[WikiEN-l] (no subject)

[Magnus Manske]

Mike Finucane wrote:

>
> In reply to:
> > Because Wikipedia is free as in freedom. Your pictures are not free
> > (though apparently they are gratis); you are limiting who can
> distribute
> > them. Please re-evaluate contributing to Wikipedia if you are unwilling
> > to support freedom.
>
> My answer is that I do not see how enriching private corporations
> furthers freedom. My pictures are indeed gratis.
> The only objection I have is to allowing others to make profits from
> my work.

There is a German company who, now for the third time, sells a copy of
the German Wikipedia on DVD. They sell it for €9,90 and make little
profit of that (last time they gave €1 per DVD sold to Wikimedia).
Mostly, it is a PR thing, as well as the ability to offer a current
encyclopedia (they usually specialize in public domain texts on CD).

We have the encyclopedia. They have the software and the infrastructure
to distribute it on DVD. The end user has the ability to buy a good
encyclopedia on DVD for a decent price.

You can not honestly tell me that the above is a bad thing. In fact,
many German wikipedians, myself included, have actively helped that
company to get these DVDs ready, as unpaid volunteers, because it is a
good thing.

However, your images would have to be excluded from such a DVD.

Face it: Noone will become insanely rich by selling images from
Wikipedia, yours or other people's. And even if one or the other image
turns up in some high-quality production, GFDL or CC-BY-SA make sure
they'll have to credit the author, which would mean free advertising for
you.

On the other hand, there is a market for low-priced works, encyclopedia,
wikibook, wiki-reader or whatever, that will extend the range of people
we can reach to those whithout (permanent) internet access. If someone
provides, say, printed wikipedia editions, and charges his printing
costs plus a few bucks to keep his business afloat, so what? Would you
go to peolpe who would buy such a printed edition, or who would be given
one by some organisation that buys them, ans say "sorry, folks, you
could have had an encyclopedia, but someone would have made $5 of it,
and that's unacceptable"?

I, for one, will keep co-licensing my pictures under GFDL and CC-BY-SA,
so *our readers* can (hopefully) profit from them. Truth is, noone would
by my pictures anyway. So if someome manages to sell them, lucky him. I
don't mind.

Magnus