On 10/08/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> So the German Wikipedia will never be able to
fulfill its mission?
I think Wikipedia's mission is sufficiently open
that it would never
be a question of saying "our mission is now fulfilled". I do believe
that EN fulfils its mission better than DE when it comes to this
issue, yes.
en: operates as if work is under US law and somewhat under UK law; de:
assumes a majority of its contributors will be in Germany, so operates
as if work is also under German law. Which may be overly conservative
(though I think it's a good idea Commons operates under very
conservative rules for maximum international usability), but probably
makes sense in that case.
It does detract from what can be depicted in de:, which will reduce
the usefulness of the resulting encyclopedia - e.g. my favourite
example is that [[Xenu]] on en: would be significantly diminished
without the single existing sample of the word "Xenu" in Hubbard's own
handwriting - and there's also the moral issue of asserting that our
shared culture should morally be usable when talking about it, even
with odiously overextended copyright laws to deal with - e.g. Jimbo's
kind offer to the National Portrait Gallery to sue and be damned
(since which they've been rather quiet). It's all a tricky one.
- d.