Closed Bug 235989 Opened 20 years ago Closed 20 years ago

Clean up/make footers (and the top) consistent (copyright, date & lines etc) in help files

Categories

(Documentation Graveyard :: Help Viewer, defect)

Product:
Documentation Graveyard
Component:
Help Viewer
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
trivial

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
VERIFIED FIXED

People

(Reporter: stefanh, Assigned: stefanh)

References

(
URL
)

Details

Attachments

(1 file, 3 obsolete files)

Correct patch
9.39 KB, patch
rjkeller
: review+
Details | Diff | Splinter Review 
I count to 4 different footers in the pages under Help Contents:



1. "For Internet Explorer Users"
---------------------------------------------------------
28 July 2003
---------------------------------------------------------
Copyright © 1998-2003 The Mozilla Organization.



2. "Browsing the Web", "Using Mail" (grey lines - 10 January 2004 and correct
year), "Creating Webpages", "Customizing Mozilla" and "Managing Profiles":
---------------------------------------------------------
dd June 2002
---------------------------------------------------------
Copyright © 1998-2003 The Mozilla Foundation.



3. "Using Privacy Features", "Privacy on the Internet"
---------------------------------------------------------
18 June 2002



4. No date, no copyright or line(s) in "Using Certificates", "Using the Help
Window", "Help and Support Center" and "Mozilla Keyboard Shortcuts".

I suggest that we remove the dates (19 June 2002 etc) and keep it more general.
I suppose The Mozilla Foundation or the Contributors should have the copyright
(1998-2004) - if anyone should have a copyright. 

The top of the help files differs, sometimes the page starts with a black line
(<hr>)- sometimes not. This should also be consistent.
*** Bug 235988 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
We should just remove all copyright lines
we should have a copyright on our help content, Daniel :).
Status: NEW → ASSIGNED
--> stefan

stefan said on IRC that he'd fix this.
Assignee: rlk → stefan_h
Status: ASSIGNED → NEW
I start to have a feeling that the legal stuff needs to be cleared out before
the copyright in the footers are altered.

There seem to be no guidelines on how to deal with the copyright stuff. It looks
like the files should be licensed under MPL. At least for a little bit more than
a year ago
(http://groups.google.se/groups?hl=sv&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=at4rtv%24f6p3%40ripley.netscape.com).
But that doesn't give you any idea of what to write in the footer.

I know that there are some re-licensing stuff going on, but does that cover the
help files as well?
The Help files are actually stolen from Netscape. We have copyright to keyboard
shortcut and web development pages though
> The Help files are actually stolen from Netscape. We have copyright to keyboard
> shortcut and web development pages though

That is half true. We did steal the docs from Netscape, but Gerv told me that we
should have the docs copyrighted to the Mozilla Foundation, not Netscape. I did
clarify this awhile ago with mozilla.org staff.

We also cannot use the MPL because that is for source code, not documentation.
We would need some other license, but not sure which. I prefer to just use the
copyright. I'm sure we have some writes to the documentation since the whole
codebase is licensed under the NPL/MPL.

This is fine:
Copyright (C) 2003-2004 The Mozilla Foundation

I changed the dates just to be 100%, since I never confirmed what the correct
dates should be. I know that all the rest is correct.
Attached patch Patch for xhtml-only files (obsolete) — — Splinter Review 
I've splitted this into two patches... This patch adds the <p>Copyright &copy;
2003-2004 The Mozilla Foundation.</p> to the bottom of the xhtml-only files.
Been trying to be consistent with the new blank lines...

Next patch will deal with the older files.
Comment on attachment 143207 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch for xhtml-only files

Oh, forgot to mention that Since "The Mozilla Foundation" has the copyright and
not "Mozilla" I  changed "Mozilla" to the "Mozilla Foundation" in that odd
disclaimer at the top of some pages. This will be handled in similar way with
the older files.
Attached patch Patch for the rest of the files (obsolete) — — Splinter Review 
This patch takes care of the other files:

1. Added/changed the copyright line and removed the dates.
2. Changed "Mozilla" to "The Mozilla Foundation" in the disclaimer.

In order to make this files more consistent with the new ones (xhtml-only, with
another stylesheet) I also did the following:

3. In pages with a line ("<hr>"),  over the main heading I've removed the line.

4. Removed all <hr> tags at the bottom of the files.

Now, since the the formatting of <hr> tags looks really odd (thick...) compared
to the borders of the <h2> in the new files (styled with HelpFileLayout.css) I
really think something has to be done.

Couldn't we just make some adjustments (in another new bug) to the files and
use HelpFileLayout.css in these files as well?

Or add the same style (as in HelpFileLayout.css) to the <h2> in the old
stylesheet and remove the <hr> tags?
Attachment #143207 - Flags: review?(rlk)
Attachment #143223 - Flags: review?(rlk)
> 1. Added/changed the copyright line and removed the dates.
> 2. Changed "Mozilla" to "The Mozilla Foundation" in the disclaimer.

hmm. changing &brandShortName; to "The Mozilla Foundation" might not be a good
idea because people who are embedding Mozilla source code might not notice that
it says this in the help docs. Meaning, it should say their company name and not
Mozilla and that would be hard to catch if they didn't go through the help docs
individually.

We should have this inforation in a DTD file, and use it in the copyright.

> In order to make this files more consistent with the new ones (xhtml-only, with
> another stylesheet) I also did the following:
> 
> 3. In pages with a line ("<hr>"),  over the main heading I've removed the line.
> 
> 4. Removed all <hr> tags at the bottom of the files.
> 
> Now, since the the formatting of <hr> tags looks really odd (thick...) compared
> to the borders of the <h2> in the new files (styled with HelpFileLayout.css) I
> really think something has to be done.

What we should be having in the docs in this kind of style:

<h1>Mail Help</h1>

In this section:
 Address Book

<h2>Address Book</h2>

<h3>inserting entries</h3>

> Couldn't we just make some adjustments (in another new bug) to the files and
> use HelpFileLayout.css in these files as well?

and do something like that. We shouldn't be having sub-toc's like we do now. We
definetely need cleanup. We should move the HTML docs to use helpFileLayout.css,
so if you have time, feel free to do it.
> hmm. changing &brandShortName; to "The Mozilla Foundation" might not be a good
> idea because people who are embedding Mozilla source code might not notice 
that
> it says this in the help docs. Meaning, it should say their company name and 
not
> Mozilla and that would be hard to catch if they didn't go through the help 
docs
> individually.
> We should have this inforation in a DTD file, and use it in the copyright.

Yes, but having "This document is provided by &brandShortName; for your 
information only." doesn't seem to be o good idea, since "Mozilla" is a browser 
name and not a organisation/company. So, by changing &brandShortName; to "The 
Mozilla Foundation" it looks more accurate and will also be easier to change 
once the information is in the dtd file (just a search and replace).

Just a thought: couldn't there be a (legal)problem with just transfering 
copyrights and disclaimers over to another organisation/company?

 > We definetely need cleanup. We should move the HTML docs to use 
helpFileLayout.css,
> so if you have time, feel free to do it.

OK, I'll file another bug once this bug is fixed.

>  > We definetely need cleanup. We should move the HTML docs to use 
> helpFileLayout.css,
> > so if you have time, feel free to do it.
> OK, I'll file another bug once this bug is fixed.

Or do you want me to fix everything at the same time (in this bug)?

> Yes, but having "This document is provided by &brandShortName; for your 
> information only." doesn't seem to be o good idea, since "Mozilla" is a browser 
> name and not a organisation/company. So, by changing &brandShortName; to "The 
> Mozilla Foundation" it looks more accurate and will also be easier to change 
> once the information is in the dtd file (just a search and replace).

So may you please either create a DTD file or use a current DTD file to add
&companyName; to use as the company in help docs.

> Just a thought: couldn't there be a (legal)problem with just transfering 
> copyrights and disclaimers over to another organisation/company?

No, because the copyright used to be with The Mozilla Organization, which wasn't
a legal entity. The foundation is, so it is OK.

> Or do you want me to fix everything at the same time (in this bug)?

Since the beta freeze is coming soon, we should wait until later for that. Let's
file another bug and fix it during the next alpha cycle (or we might be able to
get it in for the next release, maybe).
> > Just a thought: couldn't there be a (legal)problem with just transfering 
> > copyrights and disclaimers over to another organisation/company?
> 
> No, because the copyright used to be with The Mozilla Organization, which wasn't
> a legal entity. The foundation is, so it is OK.

Hmm, sorry - I think I was a bit unclear. My concern wasn't with transferring
copyrights from The Mozilla Organization. Actually, the more i think of
replacing "The Mozilla Foundation" with "&companyName;" the more I wonder if
it's correct (or if there should be a copyright line at all). But I might be
wrong, though. Anyway, consider the following scenario:

We use "&companyName;" in the copyright line at the bottom and in the
disclaimer. Companies who's embedding Mozilla replaces "The Mozilla Foundation"
with their company name in the .dtd file. Now, in their "version" of Mozilla
youll see their company name in the copyright line at the bottom of the help
files (and in the disclaimer).

It just seems odd to me that you can use the copyright like that. First we state
that "The Mozilla Foundation" has the copyright. Then, at the same time, we give
the copyright to companies that are embedding Mozilla. That means there will be
more than one (maybe 10-20?) copyright owner of exactly the same material. I
doubt that more than one person/company could claim the copyright of the same
material. It makes me wonder why we're using the copyright at all - it seems
that we don't mean anything with it.

>We definetely need cleanup. We should move the HTML docs to use
>helpFileLayout.css,
> so if you have time, feel free to do it.

Filed bug 236942. This will actually mean that i convert the html files to
xhtml. I'll start work on that when this bug is fixed.

Regarding the copyright stuff, I suggest we do one of the following (1 or 2):

1) keep it as it is in the patches above

a)Any embeddor that makes changes to the content of the help files could just  
(while changing the content) change the copyright "manually". If the embeddor
doesn't change the content the copyright should (IMO) remain to The Mozilla
Foundation.

b)Most of the Seamonkey help files are html files (I might be wrong here, but I
don't think it's possible to use the info in a .dtd file if the files are in
html). So using &companyName; in the copyright/disclaimer (which I think is
wrong) would just be possible in a few (xhtml) files anyway. 

2) remove all the copyright lines as Daniel suggested in comment #2.

The files would still be copyrighted to the one who wrote them. If embeddors
want to add a copyright line after they've changed the files - fine. Once a
proper documentation license is found we can just add that to the bottom of the
files.


Comment on attachment 143223 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch for the rest of the files

r=rlk@trfenv.com on this patch. Still thinking about the other one.
Attachment #143223 - Flags: review?(rlk) → review+
Attachment #143207 - Attachment is obsolete: true
Attachment #143223 - Attachment is obsolete: true
The patches are now obsolete - there been a few checkins to these files since
the diffs where done.
Comment on attachment 143207 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch for xhtml-only files

clearing review request for obsolete patch.
Attachment #143207 - Flags: review?(rlk)
Attached patch Final patch (obsolete) — — Splinter Review 
OK, this patch should fix the rest of the small issues when it comes to
copyright, date and disclaimer. Found some other small errors as well.


* Fixes some css issues (some disclaimers lackes style since <div
class="boilerplate" should be <div class="boilerPlate").

* Removes all references to Mozilla/Mozilla foundation in the disclaimer.

* Removes references to "Firebird" in help_help - now we just use
&brandShortName; (in section about search - any distributor will find that
sentence more accurate now).

* Fixes a " in a heading in cs_nav_prefs_appearance.

* Fixes bug 256791.
Attachment #157074 - Flags: review?(rlk)
Comment on attachment 157074 [details] [diff] [review]
Final patch

Sigh, why do I make these stupid errors? Another one is coming up soon...
Attachment #157074 - Attachment is obsolete: true
Attachment #157074 - Flags: review?(rlk)
Attached patch Correct patch — — Splinter Review 
Sorry, this should be ok.
Attachment #157077 - Flags: review?(rlk)
Comment on attachment 157077 [details] [diff] [review]
Correct patch

r=rlk@trfenv.com
Attachment #157077 - Flags: review?(rlk) → review+
Fix checked in.
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 20 years ago
Resolution: --- → FIXED
Status: RESOLVED → VERIFIED
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