Hello,
It seems quite early to start talking about future board elections, but
members of the previous election committee have expressed the
recommandation that more time would be the key for 2008 board elections.
I have been wondering if we could not start launching a bit of
discussion on the matter, and maybe already look for candidates for the
next election committee.
Please have a look at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Elections
And start thinking about it. Perhaps interested volunteers are already
ready to be Election Officials ?
Anthere
In a message dated 2/20/2008 4:57:57 PM Eastern Standard Time,
brian.mcneil(a)wikinewsie.org writes:
You need to look up who wrote these songs, and when they died. You can, with
a fair degree of certainty, say that anything written during the 20th
century won't be available to us. If it was written more than a hundred
years ago you're starting to look at it being available to us in the near
future, but that's where the performer's (c) comes in and the proposed
legislation impacts us.
Long Way to Tipperary was cowritten by Jack Judge, who died in 1938, and
Harry Williams who died in 1922. If it were solely Williams, the song would have
entered the public domain in 2017, i.e., nine years from now. On the other
hand, Vera Lynn, who recorded it in 1939, is still alive today. In other words,
not in the lifetime of anyone actually reading this email.
Danny
**************Ideas to please picky eaters. Watch video on AOL Living.
(http://living.aol.com/video/how-to-please-your-picky-eater/rachel-campos-du…
2050827?NCID=aolcmp00300000002598)
Creative Commons has gone live with a new design for their two free
content licenses:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
This design identifies the licenses as being compliant with the
Definition for Free Cultural Works (and links to it). The DFCW is also
the basis of Wikimedia's licensing policy, and has been linked to from
the Free Software Foundation's definition of free software:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
It has also been endorsed by the Commonwealth of Learning for its
large number of international educational initiatives.
This support by Creative Commons should be welcome news to all
Wikimedians, as it will make it easier for us to argue that all
licenses are not, in fact, equal -- and that releases under licenses
like CC-BY-NC or -ND simply do not work for us.
We're continuing our dialog with CC, and their responsiveness has been
amazing (thanks to any CCers reading this :-). The fact that our
office is just a few blocks away now helps. :-)
Best,
Erik
--
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
Dear folks,
In order to pursue our trademark registration in Canada, we would like
to document the earliest uses of Wikipedia by Canadians. Our Canadian
staff members (Sue Gardner and Jay Walsh) believe the first Canadian
uses of Wikipedia date back near the origins of
Wikipedia itself. Considering that Wikipedia started in early 2001,
this should mean that by early 2002 there was significant Canadian
use of the English-language Wikipedia project. I assume there was
also early use of the French-language Wikipedia project by French
Canadians -- that would also help us here.
Does anyone here have any thoughts about how we might document the
(likely) fact that Canadians were engaged with Wikipedia early on?
--Mike Godwin
General Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
In a message dated 2/20/2008 10:13:54 PM Eastern Standard Time,
nawrich(a)gmail.com writes:
Of note is the fact that while there has been
Islamic terrorist activity in Egypt between 2004 and 2006, none of it seems
to have occurred in Alexandria.
Actually, this is not quite accurate. Alexandria, traditionally, was a
cosmopolitan city, with large communities of Jews, Greeks, Copts, and many others.
In fact, my Jewish grandmother, who grew up in Alexandria at the turn of
the century, went to a Catholic school where the languages of instruction were
Italian and French.
But a lot has changed since then. Many of those minorities have left the
country, while Coptic Christians have been subject to some animosity and even
violence from Muslim fundamentalists.
_http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4366232.stm_ (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4366232.stm) is an
example of that. As the article says, relations between the communities are
generally peaceful, though there are tensions, and claims of discrimination. This
blog post is also quite telling:
_http://arabist.net/archives/2005/11/03/egyptian-blogger-arrested/_
(http://arabist.net/archives/2005/11/03/egyptian-blogger-arrested/) .
Note that I am not claiming that Alexandria is dangerous. I am simply
pointing to some recent events, hoping to show that the situation is neither black
nor white, but an annoying shade of grey.
Danny
**************Ideas to please picky eaters. Watch video on AOL Living.
(http://living.aol.com/video/how-to-please-your-picky-eater/rachel-campos-du…
2050827?NCID=aolcmp00300000002598)
In a message dated 2/20/2008 3:01:58 PM Eastern Standard Time,
mohamed.m.k(a)gmail.com writes:
Not sure if I should reply considering that I'm a muslim and might be
biased, but here is a reply:
Actually, Alnokta, you are probably one of the best people to answer this.
You understand the religious issues intimately, and you are equally at home in
the culture of Wikipedia. Thank you for chiming in. It was needed
Shukran
Danny
**************Ideas to please picky eaters. Watch video on AOL Living.
(http://living.aol.com/video/how-to-please-your-picky-eater/rachel-campos-du…
2050827?NCID=aolcmp00300000002598)
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Georg C. F. Greve <greve(a)fsfeurope.org>
Date: 21 Feb 2008 02:52
Subject: [Icommons] Document Freedom Day announced for 26 March 2008
To: icommons(a)lists.ibiblio.org
FYI - the following went out today.
[ http://documentfreedom.org/News/20080220 ]
Introducing Document Freedom Day
26 March: A global day for document liberation
Sign up your DFD team today!
The Document Freedom Day (DFD) is a global day for Document Liberation
with grassroots action for promotion of Free Document Formats and Open
Standards in general. The DFD was initiated and is supported by a group
of organisations and companies, including, but not limited to, the Free
Software Foundation Europe, ODF Alliance, OpenForum Europe, IBM, Red Hat
and Sun Microsystems, Inc.
On 26 March 2008, the Document Freedom Day will provide a global
rallying point for Document Liberation and Open Standards. It will
literally give teams around the world the chance to "hoist the flag":
A "DFD Starter Pack" containing a flag, t-shirt, leaflets and stickers
is in preparation and is planned to be sent out in the first weeks of
March to the first 100 teams that sign up. Sixteen teams already signed
up during the preparation phase of the DFD prior to this release. Sign
your team up now!
"We're proud to support this global effort to encourage open and
inclusive information exchange," said Marino Marcich, Managing Director,
OpenDocument Format Alliance. "Document freedom means creating,
exchanging, and preserving your electronic documents without having to
buy software from a particular vendor."
"Data lock-in and subsequent vendor lock-in are some of the most severe
issues users are facing today," says FSFE president Georg Greve. "Yet
most people only realise this connection when it is too late and they
have effectively lost control over their own data. We are supporting the
Document Freedom Day to help raise awareness for this issue by starting
with something that affects pretty much all users of computers: text
documents, spreadsheets and presentations."
"Free document formats and open standards are important elements in the
continued expansion of the global open source community," said Tom
Rabon, executive vice president, Corporate Affairs at Red Hat. "Red Hat
strongly supports Document Freedom Day and encourages participation by
all who look forward to the day when documents are controlled by those
who own them, not necessarily by those who create the technology to
access those documents."
Simon Phipps, Chief Open Source Officer, Sun Microsystems stated, "As I
explained in my paper "Freedom to Leave" [*], it's fundamental in the
emerging market for people to be free to use any software they desire to
handle their data. I fully support the goals of Document Freedom."
[*] http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dhb29vwq_3dzb2cs
Alexandre Oliva of the Free Software Foundation Latin America (FSFLA)
comments: "When you save your documents using a Free Open Standard
format such as ODF, you're also saving your own future, ensuring your
continued ability to access, decode and convert their contents."
Graham Taylor Director of OpenForum Europe: "OpenForum Europe applauds
the announcement of Document Freedom Day. The whole essence of
'openness' is captured by the right of users, citizens,
governments... to be able to freely access and exchange documents today
and in the future. Nothing gives greater meaning to the prevalent danger
of lock-in to proprietary solutions, and for the need for Government to
act now."
About the Document Freedom Day:
The Document Freedom Day (DFD) is a global day for Document
Liberation. It is a day of grassroots effort around the world to
promote and build awareness for the relevance of Free Document Formats
in particular and Open Standards in general. The DFD is supported by a
large group of organisations and individuals, including, but not
limited to Ars Aperta, COSS, Esoma, Free Software Foundations Europe
and Latin America, IBM, NLnet, ODF Alliance, OpenForum Europe, OSL,
iMatix, Red Hat, Sun Microsystems, Inc., The Open Learning Centre,
Opentia, Estandares Abiertos.
The list of DFD supporting groups can be found at
http://documentfreedom.org/Who
The list of DFD teams is available at
http://documentfreedom.org/Category:Teams
Further information:
http://documentfreedom.org
Contact:
contact(a)documentfreedom.org
Graham Taylor graham(a)openforumeurope.org
Ivan Jelic jelic(a)fsfeurope.org
Kerri Catallozzi kcatallo(a)redhat.com
Marino Marcich mmarcich(a)odfalliance.org
Marko Milenovic milenovic(a)fsfeurope.org
Terri Molini terri.molini(a)sun.com
FSFLA info(a)fsfla.org
--
Georg C. F. Greve <greve(a)fsfeurope.org>
Free Software Foundation Europe (http://fsfeurope.org)
Join the Fellowship and protect your freedom! (http://www.fsfe.org)
_______________________________________________
Icommons mailing list
Icommons(a)lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/icommons
--
They've just been waiting in a mountain for the right moment:
http://modernthings.org/
In a message dated 2/20/2008 4:57:57 PM Eastern Standard Time,
brian.mcneil(a)wikinewsie.org writes:
You've hit on a good case there, I assume Mussorgsky died more than 95 years
ago, so the composer's copyright has expired. In fact, it'd likely expired
by the time ELP recorded the stuff. Even if it hadn't, all you need to do is
get a "mechanical license" to allow you to do your own recording. So, much
to my surprise - and delight - there may be some ELP stuff could go on
Commons in the next few years if this measure is beaten.
Actually, it is an interesting case. Mussorgsky died in 1881, while they
recorded Pictures in 1971. No 95 years.
**************Ideas to please picky eaters. Watch video on AOL Living.
(http://living.aol.com/video/how-to-please-your-picky-eater/rachel-campos-du…
2050827?NCID=aolcmp00300000002598)
In a message dated 2/20/2008 4:05:54 PM Eastern Standard Time,
brian.mcneil(a)wikinewsie.org writes:
Composer's have life+95 (IIRC) which means that ELP and the like won't be
appearing on WMF servers anytime soon (I met Greg Lake in London a few years
back, so he's still around). Where this impacts the foundation is stuff done
late 19th century and the composer is long dead. A performance recorded in
the 50s or 60s of the work would be impacted, in some cases it'd be
withdrawn from the public domain.
My point was more on ELP's adaptation of works. For instance, ELP's Pictures
at an Exhibition came out in 1971. Mussorgsky wrote it in 1874, so it would
have made the mark, however, it was only first published (by Rimsky-Korsakov)
in 1886. Would ELP, by recording the piece, potentially have been violating
copyright.
I am also curious as to how this would impact songs like Vera Lynn's
recording of "We'll Meet Again" (1939). Or more so, any classic recordings of "It's
a Long Way to Tipperary" from World War I.
Just wondering--the implications go far beyond Cliff Richard's pension fund.
Danny
**************Ideas to please picky eaters. Watch video on AOL Living.
(http://living.aol.com/video/how-to-please-your-picky-eater/rachel-campos-du…
2050827?NCID=aolcmp00300000002598)