On 16/05/07, Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: The text of the license appears to claim such rights outside said jurisdictions. As lovely people as they may or may not be, CC's interests are not our interests. - d.

David Gerard wrote: Yes it *appears to claim*. I am not a lawyer so I cannot tell you nor do the laypersons that are currently discussing this issue inside the Wikimedia community instead of just directly contacting CC. By the way I find the energy to find problems in CC 3.0 really disturbing. This motivation should better be used to develope practical solutions to the dilemma of non-compatibility bewteen GFDL and CC-BY-SA. I bet that far the most majority of people interested in free knowledge are not interested such license details - they just want to share knowledge! By the way with CC 3.0 there is an explicit place to list compatible licenses: http://creativecommons.org/compatiblelicenses Of course there are some different interests, and neither CC nor "we" are entities with homogeneous and static oppinions. But the main goal "free information" is the same. Factionalism by searching for differences between CC and Wiki*edia instead of commonalities is counterproductive. I really doubt that the differences of interest between CC and Wikimedia Foundation are as large as the differences of interests withing the Wikimedia chapters and the Wikimedia project communities. Greetings, Jakob

Jakob Voss wrote: What's disturbing in this is that Erik's resolution was to amend WMF policy. He certainly has a right to make such proposals, whether or not the Board ultimately adopts the resolution. Now we are talking about proposed changes to Creative Commons policy. Trying to merge CC's interests with ours in these circumstances raises a perception of hidden agendas. Ec

On 5/16/07, Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: I took the complaint to the Creative Commons in December when I saw a private draft of the text. My message went unanswered, however the moral rights text was omitted from all the public drafts so I considered the matter resolved. Apparently it was not. Generally CC's approach to such matters appears to be to advocate whatever they believe will maximize adoption of their licenses and brand recognition. As such, refusing to accept licenses with problems is a way to address such issues which is likely to be effective when pointing out the problem is ineffective as it was in this case. Surely I can raise issues without an assumption of bad faith, or even the presumption of incompetence. I am not concerned with the motives behind the decision to include this text, only the results. There are two possible interpretations of the text: 1) The it has no impact on your obligations under the license. 2) That it imposes restrictions on derivatives where they otherwise wouldn't exist. (1) doesn't make sense. Why would anyone intentionally add a null-effect term to a license? It only creates the potential for confusion and disappointment. I can't see how we can possibly say that the freedom to make derivatives the original author might dislike is an *essential* property of free content licenses and yet not encourage free content licenses to explicitly provide this essential right to the greatest extent allowed by law. That some free content licenses ignore matters outside of copyright is one matter: at least in a dispute I could refer to the language of the licenses the show that the licensor intended to permit derivative to the greatest extent possible. However, any text which actively implies that the right to make and distribute derivatives is dependant on the preference of an upstream author eliminates my ability to argue that the intention of the license was to maximally release me from such restrictions. Since the behavior of copyright everywhere is that no derivative is permitted without the explicit permission of a license, I do not see how (1) could be considered a reasonable reading of "Except as otherwise agreed in writing by the Licensor or as may be otherwise permitted by applicable law ... You must not distort, mutilate, modify or take other derogatory action in relation to the Work which would be prejudicial to the Original Author's honor or reputation" in any case. The only way I can read that test as not creating a limitation is if I adopt a highly styled usage of English which allows me to assign whatever meaning I wish to whatever word I miss. No US court would endorse such a (ab)use of language.

On 17/05/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote: The question here is whether CC licenses involving moral licenses are free content or not. I'd also point out to Erik that the CC may have written the licence, but they're not *our* lawyers. Any more than the FSF are. - d.

Erik Moeller wrote: I do not think it is practical. Two reasons Right now, we have a common resolution to fix several unrelated points. I do not think it is such a good idea to do it this way, as some people might agree with one point, disagree with another. Then might vote against even though they might agree with some points. Generally, I think we should always stick to one resolution <-> one topic. Second reason is that when we want to refer to a resolution, it is much easier to go to the resolution page, and simply copy paste the text. If we copy paste the text, then have to go to one, maybe two, one day three perhaps, updates, and insert the modifications accordingly in relevant paragraph, this is a time loss and a risk for mistakes. I would rather prefer a brand new resolution, refering to an old one, and canceling the old one. On the old one, we can link to the new one and mention the old is no more valid. Or... another solution (probably better) would be to separate the text of the resolution from the page of the policy itself. The resolution point to a specific version of the policy. The second update resolution simply points to a new version of the policy. In such case, the policy page is always updated and there is no risk of confusion. Ant

I think Pathoschild has a great idea. Casey Brown Cbrown1023 -----Original Message----- From: foundation-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) Sent: Wednesday, May 16, 2007 7:09 PM To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Clarification to existing resolutions Hello, I would suggest a single resolution page, updated as appropriate with an "update history" section. I made a mockup of the Licensing policy resolution with the proposed clarification at <http://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=User:Pathoschild/Sandbox&o ldid=21187>. On the linked page, note the "Last updated..." line at the top and the "Update history" at the bottom. This method makes organization much easier (making use of the history log), ensures that incoming links always point to the correct page (we can use permalinks to link to a specific revision), and makes it easy to update resolutions whenever necessary. Yours cordially, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Michael Bimmler wrote: Any time one introduces a phrase like "in accordance with the intent" you effectively introduce a weasel phrase. The word, "intent", in particular opens up a wide array of possible meanings, all of which may be in good faith. If the Board has set a clear policy on delicate issues, and a staff member goes outside the permitted bounds the staff member is at fault, and possibly has a greater liability when things go wrong, or he can be justifiably dismissed. On the other hand, if the Board has not given proper direction, it can be the one that will be solely liable when problems occur. Sure, the Board can step in to direct a change of policy, but by the time it puts its processes together to do so the office atmosphere may already be poisoned. Remember too that the procedures for calling a meeting of an internationally based Board do not always allow for quick meetings. Also, to the extend that some decision making powers can be delegated to staff, it should be to a designated staff member rather than to the staff at large. Ec

On 5/18/07, Thomas Dalton &lt;thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: I agree with this. But "WMF office staff" should be more specific, unless the intention is for each individual staff member to interpret things individually (and therefore inconsistently). Anthony

Thomas Dalton wrote: I agree that an ED is needed, and that once that person is chosen it would be easier to find common ground between him and the Board about just what the policy means. The also evident fact that things are a little vague for now should not be an excuse for passing policies that are even more vague. Ec

Yonatan Horan wrote: Wow! We really are talking about different things. EDP = Exemption Doctrine Policy. ED = Executive Director. :-) Ec