As I said on the french list, no problem for me. Ryo is also supportive.
Ant
Daniel Arnold <arnomane(a)gmx.de> wrote:
Hello,
Anthere adviced me to forward this email here (hope I don't double post).
I have some contact to ESA (European Space Agency) people (email and phone) as
I want to convince them that it would be very nice (and good for them too) if
they release their huge (!) picture gallery GFDL-free.
One spokesperson of ESOC (European Space Operation Center) was very kind and
courraged me to try this attempt (again) at the ESA PR center in Paris,
France.
So I'm searching two further Wkimedia representatives (preferably from Europe)
that want to sign this letter too.
Regards,
Daniel Arnold
---------- Weitergeleitete Nachricht ----------
Subject: Re: [VereinDE-l] Petition to ESA
Date: Donnerstag, 3. M�rz 2005 04:07
From: Anthere
To: vereinde-l(a)wikimedia.org
Are you interested in Angela and I signing ?
If so, you could send the letter at
board(a)wikimedia.org. Unless you consider Jimbo signing
is sufficient as a proof of the Foundation support ?
Ant
--- Daniel Arnold wrote:
Hello Wikipedians,
Before I sent this letter out I first sent it to you
so that you can have a
look at it, if I have done everything right with the
names etc. and perhapes
there are two further names. ;-)
@Jimbo: I think we can propose this subset release
idea later, as Mr. von
Weyhe said to me, that is is important to write a
short mail and not to pack
to many into it, that the ESA PR center really reads
it fully.
Thanks a lot for your support (it's a nice feeling).
Regards,
Daniel Arnold
---
Dear Ms. Imbert-Vier,
Some months ago I asked you for permission to use
the images of the ESA image
gallery in the popular multilingual free online
encyclopedia Wikipedia [1],
which you refused.
Recently I read in the news that the ESA is
considering changing their picture
policy with respect to the release of the images of
the Huygens probe on
Titan. So I contacted Mr. Bernhard von Weyhe of
ESOC some days ago and he
suggested contacting you again to summarize in short
the essential facts
about Wikipedia and why we think that a release of
ESA pictures under GNU
Free Documentation License would be beneficial for
you.
1. What is Wikipedia?
-----
Wikipedia is a freely licensed encyclopedia. It
depends on free content that
is edited by volunteers from all over the world.
Behind Wikipedia is a
non-profit organisation called the "Wikimedia
Foundation" [2] (placed in
Florida/USA), headed by the Wikipedia founder Jimmy
Wales.
Wikipedia is now in its fifth year and keeps growing
exponentially.
Independent newspapers have repeatedly stated that
Wikipedia is a serious and
generally reliable alternative to traditional
encyclopedias like
Encyclopaedia Britannica or Microsoft Encarta.
2. What is the GNU Free Documentation License
(GFDL)?
-----
Wikipedia is freely licensed under the GFDL [3] with
very similar use
conditions as the the popular GPL licensed Linux
operating
system. Hence we are unable to embed content that is
licensed for
non-commercial use only as it is with your very high
quality images.
3. What if ESA pictures would be released under GFDL
(or equally free)?
-----
Although we are not able to use your images within
Wikipedia, we are
very interested in doing so, as we have lots of
articles about space
science, the ESA and its projects. At the moment we
can use the images
of NASA (and we use them very extensively) as they
are forced by US
copyright laws to publish their content within the
public domain.
Therefore, NASA images are far more widespread than
ESA images and thus
there is no balance in the representation of space
science in
Wikipedia. ESA certainly deserves an even more
increased popularity
especially outside the EU and the key role play the
pictures.
So I plead for a free release of the ESA images. You
won't lose
anything with this step - in contrary, you will get
in return a lot
for free:
* A visual and educational more attractive
representation within
Wikipedia (Wikipedia is also used a lot by
journalists for quick
information retrieval).
* Increased use of ESA images in the mass media and
lots of good PR
and more interest from the public.
* A big media echo, as you would be a precursor of
the free knowlegde
movement (of course we would also promote such a
step in coordination with
you).
This petition is officially supported by the
Wikimedia
representatives, namely
- Jimmy Wales, president of Wikimedia Foundation,
jwales(a)wikia.com
- Arne Klempert, vice-chairman of Wikimedia
Deutschland e.V., akl(a)wikimedia.de
- Andr� Darmochwal, board member of Wikimedia
Deutschland e.V.,
sansculotte(a)wikimedia.de
- Yann Forget, secretary of Wikim�dia France,
yann(a)forget-me.net
For further questions I'm willingly at your
disposal:
Daniel Arnold
or personal +49 163 8900491 (mobile phone)
(and if you like you can also contact e.g. Jimmy
Wales via mail)
Yours sincerely,
Daniel Arnold - a Wikipedia contributor
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