On 01/04/2008, Peter Ansell ansell.peter@gmail.com wrote:
Makes you wonder how a GPL programme with GFDL encyclopaedia data and possibly CC images which all in themselves are free, got to be so messed up despite its progress so far.
History and people choosing to reinvent the wheel (to be fair the alternative would be trying to work with Richard M. Stallman to improve the triangular wheel).
Things are getting better the Open Audio License has merged with CC-BY-SA and the GFDL is heading in that direction.
The situation is far worse with NC licenses. You can't move for homebrew NC licenses which are not compatible and are so badly worded that it is pretty much impossible to work out their legal meaning.
Maybe the whole free culture thing is really a joke as the people who declare it don't have the monetary resources to enforce it or even decide themselves what status compilations are.
There are significant interests in seeing the compilations issue not settled. Wikipedia for one. Enforcing the GFDL would be doable but for various reasons there is little point in stealing something already widely available. It has happened but the person doing it normally gets fired shortly afterwards so little point in going to court. Since very little GFDL material is registered with the US copyright office any damaged awarded would be pretty minimal.
Not to mention that like a few others, I allow all of my contributions to be CC BY-SA/GFDL dual liccensed :)... I do like the trend on the non-Wikimedia parts of the web to make all free culture items CC based though. Gets away from the horrid complexities of the GFDL programme documentation focused license so at least you have a hope of clearly making up your own mind that your data can easily be entrenched in someone elses site. Did wikipedia really think GFDL was going to spread through the web given its complexity?
At the time wikipedia was making the decision the only alternatives would have been a software license the Design Science License and the Free Art license (and technically the nupedia license but I've never seen a copy). Design Science License is dead and the Free Art license has it's own problems.
The wikipedia foundation really has made sure they believe doublethink completely without question in this respect if they make it look for all purposes like wikipedia is free culture but then copyright the basic aspects so you ironically can't use "it", just the data... It is interesting that they have so many copyright elements though in a serious sense too. Makes you wonder what exactly they fear from copyleft and why they can put on a straight doublethink face for the media who don't understand these nuances.
In the monobook skin the only elements not under a free license of some sort are the wikipedia globe the wikimedia foundation logo and perhaps bits of the mediawiki logo (the mediawiki flower is PD).