FYI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2016-06-15/Op-ed
Nicolas Maia -- Enviado seguramente pelo Tutanota. Torne sua caixa de correio criptografada hoje mesmo!https://tutanota.com
On 16.06.2016 17:45, nicolasmaia@tutanota.com wrote:
FYI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2016-06-15/Op-ed
Picking licenses is a complex topic, and it is extremely important to some people -- projects have split over this. I understand. But do emotions always have to be put above facts? Is the cause justifying all means, even against our own principles of rigour and truthfulness that are otherwise so important in our projects? Here is what I mean:
You say that Microsoft donated to Wikidata. Is it possible that you have just made this up since it fits the picture you want to paint? No concerns about misinforming your readers here?
You claim that Google is using Wikidata content. I have not seen any proof of this. I have challenged Mr. Kolbe about this before, and indeed it seems that he is now avoiding this claim in the text you cite. The fact that Google stopped working on the Freebase imports does not seem to suggest that they are very interested in the data right now [1]. Maybe you have new information you would like to share with us? It would surely be of interest to many people here.
You mention "vain threats made by those who wish to use us as mere free labor for their enterprises". Which threats? Who made them? What are they threatening with? Are you just trying to stir the emotions of the reader, making them wish to rebel against some imagined enemy?
We can discuss which licence will lead to the best return of investment for the Wikidata community, if it is desirable that restrictive data licenses become legally binding world wide, and who would really benefit from this change in legislation(s). But being untruthful for the sake of argument is not a good start for such a discussion.
Markus
[1] I think this is nothing to be ashamed of -- Google is huge and their own internal data is likely much larger than what we have in Wikidata today. We may get there yet. Most importantly, our data is available freely while Google's is not.
[1] I think this is nothing to be ashamed of -- Google is huge and their own internal data is likely much larger than what we have in Wikidata today. We may get there yet. Most importantly, our data is available freely while Google's is not.
-- Markus Kroetzsch Faculty of Computer Science Technische Universität Dresden +49 351 463 38486 http://korrekt.org/
The article mentions "no considerations of public good". Even Microsoft, Yahoo, LinkedIn, as well as all Wikipedia developers would probably argue against that sentence.
Because most know that Google gives a ton of free software away (not just from their developers freely giving 20% time back to the Open Source world a year) for all the world to use, most of which is here: https://github.com/google/ (Let alone handing Freebase data over and helping develop a Primary Sources Tool)
Lest we forget.... https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=tina+turner
Look at the right side Google Knowledge Graph panel.... Wikipedia is displayed as sources of information. Wikipedia gets attribution and a bit of free advertising.
Thad +ThadGuidry https://www.google.com/+ThadGuidry
Hi!
Lest we forget.... https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=tina+turner
Look at the right side Google Knowledge Graph panel.... Wikipedia is displayed as sources of information. Wikipedia gets attribution and a bit of free advertising.
Compared to bold prominent link to Wikipedia as the first result of the same search, I wonder how much traffic a little link tucked into the sidebar on the right actually gets.
On 20.06.2016 19:57, Stas Malyshev wrote:
Hi!
Lest we forget.... https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=tina+turner
Look at the right side Google Knowledge Graph panel.... Wikipedia is displayed as sources of information. Wikipedia gets attribution and a bit of free advertising.
Compared to bold prominent link to Wikipedia as the first result of the same search, I wonder how much traffic a little link tucked into the sidebar on the right actually gets.
I think at least one group of people will read the small links very carefully: spammers who want to get visibility on Google. I am not sure if it would be so good for us at the current stage (with our current anti-spam infrastructure) to widely advertise Wikidata as an entry point to Google (which I still believe it is not, but things might change, and the question of how we want this to be displayed might come up eventually). The SEO people already try to convince others that Google is using Wikidata, but I think they also are aware of the fact that this is all but clear so far. At the time when Google really starts using our data in significant ways, and this becomes publicly documented, we need to be prepared for a lot more spam than we are seeing now.
Markus
In addition to my previous critique about the unsourced claims here, I also have made a comment on the talk page regarding my own position in this matter, which I replicate here for completeness:
""" Current legislations do not support the licensing of individual facts, only of databases as a whole, and only in some countries. What you are asking for is Wikidata to lobby for the introduction of new notions of "copyright" which do not exist today. Yes, you could use these laws to enforce attribution and share-alike, but companies will also use the same laws to enforce conditions on using "their" facts. This is not desirable. Plain data is free from such legal control, and this is the position of the EFF (see this recent article [1]) and also of many people in our community. Concepts like the infamous illegal prime [2] express the fundamental opposition that free culture proponents have against putting terms and conditions on data items. By suggesting that laws should be more restrictive, the article is arguing against some of the basic freedoms we are supporting with our movement. --Markus Krötzsch 22:43, 16 June 2016 (UTC) """
In particular, it should be noted that the Electronic Frontier Foundation is fully supporting the approach of Wikidata: "raw data itself is not copyrightable, but there are still good reasons to explicitly assert its public domain status" [1].
Markus
[1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/06/open-government-data-act-would-uh-open...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_prime
On 16.06.2016 17:45, nicolasmaia@tutanota.com wrote:
FYI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2016-06-15/Op-ed
Nicolas Maia
Enviado seguramente pelo Tutanota. Torne sua caixa de correio criptografada hoje mesmo! https://tutanota.com
Wikidata mailing list Wikidata@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata
Hi!
Current legislations do not support the licensing of individual facts, only of databases as a whole, and only in some countries. What you are
Added to that, even if it *were* possible to copyright facts, I think using restrictive license (and make no mistake, any license that requires people to do specific things in exchange for data access *is* restrictive) makes a lot of trouble for any people using the data. This is especially true for data that is meant for automatic processing - you will have to add code to track licenses for each data unit, figure out how exactly to comply with the license (which would probably require professional help, always expensive), track license-contaminated data throughout the mixed databases, verify all outputs to ensure only properly-licensed data goes out... It presents so much trouble many people would just not bother with it. It would hinder exactly the thing opens source excels at - creating community of people building on each other's work by means of incremental contribution and wide participation. Want to create cool a visualization based on Wikidata? Talk to a lawyer first. Want kickstart your research exploration using Wikidata facts? To the lawyer you go. Want to write an article on, say, gender balance in science over the ages and places, and feature Wikidata facts as an example? Where's that lawyer's email again? You get the picture, I hope. How many people would decide "well, it would be cool but I have no time and resource to figure out all the license issues" and not do the next cool thing they could do? Is it something we really want to happen?
And all that trouble to no benefit to anyone - there's absolutely no threat of Wikidata database being taken over and somehow subverted by "enterprises", whatever that nebulous term means. In fact, if Google example shows us anything, it's that "enterprises" are not very good at it and don't really want it. Would they benefit from the free and open data? Of course they would, as would everybody. The world - including everybody, including "enterprises" - benefited enormously from free and open participatory culture, be it open source software or free data. It is a *good thing*, not something to be afraid of!
Wikidata data is meant for free use and reuse. Let's not erect artificial barriers to it out of misguided fear to somehow benefit somebody "wrong".
Hi Stas,
Well said! The irony of it all is that more restrictive license terms would be such a big obstacle mainly to smaller users. Companies like Google have both the lawyers and the IT support to handle any kind of license. You can see it from the sources that Google already shows for their knowledge graph displays (not just Wikipedia, but also many others). They have all the infrastructure in place to use our data whatever license we pick, and the copyleft nature of some of their sources' licenses does not seem to affect them either.
Markus
On 20.06.2016 20:20, Stas Malyshev wrote:
Hi!
Current legislations do not support the licensing of individual facts, only of databases as a whole, and only in some countries. What you are
Added to that, even if it *were* possible to copyright facts, I think using restrictive license (and make no mistake, any license that requires people to do specific things in exchange for data access *is* restrictive) makes a lot of trouble for any people using the data. This is especially true for data that is meant for automatic processing - you will have to add code to track licenses for each data unit, figure out how exactly to comply with the license (which would probably require professional help, always expensive), track license-contaminated data throughout the mixed databases, verify all outputs to ensure only properly-licensed data goes out... It presents so much trouble many people would just not bother with it. It would hinder exactly the thing opens source excels at - creating community of people building on each other's work by means of incremental contribution and wide participation. Want to create cool a visualization based on Wikidata? Talk to a lawyer first. Want kickstart your research exploration using Wikidata facts? To the lawyer you go. Want to write an article on, say, gender balance in science over the ages and places, and feature Wikidata facts as an example? Where's that lawyer's email again? You get the picture, I hope. How many people would decide "well, it would be cool but I have no time and resource to figure out all the license issues" and not do the next cool thing they could do? Is it something we really want to happen?
And all that trouble to no benefit to anyone - there's absolutely no threat of Wikidata database being taken over and somehow subverted by "enterprises", whatever that nebulous term means. In fact, if Google example shows us anything, it's that "enterprises" are not very good at it and don't really want it. Would they benefit from the free and open data? Of course they would, as would everybody. The world - including everybody, including "enterprises" - benefited enormously from free and open participatory culture, be it open source software or free data. It is a *good thing*, not something to be afraid of!
Wikidata data is meant for free use and reuse. Let's not erect artificial barriers to it out of misguided fear to somehow benefit somebody "wrong".
Hoi, I have written my opinion on the licensing of Wikidata data.. [1] Thanks, GerardM
[1] http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2016/06/wikidata-has-cc-0-license-this-sh...
2016-06-16 17:45 GMT+02:00 nicolasmaia@tutanota.com:
FYI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2016-06-15/Op-ed
Nicolas Maia
Enviado seguramente pelo Tutanota. Torne sua caixa de correio criptografada hoje mesmo! https://tutanota.com
Wikidata mailing list Wikidata@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata
On 18.06.2016 08:37, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi, I have written my opinion on the licensing of Wikidata data.. [1]
I agree with your position there.
It's nice to have an argument that appeals to our goals of sharing and altruism. My former argument was more about the undesirable legal implications that such copyright-law strengthenings would imply -- a warning of the negative effects -- but it's good to also remember the positive effects that the current situation brings us.
Markus
[1] http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2016/06/wikidata-has-cc-0-license-this-sh...
2016-06-16 17:45 GMT+02:00 <nicolasmaia@tutanota.com mailto:nicolasmaia@tutanota.com>:
FYI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2016-06-15/Op-ed Nicolas Maia -- Enviado seguramente pelo Tutanota. Torne sua caixa de correio criptografada hoje mesmo! https://tutanota.com _______________________________________________ Wikidata mailing list Wikidata@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:Wikidata@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata
Wikidata mailing list Wikidata@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata
All,
first, thanks for your reply blog, Gerard.
On Sat, Jun 18, 2016 at 1:00 PM, Markus Kroetzsch markus.kroetzsch@tu-dresden.de wrote:
I have written my opinion on the licensing of Wikidata data.. [1]
I agree with your position there.
So do I.
The original article ends with:
"Among all Wikimedia projects, Wikidata is conspicuously alone in not being copylefted."
Copylefting or not has been heavily and religiously debated for many, many years in the open source community. I have never seen strong examples why either would be better for open source.
Second, data is not text and is not source code. It's different and "conspicuously alone" is a false argument.
"Perhaps we should start asking why that is the case"
Two possible reasons given above. Add to that what Gerard wrote.
"and whose interests benefit from weak licensing choices,"
No, that's the wrong way around. CCZero is a stronger license (actually, it's not a license, but a waiver): it gives people more freedom, removes many more hurdles.
"and start to organize ourselves to fix this"
There is nothing to fix. CCZero without copylefting gives more freedom and for me that main reason to invest my time. Before you start talking about "fixing", realize you will also loose.
Greetings,
Egon (this is a personal opinion, and may not reflect the interest of my employer)
Nicolas, Markus, Gerrard, Stas, Egon and Wikidatans,
Thanks for your clarifications from within the Wikidata community about Creative Commons' licensing and possible other ones.
With CC Wikidata's 358 languages, it seems to be in an important position over time to help define and come into conversation about these licensing issues, in collaboration with Creative Commons itself, with ever further precision and consideration, if only in Wikipedia/Wikidata pages. As these licensing questions unfold over the decades ahead and possibly differentially in the many languages' countries' legal systems even (i.e. CC may unfold differently in different nation states over decades and longer), I hope too CC World University and School (which was donated to CC Wikidata last autumn) and which seeks to develop and offer CC law degrees in all countries' main languages by hiring law faculty, first probably as graduate student instructors, can help co-develop further some of these CC licensing considerations, even as the Wikidata community continues to focus on altruism and sharing, and comes into conversation about this via Creative Commons' licensing at present.
These licensing issues (and related emergent questions) will probably only grow in sophistication as Wikidata and information technologies themselves (in all languages) develop in the long run, and I'm glad you/we Wikidatans are addressing these issues directly as they unfold. Thank you.
All the best, Scott
http://worlduniversityandschool.org/
On Jun 18, 2016 7:00 AM, "Markus Kroetzsch" markus.kroetzsch@tu-dresden.de wrote:
On 18.06.2016 08:37, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi, I have written my opinion on the licensing of Wikidata data.. [1]
I agree with your position there.
It's nice to have an argument that appeals to our goals of sharing and altruism. My former argument was more about the undesirable legal implications that such copyright-law strengthenings would imply -- a warning of the negative effects -- but it's good to also remember the positive effects that the current situation brings us.
Markus
[1]
http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2016/06/wikidata-has-cc-0-license-this-sh...
2016-06-16 17:45 GMT+02:00 <nicolasmaia@tutanota.com mailto:nicolasmaia@tutanota.com>:
FYI:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2016-06-15/Op-ed
Nicolas Maia -- Enviado seguramente pelo Tutanota. Torne sua caixa de correio criptografada hoje mesmo! https://tutanota.com _______________________________________________ Wikidata mailing list Wikidata@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:Wikidata@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata
Wikidata mailing list Wikidata@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata
-- Markus Kroetzsch Faculty of Computer Science Technische Universität Dresden +49 351 463 38486 http://korrekt.org/
Wikidata mailing list Wikidata@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata