Questions tagged [scope]
For questions attempting to achieve consensus or discussion on what is on and off-topic for the site.
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Asking a question about an open source dataset of digitized correspondence
A couple of months ago, I asked the following question on Open Data (Beta) SE:
For a research project, I am currently looking for datasets that
consists of large amounts of e-mails, text messages, or ...
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Are non-software-related questions about open licenses on-topic or off-topic?
Are non-software-related questions about open licenses on-topic or off-topic?
Example:
If I use a CC-BY background music track in my video on YouTube, is it enough to give credits to the musicians in ...
4
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Tour => Allowed or denied? Getting help in selecting software for a given task. Allowed to ask? Or against site rules?
I've been a user of stack-exchange sites for more than a decade.
I usually take very much into consideration the "Tour" section and what can be asked and what not before posting to a site I'...
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Are questions about project organisations and their processes welcome here?
I'm hunting for the right place to ask questions about open-source project organisations and their processes (not their products). For example the organisation Debian. I first asked on Unix & ...
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Is questioning the philosophies of the FSF, OSI, CC, etc. allowed here?
This site's Help Center says:
You've come to the right place if you have questions about:
the history and philosophies of the FSF, OSI, CC etc
...
I'm sure that throwing softballs like "How ...
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2
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Would the question "what if the license is refused" be on-topic?
Background:
Here in Germany there were some trials on court which Microsoft lost: Certain license terms (in the EULA) are void and therefore can be ignored by the user.
Because the laws are the same ...
- 301
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How technical can questions about forking a FLOSS project get?
In brief: I have some questions around forking a FLOSS project. They tend to start with a question of etiquette ("what's the right thing to do?"), but then stray into more technical areas ("how do I ...
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Do we need clarification of "Open Source" in the help page?
Following a discussion in the comments field of this question, I'm beginning to think that we need to clarify topicality in the help page.
For some time now I've felt we'd developed a community ...
MadHatterMod
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How to request the formation of a wiki?
Was about to add an answer to my question from yesterday, with a bunch of bullet points given on various IRC channels I was perusing in the last 24 hours.
Wiki of arguments for open-source business?
...
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2
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Would this question about motivation for open source work be on-topic here?
What is the incentive for curl to release the library for free? (screenshot) was asked two days ago in Stack Overflow. In brief, it got an answer from the author of curl, made it to Hot Network ...
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Can I put my inventions here?
I have 100s of inventions that has been sitting. Rather then letting them die with me can I put them here for review? Maybe someone else could make use of them?
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Question about choice of a crowdfunding site
Is it OK to ask about a choice of a crowdfunding site (specifically, about which of the popular sites meet certain criteria) for my open source project?
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2
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Reason to close "how to" question?
This question looks off topic to me. The problem is, I can't quite figure out what to put as the closure reason. It seems to me that "how do I do things with this tool that just happens to be open ...
- 5,388
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On-topic here? "Should I contribute to a (kind of) abandoned project, or continue my own?"
If this type of question is a good fit anywhere I suspect it's a better one here. Do you guys want it?
Should I contribute to a (kind of) abandoned project, or continue my own?
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Are Source Visible Questions On Topic?
I ran across this comment on the main site.
This site is about projects published under a license that meets either the Free Software Definition or the Open Source Definition (which are nearly ...
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Is it on-topic to ask how free/libre/open a product really is?
Is it on-topic to ask how free/libre/open a certain product is?
While it’s often easy to know for software, it’s typically not so clear for hardware that ships with software. For example, think of a ...
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Beyond licensing
I feel that one of the main draws of Open Source Stack Exchange are discussions around licensing.
These are of course essential to free and open source software but they are not all of it.
How ...
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What's wrong with this GitHub code ownership question?
There's this question that I noticed got a close vote: Does the owner of the github repository own the copyright to the code?
Someone left a custom close reason:
I'm voting to close this question ...
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Availability of open source software for particular field of interest
Are questions about availability of free and open source software for particular field of interest on topic? I mean questions like "Is there FOSS for controlling the Space Shuttle?" and more generally ...
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Questions about the history of an open source project, but not about licenses
A major specificity of open source projects is that most past events are public, it makes them interesting to the point that it is starting to get attention from anthropologists and historians.
...
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What's wrong with "External Resources" questions?
So one of the proposed custom close reasons is for external resources questions. It seems to be pretty widely agreed-upon that asking for external resources is a bad thing, and the close reason has ...
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3
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Are questions that ask about interactions of open source licenses of specific products on topic?
https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/1973/edting-jasper-server-community-edition-code-and-distribute was put on hold as off-topic because it "asks for support for a specific product". ...
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Are questions asking for the copyright status of something on topic?
This question was recently asked. It asks about the current status of copyright of a certain work.
It was closed fairly soon after it was asked for being off-topic. Now, it seems to me that this is ...
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Is on-topic humor appropriate?
I've just posted an answer that includes a link to an XKCD cartoon that is closely related to the topic. Is it appropriate to include such humor in an answer?
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Are questions on getting your project "blessed" on scope?
This question was closed
How do I make sure my installer doesn't set off virus scanners?
as a dupe of
How to give evidence that an open-source project is reputable?
Personally, I think ...
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Should we rethink software recommendations?
I've written an answer down below, that properly expresses my viewpoints. It can be found here.
I while back, there was the following question: Do we want recommendation/shopping questions?
The ...
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How to encourage questions about anything but licenses?
I've gotta say That I was reasonably excited to see this proposal go into beta, but to date, it's been mostly nothing more than licensing questions. I was hoping for... something more.
What other ...
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Are questions about the licences of popular open source projects on-topic here?
I have a question I want to ask about the license of Ruby (MRI), and what portions of the project it covers (specifically, I'm wondering whether or not it covers bundled gems which are distributed in ...
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Shall requests for "free stuff" be on-topic as long as it is free stuff for open source?
I voted to close this question as off topic: Free mailing list provider for open source projects?
Looking at the votes, it looks like we've a hung jury, so I'll take it to meta.
I gave this as my ...
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Is this question really off-topic?
While looking at some closed questions to generate some stats, I came across this question. It asks how to apply a Creative Commons license to a blog post.
It's been closed as off-topic: not about ...
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How do we determine if a license recommendation is off-topic scope wise?
We're accepting license recommendation questions as a part of the scope of the site. A close reason has already been proposed for questions that lack sufficient information:
Questions asking for ...
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Should we allow license comprehension questions?
Questions concerning the comprehension of clauses specific to licenses, might be considered to be off-topic as asking for legal advice. Should we allow these sorts of questions?
For example:
What ...
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Are questions about Open Data and Open Standards on-topic?
I found Open Data StackExchange site which follows Open Definition. So, I would like to ask whether it is on-topic here or not? In other words, Is there a case that questions on this site should be ...
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Would major FLOSS announcements be on topic?
To scope this question, I stress the word major in the title.
If we want this site to be the first resort for people looking for general information about open/free projects and content creation, it ...
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How is photographic licensing off-topic?
How is Google able to relicense their photos on Google Streetview, which may contain copyrighted content?
There's the question: It's +2/-1 and the answer is 0/-1
According to this, we allow ...
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Are questions about specific open source projects on-topic? [duplicate]
Are questions about specific open source projects on-topic? I mean questions like:
Why is project X the way it is and not other?
Where can I get support for project Y?
Why did project A split into B ...
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Isn't 'Is there research about [X]?' the same thing as 'I want an external resource'?
There are questions on the home page looking for research studies. Are these - like any other 'external resource' questions on the network - off topic?
The questions are
Are there any metrics/papers/...
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Create a help/on-topic page specific to this community
Being a good SE-citizen I looked at help/on-topic before asking my first question here, to find that this page is just about void of useful information.
A basic summary of what is and also is not on ...
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Does a question need to include source code to be on topic?
There is a comment on this question suggesting that the question should be closed. I was very surprised by the reason given:
I'm fairly certain that since this does not involve any sample of code, ...
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How is this question off-topic?
I stumbled on this question about the infamous case of Google and Oracle, concerning the integration of Java and Android. I've edited the question, but here is the original:
As many people know, ...
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Should "does statistical data for [X] exist" be off topic?
I have seen many questions where people have ask a question with this formula.
I while it may be difficult to the person asking the question to find this data the goal of this website is not to ...
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Where is [old arcane project] now maintained, maybe as a fork under another name?
Imagine a highly-specific open source library whose website has disappeared, or has been abandoned. Is it on-topic to ask whether the project still lives somewhere else, maybe as a fork under another ...
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Does using the phrase 'open source' in a question make it on-topic?
This is the flip side of Questions that only arise in an open source context
Consider this question: Do you need a degree to become an open source developer? (which I am using simply as an example)
...
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Make the site about Open Information!
Note: I understand this is very long, but be sure to read and understanding everything in this post.
Alright! Day 6 into the beta, and we're about to introduce a new addition to the scope!
The ...
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Off-topic reason restricts to software
The off-topic close reason suggests only software is on topic, which the community appears to disagree with, both on Area 51 and here on Meta.
off-topic: This question does not appear to be about ...
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Should questions pertaining to open knowledge be in scope
Recently, How can I trust Wikipedia, if everyone can change it? was asked. I feel questions like this pertaining to open knowledge should be in the scope of this site (even if it isn't necessarily now)...
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How do we neutralize the site to be more accepting?
We've seen many issues so far on the issue of neutrality between things such as:
the Open Source Initiative;
the Free Software Foundation;
Creative Commons and more;
Don't get me wrong, the issue ...
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Questions about demographic imbalance
I noticed a down vote on Do open source projects have better or worse female participation than proprietary projects?. As my comments there show, I think this question is both important and answerable ...
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Do we want to allow question about specific open source products?
Differences between Firefox and Iceweasel is a question that isn't directly about open source, but rather about an open source product. This is not exactly included in our scope as it is, but could ...
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How comes the most popular question from the definition phase got closed as too broad?
During the definition phase, the highest voted example question of this site proposal was:
What's the difference between the MIT and the BSD license?
with 19 upvotes and 1 downvote.
Naturally, ...
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