Mike.lifeguard wrote:
The problem is that there is normally no proof that a certain user has
agreed to dual-license their work. You can /say/ that something is
GFDL/CC-by-sa but that doesn't make it so. You actually have to get people
to explicitly agree to it, which I have not seen done in a satisfactory way.
By "satisfactory" I really mean "legally acceptable" - this is not
some
arbitrary requirement I have invented.
Since that's the case, removing notices that a book is dual-licensed is
perfectly legitimate - the book /isn't/ dual-licensed, it just claims to be.
Unless there is proof that all other contributors have agreed to it
explicitly, it is GFDL-only. There may be specific revisions which remain
dual-licensed, but we cannot say with any degree of certainty that the book
itself (ie the current version of all pages in the book) are multi-licensed.
I agree that multi-licensing is a good thing, but it has to be done right.
Currently we have no acceptable method of doing so. Perhaps that will change
in the future. Past attempts have unfortunately failed; if there is a case
which has succeeded, I'd be happy to have it pointed out to me.
Mike
------
I think the reason "we have no acceptable method" of dual-licensing is just because you aren't thinking big enough on it. I don't see any sort of legal reason why you have to obligate any edit on the wiki with any sort of license, including the GFDL, other convention and project/website policy. On this basis, requiring users to add contributions with dual-licenses is identical in nature to requiring just the GFDL alone anyway. It really is the same thing.
I'm also curious about "Past attempts have unfortunately failed"? What attempts are you talking about here? I know that some individual users have attempted to have *ALL* of their edits dual-licensed by noting such actions on their user page, as if by doing so would somehow change the license of the content. In a few cases I've seen some projects that have taken Wikibooks content and have tried to switch from the GFDL to another content license after the fact... something which is even being tried (and apparently has failed to happen) by the WMF itself. But that isn't what is being talked about here.
All it would take is for the website policy to permit dual-licensing of the content, and to enforce the concept that any dual-licensed content that is clearly marked as such would also have to be dual-licensed. The Scratch wikibook is one example of a dual-licensed content that IMHO is marked... perhaps even to an extreme point as I've put the dual licensing "warning" on nearly ever page of the book. If site policy is such that "forking" isn't permitted *within* the website in such cases to be GFDL-only, I fail to see what the real problem is here.
What users do with that content outside of the website can't be controlled, including forks. But that doesn't matter as what is being discussed here is policy internal to the website.
BTW, Andrew, this still gives an "even landscape" for content, as all of it is still available under the GFDL under these sorts of guidelines. I accept that the GFDL is one of the licenses that ought to be mandatory. If you inadvertently take some dual-licensed content and act as if the GFDL is the only license, you haven't broken copyright. I agree that the dual-licensed content issue is a bit more complicated in terms of administration, but I don't think it is really all that much more complicated.
This is also a huge difference between Wikibooks and Wikipedia. On the 'pedia, it is intended to be one continuous publication, where an individual article having different licensing terms from the rest of the "book" would prove to be unworkable. In this case with Wikibooks, individual books can be unitized and treated somewhat independently. I've been an advocate for some time of individual wikibook autonomy, even to the point of perhaps having slightly contrary policies to the main Wikibooks project itself that don't go against primary pillar policies like NPOV or GFDL requirements. This perception is one of the reasons why Wikibooks in the past has been used as a project incubator for a great many Wikimedia projects, such as Wikiversity.
I'm just afraid that this is one more way that Wikibooks is being sterilized and unduely straight-jacketed with a policy that excludes content rather than trying to find a way to accommodate such creative expressions in a fashion that can both help the contributors as well as allow Wikibooks to grow. Far too much content has been tossed overboard with Wikibooks and driving away far too many users. Please don't do it again!
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I haven't been on this mailing list much, but I do think there is a role and place for dual-licensed books to be both sought and worked on within the context of Wikibooks.
One thing that I think is reasonable to ask for is that the GFDL is one of the licenses that must be included. I don't think there is any dispute here.
The problem comes from those editors who decide to contribute to a wikibook, but for some reason or other explicitly don't want the "dual licensing" to continue. A great deal of this can and IMHO should be in some sort of policy guideline for the project.
There are some book projects that there are some very legitimate reasons for wanting to continue the dual-license. We've gone over before some of those book projects that want to be dual-licensed GPL/GFDL in order to ultimately include some GPL'd software into the book in some sort of final distro. I've also seen some books that were to be distributed with other items that were of some other free-type license (such as CC-by-SA or some other similar license). In these cases, maintaining the dual-licensing can be incredibly useful as we get the benefit of having the free content on Wikibooks, but the "end users" can also use the content in a completely different context.
I would hope that dual-licensing aren't completely dismissed from Wikibooks, and I especially would be abhorred by some "administrator" or other user randomly going through all of the current wikibooks and removing all mention of any dual-licensing content that currently exists. Such actions are IMHO contrary to a wiki spirit and this is something that should receive further debate... especially if such drastic actions are taking place.
More to the point, any changes that are irreversible (this is one of those type of changes) due to Wikibooks policy needs careful consideration.
All this said, the dual-licensing is something that should be decided when the book is established and is nearly impossible to change once multiple authors have contributed (in a significant manner) to its contents.
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I'm wondering how we reconcile situations like
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Uim and
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Scratch/Content_License
These are GFDL plus PD and CC-by-sa respectively. But we have no indication
whatsoever that contributors to the book (except Swift and Rob respectively)
have agreed to this arrangement. Unless there is some compelling argument
here, I'm of the view that the non-GFDL bit needs to be removed ASAP.
Contributors to Wikibooks may of course license their own contributions (in
whole or in part) under anything they want in addition to the GFDL (so
Swift's and Rob's contributions to those books may remain PD and CC-by-sa
respectively) but derivatives of their work on Wikibooks are GFDL-only
unless otherwise stated.
I really have to wonder who thought there was not a problem with this
situation - Swift apparently asked around and got an affirmative; I'm
surprised with Rob as well.
I should say this goes for any and all other books which are ostensibly
"dual-licensed" so if you find others, those arrangements should go on the
chopping block as well.
Mike
Hello List,
I got here via Erik at the WM Foundation.
I'm working with Pratham Books [1] and we're a non-profit children's
book publishing house that seeks to put a book in every child's hand.
To further this goal, we are in the process of developing a reading
portal for India, on the lines of the water portal [2] that we hope
will ultimately be the de facto repository of information related to
children's books in India.
An integral part of this portal is a wiki-like platform where we hope
to upload all of our books, close to 1000 of them, and allow them to
be translated and edited and downloaded in high and lo res PDF's by
users. The goal of this project is to untie distribution of the books
from the physical medium to further our mission, as mentioned
previously.
However, given that it's children's books, maintaining and preserving
the layout of the books, the pictures with respect to the text, is
crucially important. We also contemplate uploading blank templates, of
only the layout and pictures, for people to use to write their own
stories.
A few areas we're looking for assistance are:
User Interface
Given the nature of the content we're seeking to create and enable use
and re-use of , the ease of use and the intuitiveness of the UI will
be crucial in building support from a user base.
Platform Design
Ideally, we'd like the platform to conform to the same standards that
the project does of being open, free and modifiable. However, the
deeper technical issues are, at this point, a little beyond our scope
of abilities.
Community Building
In particular, building an active and engaged community around the
idea and the content will define whether this platform works. Also,
issues and processes for moderation and administration from within the
community.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Thank you.
Best,
[1] http://prathambooks.org/
[2] http://www.arghyam.org/
--
Please read our new blog at:
http://blog.prathambooks.org/
Join our Facebook Page too:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Pratham-Books/9307274926
All -
the PediaPress.com wiki-to-PDF extension and collection manager is now
running on:
http://en.labs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_to_print
This wiki includes content from en.wikibooks, so should be a nice playground.
We're not announcing this super-widely yet to get some initial
feedback, but please do get the word out in the Wikibooks community,
and report issues on the talk page. :-)
Thanks!
Erik
--
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
Thanks for the feedback, Andrew.
The software was all written in-house, mostly in PHP (including the
glossary builder). We plan to release it under an open license at
some point, but want to get it a bit more refined first. In the
meantime, feel free to post a link or whatever. I've started working
on a
<http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior:Human_Body/Glossary#oxygen>glossary
for the
<http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior:Human_Body/CirculatorySystem>Wikijunior<http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior:Human_Body/CirculatorySystem>
Human Body book. It's pretty easy going. I'll probably finish it in a
week or so.
Regards,
karen
At 05:00 AM 8/5/2008, you wrote:
>Send Textbook-l mailing list submissions to
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>Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Open Dictionary (Karen Fasimpaur)
> 2. Re: Open Dictionary (Andrew Whitworth)
>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Message: 1
>Date: Mon, 04 Aug 2008 09:10:56 -0700
>From: Karen Fasimpaur <karen(a)k12opened.com>
>Subject: [Textbook-l] Open Dictionary
>To: textbook-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>Message-ID: <20080804161101.870DE2FB71(a)coal.k12handhelds.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
>
>We have recently launched the first completely open kids dictionary
>(http://dictionary.k12opened.com) and are looking for folks to help
>work on it.
>
>This dictionary is the first of its kind intended for kids (though it
>can certainly be used for adult learners as well). As words are
>completed, they will be reviewed for quality and appropriateness and
>ultimately "frozen" for export into a variety of formats, including
>text, PDF, ebooks, wikis, web, etc., for use on a variety of devices.
>
>This work is being licensed as a public domain resource that anyone
>can use for any purpose. We see this as a fundamental building block
>for many OER projects and hope that it will be used by teachers,
>students, publishers, hardware manufacturers, VARs, and others. We
>have just launched a build-your-own-glossary tool (which should work
>well for Wikibooks and other projects; I hope to have an example up
>for a Wikibook soon.) Over time, we will be adding other new
>features, such as audio pronunciations, pictures, support for
>additional languages, and a wide variety of export functions.
>
>This is a mass collaboration project, and we hope that many people
>around the world will jump in and add a definition or two.
>
>We would love to see you at the dictionary at
>http://dictionary.k12opened.com and hope that you will also spread
>the word to others.
>
>Thank you.
>
>Regards,
>
>Karen Fasimpaur
>K12 Open Ed
>
>
>
>
>------------------------------
>
>Message: 2
>Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 12:28:04 -0400
>From: "Andrew Whitworth" <wknight8111(a)gmail.com>
>Subject: Re: [Textbook-l] Open Dictionary
>To: "Wikimedia textbook discussion" <textbook-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
>Message-ID:
> <3b66f84e0808040928w1b900e8g720fc09b93632801(a)mail.gmail.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
>Hello Karen, thanks for the email to the list. I have a few questions
>that I wanted to ask:
>
>1) What software is your website using? I'm pretty sure it isn't
>MediaWiki, but I can't find that information in your FAQ.
>2) That glossary creator, how is it implemented? What license is the
>software released under? Would it be possible for us to "borrow" it
>for our own website, assuming we gave proper credit and a link back?
>
>This is a really cool-looking project, and I definitely think we
>should post a link from Wikijunior. Thanks for the heads-up.
>
>--Andrew Whitworth
>
>On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 12:10 PM, Karen Fasimpaur <karen(a)k12opened.com> wrote:
> > We have recently launched the first completely open kids dictionary
> > (http://dictionary.k12opened.com) and are looking for folks to help
> > work on it.
> >
> > This dictionary is the first of its kind intended for kids (though it
> > can certainly be used for adult learners as well). As words are
> > completed, they will be reviewed for quality and appropriateness and
> > ultimately "frozen" for export into a variety of formats, including
> > text, PDF, ebooks, wikis, web, etc., for use on a variety of devices.
> >
> > This work is being licensed as a public domain resource that anyone
> > can use for any purpose. We see this as a fundamental building block
> > for many OER projects and hope that it will be used by teachers,
> > students, publishers, hardware manufacturers, VARs, and others. We
> > have just launched a build-your-own-glossary tool (which should work
> > well for Wikibooks and other projects; I hope to have an example up
> > for a Wikibook soon.) Over time, we will be adding other new
> > features, such as audio pronunciations, pictures, support for
> > additional languages, and a wide variety of export functions.
> >
> > This is a mass collaboration project, and we hope that many people
> > around the world will jump in and add a definition or two.
> >
> > We would love to see you at the dictionary at
> > http://dictionary.k12opened.com and hope that you will also spread
> > the word to others.
> >
> > Thank you.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Karen Fasimpaur
> > K12 Open Ed
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Textbook-l mailing list
> > Textbook-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l
> >
>
>
>
>------------------------------
>
>_______________________________________________
>Textbook-l mailing list
>Textbook-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l
>
>
>End of Textbook-l Digest, Vol 49, Issue 3
>*****************************************
We have recently launched the first completely open kids dictionary
(http://dictionary.k12opened.com) and are looking for folks to help
work on it.
This dictionary is the first of its kind intended for kids (though it
can certainly be used for adult learners as well). As words are
completed, they will be reviewed for quality and appropriateness and
ultimately "frozen" for export into a variety of formats, including
text, PDF, ebooks, wikis, web, etc., for use on a variety of devices.
This work is being licensed as a public domain resource that anyone
can use for any purpose. We see this as a fundamental building block
for many OER projects and hope that it will be used by teachers,
students, publishers, hardware manufacturers, VARs, and others. We
have just launched a build-your-own-glossary tool (which should work
well for Wikibooks and other projects; I hope to have an example up
for a Wikibook soon.) Over time, we will be adding other new
features, such as audio pronunciations, pictures, support for
additional languages, and a wide variety of export functions.
This is a mass collaboration project, and we hope that many people
around the world will jump in and add a definition or two.
We would love to see you at the dictionary at
http://dictionary.k12opened.com and hope that you will also spread
the word to others.
Thank you.
Regards,
Karen Fasimpaur
K12 Open Ed
Of interest to those on textbook-l? There is very clearly no consensus on
this issue at Commons currently, so any input is certainly welcome.
-Mike
-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Maggs
Sent: August 3, 2008 3:27 PM
Subject: Re: Proposal to rewrite Commons Scope
I have been away for a while, so haven't been able to take this
forward. Before going live I would like to see more comment on the pdf
issue, as there are opposing views with no obvious consensus. Since
this is probably of most concern to Wikibooks and Wikisource I propose
to invite comments from users of those Wikis in particular.
Michael
Larry Pieniazek wrote:
> So.... it's been a while now.
>
> Can I urge everyone to review the discussion at
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Project_scope/Proposal
>
> and if you're cool with it, signify approval and push for adoption? If
not,
> please raise issues that need working out. Thanks!!!
>
> Larry Pieniazek
> Hobby mail: Lar at Miltontrainworks dot com
>
hi,
So I will look into organising a series of remote conferences based on :
* collaborative authoring and the place of the author
* remixing books
* current technologies
* structuring book content within a wiki
* output formats
* print on demand technologies and models
* wikis and publishing
* legal issues (when does a wiki become a publisher etc)
* invariant sections vs derivative works
* what is the ideal book license?
Any more ideas for topics? I will try and get one online presentation
and discussion together for next month...fingers crossed :)
adam
--
Adam Hyde
FLOSS Manuals
http://www.flossmanuals.net
+ 31 6 2808 7108