Poor, Edmund W wrote:

Does the GNU Free Documentation License give everyone the right to stick a frame around the Wikipedia and rename it, as Sterling has done?

I would say that this is a linking issue, not a copyright issue, and that yes, they have the right -- GNU FDL or no -- to link to us in that fashion.

And we also have the right to change our pages to use javascript to break out of their frame.

What's the difference between hijacking and proper use?

Well, I'm more or less ambivalent about this particular use.

Generally, the problem would be that they are showing ads and making money, but letting the Wikimedia Foundation foot the bill for the bandwidth. Proper use would be copying it to their own server (in compliance with the license, of course) and paying the bandwidth bill. Hijacking would be "faking it" in a way that makes us pay the bill.

Except, as I said, I'm more or less ambivalent about it in this case.

Is Sterling making a mockery of Jimbo's promise not to have ads in Wikipedia?

Well, people can of course properly license the content and have ads if they want. I think people object, and sensibly so, even though it doesn't bother me personally much, that someone else would be making money from ads while we foot the bill for bandwidth.

In this particular case, the amount of traffic is likely to remain close to zero. I make this estimate because the proprietor wants to talk about "free energy" which isn't positive proof of poor thinking skills, but does give me cause to doubt the success of his endeavor.

--Jimbo