin Crawford [:hoosteeno] [:jcrawford]]

A couple questions we'll need to consider:
* are there any external commitments that affect the timeline?
* is there any way to redirect requests for certain demos to another location?

Comment 7

[Justin Crawford [:hoosteeno] [:jcrawford]]

:groovecoder, is it possible to redirect from the demo URLs we are un-featuring?

* https://developer.mozilla.org/admin/demos/submission/1707/
* https://developer.mozilla.org/admin/demos/submission/1709/
* https://developer.mozilla.org/admin/demos/submission/1705/

:mbest said he would host these elsewhere. Could we make the URLs point there permanently?

Comment 8

[Luke Crouch [:groovecoder]]

Indeed. In the admin site there's a "censorship redirect URL" option made specifically for that purpose. We can set it for each demo separately.

Comment 9

[Justin Crawford [:hoosteeno] [:jcrawford]]

I have un-featured and hidden the 4 demos with author's licenses uploaded for the anniversary. We do not currently have a redirect URL for them but if :mbest does find new hosting for them we should use the field mentioned in comment 8 to redirect these:

* https://developer.mozilla.org/admin/demos/submission/1707/
* https://developer.mozilla.org/admin/demos/submission/1709/
* https://developer.mozilla.org/admin/demos/submission/1705/
* https://developer.mozilla.org/admin/demos/submission/1699/

Leaving this bug open because it has some blockers.

Comment 10

[Justin Crawford [:hoosteeno] [:jcrawford]]

In the time it was available, just one user uploaded a demo with the "Author" license:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/demos/detail/smiley

I have emailed them to ask them to change the license or remove the demo. One of those should happen before this bug is closed.

Comment 11

[Justin Crawford [:hoosteeno] [:jcrawford]]

> I have emailed them to ask them to change the license or remove the demo.
> One of those should happen before this bug is closed.

The author changed the license to GPL.

Comment 12

[Geoff Piper]

I think I would like to re-connect on this in a meeting to discuss the ins and outs. I believe last we discussed, we wanted to keep these demos available and we were going to host them on our own server but we agreed we needed the right license terms to do so. 

Under our standard MDN terms, demos like this need to be CC-ed "Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported"(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode) or public domain. While our MDN site is a bit confusing as to our requirements, this is a longer range project and trust me I am working on this and have it on our radar to clean up a bit, I don't think we would want the Licensors to "GPL" a video game demo (not really the best option due to compatibility issues for us and probably our fault for making that an option, and we should probably discuss taking GPL out of the drop down list).

Let's discuss this but I believe the quickest path would be to have Epic and Unity either: (a) change to CC "Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported"; or (b) public domain it; or (c) if they want to own it and keep proprietary control, this is a challenge to Mozilla from several view points (license standards and possibly PR aspects but manageable in this rare case) we sign a one page license that allows us to host and do as we wish with them (which I believe we wanted the right for others to hack on it and test against browsers of all kind).

Who will lead a meeting on this to discus more deeply so we can close this out?

Comment 13

[Justin Crawford [:hoosteeno] [:jcrawford]]

(In reply to Geoff Piper from comment #12)
> I believe last we discussed, we wanted to keep these demos
> available and we were going to host them on our own server but we agreed we
> needed the right license terms to do so. 

Martin Best sent an email to the content owners explaining this plan. I have asked for more information, but have not heard if this is underway. I agree that such a plan should include discussion of licensing questions.

That conversation is not blocking this bug, which relates to removing the author's license option from new Demo Studio uploads (done as of today); and hiding (done as of last week) and eventually removing (underway and soon to be done) any content already uploaded with that license.

> 
> Under our standard MDN terms, demos like this need to be CC-ed
> "Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0
> Unported"(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode) or public
> domain. While our MDN site is a bit confusing as to our requirements, this
> is a longer range project and trust me I am working on this and have it on
> our radar to clean up a bit, I don't think we would want the Licensors to
> "GPL" a video game demo (not really the best option due to compatibility
> issues for us and probably our fault for making that an option, and we
> should probably discuss taking GPL out of the drop down list).

Which licenses we should offer on Demo Studio sounds like a great conversation to have. It can happen independent from this bug; if it is urgent, let's file another bug for it.

> Let's discuss this but I believe the quickest path would be to have Epic and
> Unity either: (a) change to CC "Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported"; or (b)
> public domain it; 

We welcome submissions from any content creator who wants to upload content to the Demo Studio under the conditions built into the platform (which include open licensing, downloadable source, etc.). If these game creators like those conditions, there is no technical reason now for them not to upload their content. They can create accounts and do it! 

As Jishnu pointed out in a separate thread, it may be wisest to ask them to do so rather than doing it on their behalf, due to perils I'm unqualified to enumerate. :)

> (c) if they want to own it and keep proprietary
> control, this is a challenge to Mozilla from several view points (license
> standards and possibly PR aspects but manageable in this rare case) we sign
> a one page license that allows us to host and do as we wish with them (which
> I believe we wanted the right for others to hack on it and test against
> browsers of all kind).

If we have a license to do whatever we wish with this content, and if we wish to host it under an open license and with downloadable source, the Demo Studio is completely optimized for this use. 

> 
> Who will lead a meeting on this to discus more deeply so we can close this
> out?

Geoff, if the above do not close it out, let's talk. Glad to meet anytime.

Meanwhile, I'm reassigning this to myself since I've been working to close the bug.

Comment 14

[Geoff Piper]

I think it does, but I am still a little unclear with exactly which path of the (a), (b) or (c) licensing options above you are saying they will follow. 

In my view, I would prefer (a) or (b) as those are easiest. I believe they can be done via the portal by the developers themselves (I know (b) can not completely sure on (a) but I believe this is easy to do to). Let me know which.

The larger MDN issues we will handle in another Bug stay tuned.

Comment 15

[Justin Crawford [:hoosteeno] [:jcrawford]]

(In reply to Geoff Piper from comment #14)
> I think it does, but I am still a little unclear with exactly which path of
> the (a), (b) or (c) licensing options above you are saying they will follow. 

I think we're pursuing an option you didn't mention:

(d) remove all proprietary demos from Demo Studio and insist that future uploads to Demo Studio be uploaded with one of the open licenses we support

Since Demo Studio is the only Mozilla resource we have right now hosting these proprietary demos, this effectively short-circuits licensing questions until we have a different resource dedicated to hosting such content. I think Martin Best is the only one who knows right now if that is likely to happen and how.

Comment 16

[Geoff Piper]

Ok great that's even better! (My options were designed to solve for if we continued to make them available as we discussed previously). 

If this is the case, there seems to be no more action needed at this time.

Martin please let us know if this is not the case.

As to the MDN and rest for broader institutional discussion., stay tuned. I will be working on this longer range with input from several areas (and yours too!) :)

Comment 17

[Justin Crawford [:hoosteeno] [:jcrawford]]

> * https://developer.mozilla.org/admin/demos/submission/1707/
> * https://developer.mozilla.org/admin/demos/submission/1709/
> * https://developer.mozilla.org/admin/demos/submission/1705/
> * https://developer.mozilla.org/admin/demos/submission/1699/

I have "censored" the above submissions, which effectively removes them from the site. The reason is simply that they're not licensed for distribution on the demo studio. I sure do hope they can find a new home -- they're great!