[WikiEN-l] Re: [HelpDesk-l] permission

[Justin Cormack]

On 14 Nov 2005, at 19:12, Brown, Darin wrote:
> I agree that there is a lot to be gained by rewarding people for  
> original
> work.  Still, I think each case should probably be decided on its own
> merits, case by case. I can imagine a case where there was a free  
> image
> available, and also a clearly superior fair use image where the  
> fair use
> issue was not in doubt. In that case, I would find it hard to  
> justify using
> an inferior free image simply because it was free? I know this runs  
> counter
> to pure open-source thinking, but I keep thinking our primary goal  
> is to
> make the best encyclopedia possible, and if that means occasionally  
> favoring
> fair use to free images, then I don't see a problem. But if the  
> images are
> even roughly equivalent in quality, certainly the free should win out.

No the primary goal is to make a free encyclopaedia. It will be the  
best one
as a byproduct.

And the aim is not to finish the encyclopaedia next week it is to  
build a
structure that will create an encyclopaedia, and non free content as  
Jimbo
said detracts from that structure by discouraging the creation of free
content and hence a free encyclopaedia.

You are of course free to fork wikipedia, within the license terms  
and try
to make a better non free version. For example you could pay to license
good images for it.

Justinc