Textbook-l August 2003

textbook-l@lists.wikimedia.org

16 participants
46 discussions

wikiversity licensing
by Daniel Mayer 21 Aug '03

21 Aug '03

Karl wrote: >I am going to make one last plea here as we are >contemplating a WikiU / Wikiversity site .. we are about to >create tons of new content so lets get the licensing thing >right from the beginning. We've already beat this horse dead several times. I don't want to have to repost 50 more emails saying the same thing. Mixing and matching licenses within the same project prevents the free exchange of material within that project and doing so in the same book just complicates the publishing process. This is all sub-optimal. --mav

1 0

Re: problems with the GNU FDL
by Toby Bartels 21 Aug '03

21 Aug '03

[This discussion is appearing on both <wikiEN-L> and <textbook-L>. Since my reply concerns the use with textbooks -- where it's still possible to change the licence used -- replies should go to <textbook-L>. Daniel Mayer wrote: >Karl Wick wrote: >>The main problem I see with the GNU FDL as >>it stands is that it demands that any work that >>uses any of its content must be released under >>the same GNU FDL license. >Replace "any work" with "any derivative work" and you are right. And the viral >nature of the license is the whole point - otherwise somebody could make a >proprietary fork. The GFDL ensures that the content is forever free. What's the difference between "any work that uses any of its content" and "any derivative work" (besides fair use, which isn't what Karl meant)? It's worth pointing out that in a world with incompatible licences, work licensed under GNU licences are /not/ entirely free (blasphemy!), because freedom 3 (adapting and improving) is restricted. If GNU took over the world, then this wouldn't be an issue; but they haven't and they won't. If the FSF released licences that allowed combination with material under other licences, then this wouldn't be an issue; but they haven't and they won't -- not as long as people keep using their licences anyway. >>However there are other open content licences >>out there that people will be using. So, if some day >>down the road anyone wants to mix content from a >>Creative Commons license or any other license at >>all, the work must be released under the GNU >>license. > >And the same problem applies to the Creative Commons Share Alike license; text >under that license can't be incorporated into GNU FDL works. Same for every >other copyleft viral license. So what is your point? I've already mentioned >that our long term goal should be to encourage the major open content license >writers to make their licenses compatible wherever possible. See >http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/textbook-l/2003-July/000127.html > >>So any work I do on a textbook will be limited >>to only GNU versions. > >No - you can re-license any work you create any way you want. But the version >on Wikipedia and all subsequent modifications by others will forever be under >the GNU FDL. > >>It would be as if the work wereforever condemned to >>be in its own, proprietary format, 100% incompatible >>with all other sources and licenses, including all other >>open content licenses that I am familiar with. > >Proprietary? Do you have any idea what that means? > >>Remember that the GNU FDL was created for software, >>not open content. > >Uh, no. It was created for documention and any other non-fiction works. > >>And remember that even RMS says that it may >>not be the ideal license for open content. > >He said no such thing. All that is written on that particular subject is that >"We recommend making all sorts of educational and reference works free also, >using free documentation licenses such as the GNU Free Documentation License >(GNU FDL)." and "For other kinds of works, we recommend you consider the >licenses proposed by Creative Commons." Were in there does it say that the >GNU FDL isn't ideal for open content? > >>One solution I see would be to create a special >>version of the GNU FDL just for open content, or >>just for Wikipedia. > >For God's sake man! The GNU FDL /is/ already for open content. > >>That way we could decide for ourselves without >>needing the rest of the GNU world to go along with it. > >Where were you two and a half years ago when such an idea actually had a >chance to see daylight? Due to the viral nature of the the GNU FDL it cannot >be revoked unless every single person who has ever contributed unique >copyrightable content to Wikipedia agreed to the change in license terms. > >And to ignore Wikipedia as a text resource by having the textbook project >under an incompatible license or license combination would defeat the whole >purpose of Wikipedia. There is already a great deal of text in Wikipedia that >can be ported to textbook form and organization with relative ease. > >>Or, adapting another license like one of the Creative >>Commons ones. > >? Sorry, but they have the same problems. The only real advantage they have >over the GNU FDL is that they are easier to understand and are not written >specifically for documention. > >>Thats the only way I see that will prevent eternal, >>unmixable forks of content. > >And where are these mythical content forks that you speak of? There is no >magic bullet here and the only way we can ensure the freedom of our content >is to choose one copyleft viral license and go with it. Wikipedia is by far >the largest open content resource in the world -- let's follow their lead and >try to encourage license compatibility with the people who write the >licenses. > >-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav) > >

1 1

[Wikipedia-l] Re: maybe time for a document project, sometime in the near future?
by Daniel Mayer 17 Aug '03

17 Aug '03

Cross posted to Textbook-L Brion wrote: >The thing that would make a Project Sourceberg >worthwhile is wiki-style annotation of the texts. Yes! Just so everybody knows, we've been talking about annotation for the Wikibooks project on Textbook-L. See "disappearing/reappearing column-side notes," "public domain works with marginal notes" and "Re: disappearing/reappearing column side-notes" at http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/textbook-l/2003-August/subject.html#sta… Here is a hack of what that may look like: http://www.wikipedia.org/upload/5/56/Sidenote-column.html The current idea is to have <note> annotation </note> act as the actual syntax. >Annotations could include cross-links to Wikipedia >and Wiktionary as well as within the document, and Yep. What would really be neat is an optional java-script feature whereby double clicking on any word in the text will bring-up the corresponding Wiktionary entry. But that has to wait for Wiktionary to define many tens of thousands more words first. I was also thinking of wikifying terms within the public domain source text on Wikibooks to point to their corresponding Wikipedia articles. Aside: A different color for cross-Wikimedia links would be nice so that true external links (outside of Wikimedia) are distinguishable from cross-Wikimedia links (I've suggested green before). >we could have a relatively sane system for linking >from Wikipedia and Wiktionary to *particular spots* >in the texts, for instance to provide context for a quote. We could use anchors for this now that Wikipedia, Wiktionary and Wikibooks all have the latest and greatest MediaWiki installed. >Now, that would require some special coding if we want >to make it a clean system (ie, one where visitors can edit >annotations but not original text); or one could just dump >Gutenberg's ASCII texts straight into giant wiki pages and >do it all by hand. I'm not convinced that locking the public domain source text would be the best option since there is a lot of formatting and Wikifying that can be done with source text. However, I wouldn't mind blocking anons from editing source text if that can be coded easily enough (since logged-in users are more likely to know better about not changing the wording of the source text). But at the very least, annotations should be open to edit by all. Oh, and other Wikibooks modules should also have the ability to use the annotation feature (such as textbooks). So that is something to keep in mind if/when the annotation system is being worked on. -- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

2 1

Wikimedia University; name poll
by Daniel Mayer 17 Aug '03

17 Aug '03

OK, I've decided to buy either WikiU.org/.com or Wikiversity.org/.com in order to reserve that domain name for the possible future Wikimedia superproject. Please indicate your preferences here: http://textbook.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Staff_lounge#Wikiuniversity -- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

1 0

Wikiuniversity
by Daniel Mayer 16 Aug '03

16 Aug '03

>From http://textbook.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Staff_lounge I know that the name "Wikibooks" was thought of and promoted by me, but that was before we really knew where we wanted to go with this project (become an educational resource). The word "Wikipedia" is obviously the name of an encyclopedia and the word "Wiktionary" is obviously the name of a dictionary. But "Wikibooks" doesn't bring anything specific in mind. So what does everybody think of the name "Wikiuniversity"? Our aim is to create a huge educational resource and I think that such a name would be more fitting to such an endeavor. -- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

4 4

WikiU and wikibooks
by Karl Wick 16 Aug '03

16 Aug '03

I think that WikiU sounds great because: * Communicates immediately what the site is about * Simple and easy to remember for newbies * Should be usable in other languages (at least its real short even if the letter "U" means nothing in a language) And it makes sense to me to include WikiBooks as a subdomain of this site. ( books.wikiu.org ?) The fact that universities are only one part of the learning structure that includes notably K-12 should not be a big problem. Universities represent the highest end of the chain. (Maybe we could have subdomains for different levels of school if that is what users demand.) Question: will non fiction but non-textbook books be hosted here ? -Karl __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com

2 1

RE: [Textbook-l] WikiU and wikibooks
by limholt＠excite.com 16 Aug '03

16 Aug '03

> On Sat 08/16, Karl Wick < karlwick(a)yahoo.com > wrote: > I think that WikiU sounds great... I agree - my personal choice is Wikiversity or WikiU for short. > ...universities are only one part...K-12... I like another proposed name here, the Wikademy > Will non fiction but non-textbook books be hosted here? I second the point made, we shouldn't duplicate Project Gutenberg. Annoted Works and Criticis or outlines are probably good. New collaborative fiction is a whole other question, and probably doesn'y fit here. Regards, Lou I _______________________________________________ Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com The most personalized portal on the Web!

1 0

Wikiuniversity
by Daniel Mayer 16 Aug '03

16 Aug '03

Sanford Forte wrote: >"Wikiuniversity"? - not bad...not bad at all...I like it > >here are some others...have fun...;) >**** >Wikiversity >.... Wikiversity - now why the hell didn't I think of that? :-) More discussion on: http://textbook.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Staff_lounge#Wikiuniversity It looks like WikiU is more comprehensive than what we want to do with the Wikibooks project, though. But, as stated on the Staff lounge, Wikibooks could be the bookstore/library of the proposed Wikiversity concept (a community built, comprehensive, interactive e-learning project). I kinda like that idea. -- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

2 1

distinct books
by Daniel Mayer 15 Aug '03

15 Aug '03

Karl wrote: >The advantage to reusing modules is that >it saves a little bit of copying and pasting, >right ? This is a shortcut that I think sets >books up to be more on the generic side than >tailored to suit. And when I use a textbook >for myself Id rather have the whole thing >tailored to suit. Instructors do this already; they start a class on chapter 3, then go onto chapter 4.1, skip the rest of ch 4 and then do ch 2, then back to 5, then to 7.3-7.6, 9.1, 8.3-4 etc. The beauty of modules is that the same content can be reorganized in many different ways without having to fork content. There should, of course, be one reference edition for each book that the community maintains, but I would like to give instructors the ability to create index pages in their own userspace (in a user index:namespace perhaps). And having too many self references is bad anyway and should be avoided since things change. This will mean that some modules will have to be a bit more generic than they would otherwise, but I think that this will be a killer feature to have. Having this ability will also help to prevent book forks, since most forks would be organizational or content-based (that is, an instructor may want to have more or fewer modules in the textbook used in his/her class). -- Daniel Mayer (aka mav) __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com

6 13

distinct books
by Karl Wick 14 Aug '03

14 Aug '03

I think that the textbook site would be better organized with each book falling into its own place on the site. This is what I mean: http://wikibooks.org/Spanish/ http://wikibooks.org/French_4_Kids/ etc. That way a page within the Spanish textbook could be named "Infinitives" and a page within any other language textbook could be named the same without conflict. I think that in the long run this will make naming simpler. We would ideally also have the option to limit searches to one textbook at a time. About interchangeable modules (that is, using one module for multiple textbooks): this solution may be inideal because the goals of each textbook are different and editing a module for one book will sometimes make it less suited to other books. Even if I were to take my own organic chemistry book and rearrange it I would have to rewrite many parts of it to make sure that supporting ideas arent being thown out there before they have been properly covered. The advantage to reusing modules is that it saves a little bit of copying and pasting, right ? This is a shortcut that I think sets books up to be more on the generic side than tailored to suit. And when I use a textbook for myself Id rather have the whole thing tailored to suit. Discuss amongst yourselves. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com

3 2

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

Textbook-l August 2003