You have a completely logical and legitimate point. For example, my asking for forgiveness relies on no merit just pleading to your sympathy. You see, when you first meet someone (anywhere that may happen - real or imagined) you judge them as you would a book by it's cover. I am guilty of this. But even thick headed people, such as myself, eventually realize that what is wriiten inside of the book is some of the best damn stuff he has ever seen. I have nothing to offer in return other than my humble services -- whatever would amuse you -- be it wearing the mask of a clown prince or whatever you wish. I am not a venegeful person at all. If you say no, I really will respect that. In truth, the jokes that only I understand make me laugh the hardest - never thought I would ever have an opportunity to meet anyone who would share my sense of humor.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Daniel P. B. Smith" To: wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Copyright and Britannica Article List Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 07:57:04 -0400
The problem with asking is that, in the words of Admiral Grace Hopper, "it is easier to apologize than to get permission."
The problem with asking for permission in a situation like this is that the person you are asking has absolutely no reason whatosever to say "yes." What's in it for them? It's a foggy situation, there's no obvious benefit to them to say "yes." Since you're _asking,_ that means _you_ think that the thing being asked for is a) not already yours, and b) of _some_ valuable.
Now, it's _not_ a routine request. It's not Stephen King's publisher asking to quote song lyrics or whatever is the sort of thing that permissions departments handle. Since it's an unusual situation, they're not going to be absolutely sure what would be the consequences of saying "yes."
And anyone is going to realize that Wikipedia and the EB are _rivals_. Maybe not bitter rivals, but probably not even friendly rivals.
And it's not clear how much is being given away. If I were a midlevel manager in the permissions department at EB and fearful or hostile of the GFDL, I'd probably say to myself "Do I know, 100% for sure, that giving permission for this might not create a legal avalanche of unintended consequences in which WIkipedia could claim that the permission extended to the entire content of EB? Because if I'm only 99.999% sure of that, I'm not going to say 'yes.'"
There are no potential bad consequences of saying "no."
It's like a baseball runner asking the pitcher, "My I have your permission to try to steal a base?" What's the pitcher going to
say?
And I think the situation is in every possible way worse if you ask for permission in writing, get told "no" in writing, and do it anyway. It is really unwise to ask for permission unless you're ready to be bound by the answer. In this case, that means getting consensus that Wikipedia is ready to be bound by the answer.
-- Jean is going to be bicycling 83 miles in the Pan Mass Challenge in August, raising money for cancer research. Her profile is at http:// www.pmc.org/mypmc/profiles.asp?Section=story&eGiftID=JS0417
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l