[jawns]

On a lark, I just forked the repo for the AWS CLI user guide and added some commits that introduced subtle and not-so-subtle errors. Let's hope my fork never shows up in search results. Otherwise, people are going to be making curl requests to r/tacobell to download the AWS CLI Bundled Installer.

If this collaborative-documentation initiative were launched as an Amazon-hosted wiki, editors or mods could shut me down. But since it's open source and under a Creative Commons license, Amazon has essentially no control over how much I vandalize the content.

Fortunately for AWS, I'm not really interested in vandalizing the content or misleading people. But the fact that someone can create a knock-off site riddled with errors, and Amazon can't claim copyright infringement if the site plays by the Creative Commons rules, is concerning, isn't it?

Edit: I know, I know. It's already possible to make unauthorized copy-pasta sites. But at least Amazon would have the ability to threaten the site's owner or hosting provider with copyright infringement claims. That option disappears when you release your official documentation under a Creative Commons license.

[whoisjuan]

Hmmm. Well then any content is open to exploitation, regardeless if it's open source or not. I can basically copy and paste your comment on my own website and change its content...No fork would ever have as much authority as the original repo since that's the one linked and referenced everywhere. This is exactly the problem that Google solved when they created the PageRank algorithm.

[TheDong]

> Edit: I know, I know. It's already possible to make unauthorized copy-pasta sites. But at least Amazon would have the ability to threaten the site's owner or hosting provider with copyright infringement claims. That option disappears when you release your official documentation under a Creative Commons license.

You misunderstand trademark law.

Trademark law is meant to prevent confusion, and would kick in here.

Nothing is different with respect to creating a confusing fork; before they wouldn't claim copyright infringement before either, but trademark infringement.

[jawns]

Nominative fair use should cover that. Otherwise, no one could write an "Unofficial Guide to ..." any technology or service with a trademarked name.