tye, thank you for your thoughtful response.

On the issue of whether we should lower the barrier to contribution, I find your argument to be persuasive. You've been on Perl Monks for longer than I have, and so I'll trust your judgment regarding the quality of posts.

Let me clarify regarding the "forever" thing:

I was not saying that the license could not be revoked.... I was saying that the implied term of the implied license is unlimited. It is "forever".

I didn't think you were saying that the license couldn't be revoked. My concern was with your claim that the term of the implied license was "forever" – until revoked. In other words, you were saying that we can assume the glass is full until we learn otherwise. I'm saying that we can't assume the glass to be any more full than the facts support at this moment in time.

The license is implied. That it exists and grants us any rights at all is not established fact but only inferred by us because to think otherwise would lead to absurdity in light of the facts that are established. Why would an author ask us to publish his works on our site if he didn't grant us license to do so? However, what we can reasonably infer to be the extent of an implied license is the minimal – not maximal – grant of rights that is consistent with the facts. Therefore, we can infer only that the term of the license implied by posting to the site is "for now." Ultimately, if we receive no instructions to the contrary from the author, "for now" will become "forever"; but until then, they are not the same.

The license will not end on its own. To end the license, the author must actively revoke it. There is no implied limited duration.

There is no implied duration at all beyond what is implied by the facts right now. That an author posted content back then and hasn't asked us to remove it since, implies that the author has granted us license to publish his content on the site from then through now, but nothing more. Now+1 cannot be supported until such time has passed with no contrary indications from the author.

That's what I was trying to say.

I should point out that for all practical intents and purposes, our interpretations are the same: If an author posts to the site, we can reasonably publish the post on the site until the author says otherwise.

Cheers,
Tom

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